“I saw the first entry when I woke in Cloudford. I don’t know who made the Ledger. Two hours was the rule for a practice session. A trial could earn credit of its own. Either way, I still had to do the work,” Pei Jing said. “I signed no debt agreement with your court or the sects that collect for you.”
The two blue points in the mask grew brighter.
“Work outside the register produces property outside the register,” the Judge said. “All energy in this world belongs to the Nine Heavens Court. A crop that gathers its own strength is contraband.”
He reached into the space beside his hip. The air opened with a snap. He drew out a pale jade tablet framed in heavy gold. Crimson runes flared across its face, and a second, larger outline of the tablet shone around his hands.
The Order-of-Heaven Tablet. Pei Jing had seen parts of its commands in the Precursor records. It had controlled the seasons long before the four spires were built in their present form. If the court wanted a famine, it could move the rain. If a people grew strong enough to ask what the sky was taking, the court could make the earth fail under their feet.
