Pei Jing took the western stairs as far as the open balcony. Cold wind came through the arches. It smelled of wet iron and high sleet. Twelve thousand feet below the city, thin red lines marked breaks in the distant land.
Most of the bidders had gone to the warm tea rooms. Pei Jing took a seat on an empty granite bench under a windbreak. He rested his back against a pillar and put the wicker pack between his legs.
He ate a few strips of salted venison from a paper packet. Then he took three sips from his brass canteen. The water was so cold he held each sip in his mouth for a moment before he swallowed.
The Black Mountain Whetstone had chilled in his pack. He laid it across his thighs and took the short iron scraper from his sleeve. He had done his two hours of practice before the break. He could use the time he had left to settle the new weight in his marrow and make sure it did not throw his core off balance.
He set the scraper down. The sixth band of his core had been taking shape for years. Most of the work since Cloud Mist had gone into preparing the other bands to bear the extra load. He could feel that work now when he leaned against the pillar. Seventeen years of getting ready had taken him only a short way into the actual compression. The Ledger showed the middle…
