High Eunuch Wei rose from the carved sandalwood palanquin, his movements jerky and disjointed like a marionette strung with wet hemp cords.
The rotting purple silk of his royal robes strained against his skeletal frame, shedding flakes of dried embalming wax and brittle gold thread.
Across the sixty paces of the Nine-Dragon Bronze Bridge, Lu Chen watched with flat, unblinking eyes.
His twenty-eight-pound Great Blood Severing Cleaver hung low at his right side, its notched black glass-gold spine pointing toward the jade floor.
The eighty-five-degree heat streaming from his palms kept the handle dry, warming the cold-iron wrap to the heat of fresh bread.
Beneath the bridge, the churning rivers of liquid silver roared, throwing silver spray against the carved dragon pillars.
“Step down?” Wei echoed, his voice thin as a split reed.
The eunuch let out a dry, rattling cackle that set his paper-thin throat trembling.
