In which lightning strikes.

I don’t think Ms ker’Eklis’s argument about time pressure really stands up. It’s true that a pilot may need to field an answer to a problem in less than thirty seconds, with lives hanging in the balance – but that’s one of the reasons why children Syl Vor’s age aren’t allowed to be fully-qualified pilots. At Syl Vor’s age, that kind of performance is a goal to work toward, not an ability to be expected.

(I wrote that sentence and then had to stop and think about why it sounded familiar. It’s because it echoes what Silain told Nova about one of the problems Kezzi has as the youngest sister with no near age-mates: people sometimes get impatient with her because they forget she’s not yet capable of whatever they want from her.)

I would also say that her example doesn’t actually fit the case she’s arguing, because when a pilot has to come up with a solution in a hurry, it’s the solution that matters, and Syl Vor got that; it’s not often necessary for a pilot to show his working in an emergency. In fact, it’s been made clear previously that a pilot in charge will generally get, and insist on if it’s not offered, authority to act first and explain later in emergencies, precisely because if you’ve got thirty seconds to implement a solution the last thing you need is to stop and give a detailed explanation.

Regarding the lesson that a person of melant’i responds to provokation by noting the circumstances so they may be Balanced in due time, a Terran might say that Liadens believe in revenge being a dish best served cold, but I think it’s more that for Liadens revenge is a dish best served with precision. If one gets angry and leaps to retaliate immediately, one may make a mess of things, and one may miss out on a better opportunity that would have come if one had waited.

The card Kezzi’s working on resembles the Tower card from the Tarot deck, both in the picture and the story it represents. The story of the card is another thing in this chapter that echoes: it’s the card Rys might have drawn if he’d drawn a card and if the cards really could see the future.