The quilted blanket slid from Kaelen’s shoulders as he swung his feet over the edge of the hemp netting.
He planted both cloth slippers onto the star-jade floor, rolling his shoulders in a slow, luxurious circle.
Not a single joint clicked. Mina had frozen the warden’s self-combustion channels along with its joints; the glowing core remained dangerous, but the explosion could not complete while her frost held.
The ancestral core shard had melded into the Fallow Slate so completely that his spine felt as durable as forged meteorite iron.
[Complete Fallow Slate: All 4 Tracks: 240h 00m (241x Sealed) | Celestial Tax Ledger: 9,500,000 SJC]
“Your back?” Barnaby Holt yelled, waving his ladle so hard the wooden bowl hissed through the air. “Your back feels better? You ungrateful, shiftless wretch! We have been fighting a thirty-foot war-golem for seventy straight hours, and you were reading under that blanket!”
Barnaby pointed an accusing finger at the battered, dog-eared booklet peeking out from beneath Kaelen’s silk pillow.
On the paper cover, a crude woodcut illustration showed a dashing outlaw in a leather mask embracing a maiden on a galloping spirit-steed.
