Patriarch Muo greeted the travelers with polished warmth. He was older than Lian, his dark hair threaded with silver, but he stood without a cane. The healer in blue-gray beside him introduced herself as Seli. Elder Varo sat near the sea-facing windows, where he could see the harbor through the open slats.
“You helped save White Orchard’s furnace,” Muo said to Yan. “I have read the report. I would rather hear it from you.”
Yan gave a plain account of the furnace crisis: the heat, the collapsing walkways, and the live core that had to be carried out before the supports failed. He described his method without calling it a lesson. “The personal cost of the technique reversed for me. The heat and debris did not. People were still in danger.”
Muo listened closely. “Did the method leave lasting weakness?”
“No. My own harmful costs reversed. The injuries from the furnace were ordinary injuries, and Qinghe treated them.”
Qinghe added, “His experience does not establish what the technique would do to another practitioner.”
“Of course,” Muo said. “I would not ask someone to imitate it without understanding the risk.”
The words sounded reasonable. His next question came quickly. “Could your gift supply the island wards?”
