By the third day he could trust the supports to take the weight. He couldn’t trust them to mend.
Pei Jing turned to face east. His three pillars were in balance. Stone and ice could hold the weight he needed them to bear. If one cracked under a blow, however, it would stay cracked. He needed a pair of supports that could give a little and heal.
He unfastened the dark stone canister. Wood-Spirit Poison Fire came from the heart of an Iron-Bramble Tree in the Thousand-Marrow Swamp. The atlas said the tree had lived ten thousand years. It had been dead for three hundred by the time Pei Jing found its heart still burning. It held the life of the tree and the venom of the demon serpents that had died at its roots.
When he lifted the lid, the cave smelled of crushed mint and overripe berries. A round green flame rose above the rim and hung there, pulsing slowly. Small branches of fire reached out into the air.
He drew a needle and pricked his thumb. The moment the flame found the drop of blood, it curled around his forearm and sank into his skin. An itch went up his arm, across his chest and down the other side. Green light spread through the veins in his neck. Looking down, he could see it moving under his skin like sap through a thin branch.
