Green flames hissed against the executioner’s skull, filling the air with the sharp, acidic tang of burning memory.
Vane-Korr’s eyes rolled back in agony. The dark jade crow hanging from his neck swelled to the size of a fist, drinking the last drops of his ruptured Saint marrow to ignite a full corpse-detonation.
“Get back,” Sera Thorne yelled, stepping between Kaelen and the swelling talisman. “That is an inquisitorial soul-mine! It will level the entire cavern!”
“Deacon, hold my book,” Kaelen Vance said calmly.
He tucked his paper pamphlet into Deacon Vane’s trembling hands. Without taking a single hurried step, Kaelen reached into the left sleeve of his bathrobe.
His fingers withdrew a thin, silver-bordered plaster of white mulberry bark.
Three silver clouds curled across the surface of the parchment, shimmering with zero Pill-Poison medicinal purity. It was a Cloud-Veined Supreme Soul-Sealing Plaster, brewed during his idle evenings on the open sea.
Kaelen stepped past Sera’s shoulder.
