Just after midnight, Pei Jing set the Astral Bone Blade on two wooden pegs he had taken from the flagship. The air above the twenty-three-thousand-foot terrace was clear. He could see every grain in the basalt beneath the blade without lighting a lamp.
He took the Black Mountain Whetstone out of its pouch. A thin film of oil shone in the worn hollow. He set the stone to the edge and began the first practice of the new day.
Scrape.
The sound was small in the open air. It was the same one he had heard through eighteen years of winter wind, the shaking of the Void Eye, and the long work of breaking his Golden Core. The stone had worn thinner. His hand still knew where to put it.
Around him lay stacks of brass from the flagship. The new trench held a thin strip of reflected starlight. Farther away, water ran through the channels he had cut before the trial. He used the scrape to keep his pulse steady while he tuned the soul to the note the Watchers had left behind. Nearly two hours passed before the note held on its own. He made one last pass, wiped the blade, and laid it across his knees.
