The noon bell of the lower valley chapel sounded faintly across the fields as Seyun stood straight between the rows of winter sage, his right hand resting open at his side and his left supported in its canvas sling.
“Before Mina and Mother Renn, who witnessed our beginning,” Seyun spoke clearly, “I declare that the ambition for which I swore the first place of the Answering Spirit vein at the Monastery of the Last Question—to expose the institutional decisions behind Ash Reed’s false winter breakthrough and answer White Heron Hall’s hearing with verifiable truth—has been honestly fulfilled. I drop all claim of sworn opposition against Ilyra of White Heron Hall.”
Across the gravel, Ilyra stood with her shoulders squared in the stance of a White Heron student concluding an open court proof. Even so, she held no spear in her hand.
“Before these witnesses,” Ilyra answered, her voice steady and ringing, “I declare that my sworn duty to test Seyun’s winter accusation and to judge whether his inherited art endangered these valleys has been answered in full by record and by deed. The suspicion that divided our paths is ended, and I drop the opposition between us.”
For one suspended heartbeat after her last syllable, the air between them seemed to still.
