The Warden registry placed the expedition in a narrow chamber beneath the tower. Three white lines descended from the ceiling and ended above a stone table.
Sera remained at the door while Ferra arranged her copper pins around the table's three corners.
Hajin kept his arm uncovered, and the gold mark from the first heart rested beside the torn pathway left by the second.
Vella stood at his other shoulder with her medical light banked low, watching the two marks like rival pulses.
Ferra studied both scorched lines together and gave the diagnosis. "The first rhythm is no longer inside your sample, though the tattoo remembers the shape of its refusal."
Hajin answered her with his own condition for any testing. "I can reach the eastern heart again if the city permits the contact, though I want the third rhythm visible before I answer either one."
