Blinking against the bright autumn sun after eight days in the stone root cellar, Reth Mal was led to the edge of the gravel yard by the two West Scree guards. Mina’s alder-bark cradle still held his fractured right wrist straight against his tunic. The outer spirit vein line of his right arm hung shrunken and stiff where the Measure’s pale needle had pierced him at the lower shrine.
Before Reth could launch into the trial speech he had been rehearsing in the dark, Commander Keth Or stepped up to the stone table. Keth used his uninjured left hand. He laid two items beside Vaska’s surrendered badge. The shattered, chamber-amplified shaft of Reth’s Jade weapon—broken by Soran’s spear and Daro’s sword handle in the northern vault—and a sheaf of twelve parchment sheets signed or thumb-marked by Halin, Pera, Senn, and the other nine freed testers.
“Senior Arbiter Venn!” Reth called out sharply, straining against the guard’s hand on his left elbow. “I invoke field emergency command! Vaska Ren has lost his nerve and Keth Or has mutinied! Order your escorts to arrest these sect rebels right away and clear the northern ridge so I can re-establish the central anchor!”
Arbiter Venn looked from Reth’s withered, braced weapon arm to the thirty pounds of dead, pried-out bronze socket metal on the table, then across the gravel to where Hall Mistress Soran, Daro Kesh, Ilyra. Masters Bren and Yul stood watching—with Nara Soth leaning calmly against the orchard wall twenty paces away.
