Location:Kaelport — The Water Side, Below the Long Shed
Date/Time:6 Flamefade 9943 AZI, Restday, before light
Realm:Lower Realm
Grit, and blood, and she had swallowed some of both without meaning to.
It was the first thing Jayde knew after the words were out of her. Iron and river sand on the back of her tongue, and her own pulse in the bitten place inside her cheek. The second thing was her hands. The strike had not gone anywhere. It sat between her palms with nothing to do, and it took from her to keep it there, steadily, from the bottom of the Core up, as a lamp takes oil.
Nobody on the stones answered her.
Then Cangwei moved.
Not toward her. Away. She turned on her knees in the shingle, a quarter turn and then the rest of it, and put her back to Jayde and to the thing in Jayde's hands.
Six paces. A built strike, held at the top of the rise. Nothing that has ever worn scales turns its back on that. It is older than training. It is older than sense.
