The jagged crystals of black frost-slag pulsed with ancient, poisonous chill beneath Mina Vance’s knees.
It was noon on Day 18.
Inside the Third Tower’s Ice-Fire Exhaust Vault, the air was sixty degrees below freezing. The vault was a subterranean cavern forty paces wide, carved from solid grey granite and sealed by triple dragon-hasps.
For fifty long years, the Grandmasters of the Seven Towers had used this isolated pit to dispose of their most hazardous Yin-frost waste. Failed batches of Nine-Yin Marrow Elixirs, frozen lead dross, and contaminated lunar minerals had been dumped through the ceiling chutes year after year.
Over five decades, the waste had solidified into a jagged, sixty-foot mountain of black crystal.
The toxic slag had formed twisted, unnatural shapes across the cavern. Frozen serpents of congealed marrow, petrified bone shards, and pools of dark lunar mercury covered every inch of stone.
The cold radiating from the mound was so lethal that even Golden Core elders refused to enter without heavy fur coats and warming talismans. Any mortal who stepped inside would have had their lungs frozen solid in three breaths.
Mina sat atop the highest peak of black crystal, completely unfazed by the killing frost.
