On the fourth morning, the magma below the hall dropped and the air grew colder. Pei Jing found a recess twenty paces deep on the inside of the middle ring. Columns of magnetic iron channeled the currents through it. Blades whistled past its mouth.
For three days he’d learned to read the storm. First its weight. Then the lines of force. Then the notes that carried from blade to blade. All of that had kept him alive. Now he wanted to know what he could do with it.
He sat on an iron-banded chest and laid the Cloud-Splitter across his knees. The blade ran twenty-eight inches from the long grip to the point. It was five and a half inches across the belly after the last reforge. The star-iron spine could take a harder blow, and the long curved edge still had the weight to split bone.
The great sects taught sword intent as a narrow thrust. Push all the force into one bright point, then find the gap in the armor. The Cloud-Splitter could thrust, but sending all its weight to the point would waste most of its edge.
“The cleaver shears,” Pei Jing said.
He remembered Xiao’s inscription.
