Wren stopped outside the circle while blood moved slowly through her reopened flank scar. The matriarch waited beside the striped pinion, giving her opponent time to leave without turning rescue into another cage.
Vell opened Analyze without sending pressure through their contract during the offered challenge. The ritual belonged to Wiretails rather than the Forge, but its offered imprint carried conditions the system could translate.
[Ritual victory: take the balance pinion or force the matriarch to yield.]
[Outside physical intervention voids the offered imprint.]
The scratched boundary included the cages but left the rescued young beyond its northern edge. Neither challenger could attack outside that line, making any threat toward the juveniles an immediate rejection of the ritual.
The stated rules did not forbid advice, treatment before acceptance, or withdrawal. Vell reached for a field wrap, but Wren stepped across the scratched line before his hand entered the circle.
