Barnaby’s felt slippers shuffled across the veranda floorboards, retreating into the hallway with the guilty haste of a dog stealing ham.
Underneath the woven straw brim, Kaelen let his breath settle into a slow, shallow rhythm. The morning breeze smelled of damp soil and bruised turnip greens. Out in the garden patch, six Nascent Soul masters crawled through the loam, plucking chickweed and thistle root by root without making a sound louder than a moth’s wing.
Six sect leaders weeding my vegetables on their knees is the greatest defensive array ever built, Kaelen thought. If Cassian had spent half this much time pulling weeds, his liver wouldn’t be pickled in Crack-Pill poison.
He adjusted his head against the wicker cushion and closed his eyes.
In his sea of consciousness, the translucent slate glowed with quiet, steady numbers.
[The Fallow Slate] [TRACK 1 (CULTIVATION): 319 HOURS 20 MINUTES (320x)] [TRACK 2 (MARTIAL): 72 HOURS 00 MINUTES (73x)] [TRACK 3 (ALCHEMY): 240 HOURS 00 MINUTES (241x - SEALED)] [TRACK 4 (DAO & FORMATIONS): 229 HOURS 20 MINUTES (230x - ACCUMULATING)]
Kaelen smiled beneath his hat.
Track 3 was sealed and ready for a two-hour burst whenever he felt like boiling broth. Track 4 was ticking higher with every second of unbroken peace.
