Mother Renn came through the wooden garden gate first. She leaned on her notched hickory stick with a shawl pinned around her shoulders. She was followed by Mina wiping dried marsh-reed powder from her hands onto her apron. Nineteen months ago, in the cold dawn light outside the ruined Monastery of the Last Question, Mother Renn had stood beside a fallen stone top door beam and witnessed two bruised, suspicious young fighters swear the first mark of the Answering Spirit vein—charging them two silver pieces Afterward for knocking down her shelter’s doorframe during their three spear exchanges.
Now the old incense seller looked down at the approved Ash Reed fire roll resting on the garden bench, then up at Seyun and Ilyra standing on the gravel path with no weapon between them.
“No broken stonework this morning, I see,” Mother Renn remarked dryly. She settled onto the corner of the bench beside Mina. “I suppose that means you two have finally run out of excuses to hit each other with sticks.”
Before speaking the formal words of give-up, Seyun looked across the narrow gravel path at Ilyra. If this reconciliation was going to be clean enough to close a return pathway without leaving rot behind, it deserved the last piece of plain truth he had never spoken aloud.
