The eyes were made of stone and gold. Their rings turned around two pale violet centers. Even through the tear, Pei Jing could tell that each construct was wider than the opening it was looking through.
He had seen the drawings on the Precursor Tablet. The builders had called them the Guards of the Celestial Seam.
The sects taught that after seventy-two strikes, heaven opened to reward the survivor. Golden flowers would fall, and the emperor of the Upper Realm would put the Immortal Seal of Investiture on the new soul. Elders kept paintings of that moment on their walls.
The tablet described the seal as a claim. Once it was in place, the Celestial Court would take seventy percent of everything the new immortal refined. The Watchers could destroy the soul through the seal if its owner refused to obey.
Pei Jing had read enough decrees to know what a seal was for.
“An unpaid debt that never ends,” he said. “And they call it a gift.”
The gold rings turned into line. He heard a click like a drawbridge settling.
The next four strikes fell as golden petals and pale purple mist. They smelled of honey, winter plums and the incense people burned in rich houses. Pei Jing watched a petal turn and saw a black point inside it. Then he saw more. The mist held tens of thousands of needles fine as hair.
