Lyra’s silver pupils narrowed until they were thin needles of frost.
For six centuries, she had performed before Sanctuary Patriarchs and Void Archons. Not once in six hundred years had anyone dared to criticize the tuning of her instrument.
“Flat?” Lyra rasped, her voice trembling with murderous disbelief. “You ignorant sea-rat. This instrument was carved from the skull plate of a Leviathan Sovereign. Its strings were spun from celestial dragon sinew.”
She raised her bleeding right hand, her nails digging into the polished bone frame.
“You banged on a brass porridge pot for one hundred and sixty hours,” Lyra hissed, her aura of Saint Vessel Early acoustic pressure boiling the seawater beneath her dais. “You know nothing of the Dao of Sound.”
“I know that when you pluck the fourth string, your left collarbone winces,” Kaelen replied smoothly from the porthole. “And your third harmonic node rattles like a loose shutter in an autumn gale.”
Deacon Vane poked his head out from a neighboring companionway hatch, his abacus held securely under his arm.
“Master,” Deacon Vane whispered urgently, keeping his body pressed against the iron plates. “Those two Star-Iron acoustic warships are inlaid with rare deep-sea pearl-wood. If we capture them intact, each hull is worth at least twelve hundred Sovereign Jade Cores on the neutral markets.”
