The blue light had completely drained from the limestone gutters, leaving only the dull, steady tallow glare of the amphitheater lanterns and the smell of bruised granite.
Noll Vey rested his single stone palm against the witness rail, feeling the heat gradually recede from his chest cavity. The core chip had settled back into its stone housing, but the phantom ache in his ribs remained sharp—the lingering sting of a core that had reached out to empty its pockets and had its copper knocked into the mud.
Prit still stood on the limestone riser beside him, holding his slate balanced across his sharp knees. The little bone imp was using a scrap of clean wool to wipe away the smudges of white filing chalk from his accounting lines, his movements methodical and quiet.
“You really thought it would take it,” Prit said, his voice dropping into the conversational register he used when auditing the winter potato sacks in the cellar. “You thought eleven hundred points of clean claim-force would make the entity smile, bow, and fold up its knife.”
“It was honest coin, Prit,” Noll said, staring at the gray dust on his granite knuckles. “It wasn’t an illusion. It was five hundred days of timber work, road tolls, and bread soup. Every point in that rail was paid for in real human sweat.”
