The ascent of Raven Crag under the crimson totality was devoid of wind.
The air had settled into an unnatural, freezing calm. The copper-red light of the eclipsed moon washed across the broken granite ledges. That turned the snowdrifts into sheets of dried blood gore.
Pei Jing reached the summit terrace without leaving a single broken crust beneath his boots. His footwork was no longer a conscious technique. It was an unconscious physical property of his mass moving across the earth.
Inside the small dry-stone windbreak he had built four days ago, a handful of pine embers still glowed dull cherry-red in the stone hearth.
Lu Tingxuan sat upright against the dark rock wall of the collapsed turret.
The eighty-year-old master was draped in the wool blanket Pei Jing had provided. His bare, horn-calloused feet rested flat upon the frozen flat stone slabs. His snow-white beard was neatly combed by his fingers. He reached down his chest to where the circular magic charm scar lay cold beneath his frayed hemp robe.
His clouded eye left eye was still, but his right black glass pupil was wide. He stared not at the sky, but directly at the threshold where Pei Jing stepped onto the platform.
