A cool subterranean draft carried the scent of dry parchment and bitter melon tea through Deacon Vane’s back parlor.
Across the plaza, the Third Spire was in absolute turmoil. Grandmaster Kaelor’s blackened laboratory had been sealed by imperial inquisitors at sunrise. Stretcher bearers had carried the weeping, soot-covered cripple to the hospital vaults before dawn.
Nobody knew what had happened. The official report blamed an unstable cauldron heating cycle. But every high-ranking alchemist in the city knew Kaelor had been trying to refine a Tier 5 pill.
Now, half the senior elders were sweating through their velvet robes.
If a seasoned grandmaster could blow his own dantian apart from toxic dross, what chance did the rest of them have?
Inside Deacon Vane’s silk parlor, five elderly men sat on low cedar stools.
They were senior elders from the Fourth and Fifth Spires. All five were wearing drab grey cloaks to hide their sect badges. Their faces were ashen, and their hands trembled as they clutched their teacups.
Behind a tall woven bamboo screen in the corner of the room, Kaelen Vance reclined on a cushioned bench.
