Golden ink seeped across the cured lambskin like liquid amber.
The heat from the Earth-Heart Flame Seed coaxed each stroke out of hiding. Ancient alchemical seals drifted upward from the leather, dissolving into tiny sparks of scented smoke that tasted of dried cedar and old mountain rain.
Kaelen rested his cheek against his knuckles, staring at the shifting characters.
“Read it aloud, Claire,” he said. “My eyes are already tired from watching Barnaby melt that bronze slab.”
Claire adjusted her wire-rimmed spectacles with a soot-stained thumb. Her dark eyes darted along the luminous rows of cursive script.
“The preamble is written in the private code of the Grand Medicine Pavilion,” she whispered. Her voice carried a tremor of awe. “The author calls himself the First Pill Ancestor. He wrote these words five thousand years ago, while hiding in the lower salt caves beneath the Mount Shu peaks.”
“A dramatic man,” Kaelen remarked. “Hiding in salt caves sounds terrible for the joints.”
And even worse for the tea, he thought. Salt crust ruins the water before the leaves even hit the pot.
