The physical trauma of her flight was healing rapidly, but the internal damage to Yan Zhiqiu’s training remained a deep, silent wound.
In the late afternoon, as the peat embers filled the nook with a steady, dry warmth, Qiao Ming noticed that every time she drew in a deep breath, her left collarbone hitched slightly. A faint, wincing shadow passed across her brow. It wasn’t the muscular pain of her mending arm. It was the characteristic burst that strikes when scorched spirit veins try to channel surrounding spiritual energy through damaged pathways.
He laid aside his carving knife and walked to where she sat upon the glow-stone berth.
“Your breath is catching at the third chest vertebra,” Qiao Ming said, his voice quiet, test, and devoid of judgment. “Your lung-veins are scorched.”
Yan Zhiqiu looked down at her lap, her fingers curling into the folds of her giant hemp tunic.
“The void-charges at the edge of the deep gap,” she admitted, her voice tight with suppressed shame. “The blast wave was laced with refined spirit-fire. When the blast hurled me into the rift, I had to open my protective barrier to prevent my organs from imploding. The spirit-fire entered my conception vessel, scorching the spirit vein lining from my throat down to my navel.”
