The morning wind off the Star-Fall sea carried the sharp tang of ozone and crushed stone.
Across the shattered terrace of Crater Island, Inquisitor Thorne-Crow stood with his feet planted wide. His black Censorate coat hung in tatters around his waist, revealing the scarred grey plates of his imperial breastplate.
Within the curved crystal housing at the center of his chest, a silver soul-lantern hummed with faint, restless light.
Four bright blue family embers and hundreds of microscopic soul-sparks swirled inside the glass. The four bright embers were the last souls from Oakhaven. Since the lantern was last opened, the imperial collectors had packed it with captives from other worlds; the pale sparks were clusters, each containing many souls.
Thorne-Crow did not lower his head.
His scarred hand dropped to his hip, drawing his secondary Censorate ritual blade with a clean metallic hiss.
The weapon was three feet long. It was forged from void-iron and inscribed with thirty-six legal statutes of the Imperial Censorate. Black lightning crackled along the fuller, humming with the cold, unyielding authority of an executioner’s mandate.
“You have the face of the First Ancestor, boy,” Thorne-Crow rasped, spitting a mouthful of black blood onto the rubble. “You speak with his arrogance. You sit on your porch with his unbearable disdain.”
