The mountain wind sweeping over the western ridge whistled through the jagged limestone outcrops, carrying the scent of damp pine needles and cold stone.
Rumi crouched beneath a juniper bush, her amber eyes following the keeper across the clearing eighty paces below as he checked his rotating defensive screen.
The clearing served as the exterior staging ground for the Choral rehearsal, bounded on three sides by steep rock walls and on the fourth by a sheer mountain drop.
In the center of the gravel plateau stood Keeper Danik, a veteran Choral wardmaster clad in heavy layered silk robes lined with conductive silver thread.
Danik held a floating obsidian prism that rotated slowly in the air before his chest, projecting a translucent hexagonal barrier across the primary approach path.
Rumi observed the prism's rotation with clinical patience, noting how the protective barrier shifted between three distinct physical landing markers painted onto the rock floor.
