The eight-sided stone stand rose from the center of Entry hall 768 like an altar carved from solid smoke.
It was crafted from black-rock jade, four arm-lengths high and eight paces across, polished to a mirror-like perfection that reflected the dull amber glow of Yan Zhiqiu’s animal fat lantern. Around its eight facets ran a nonstop frieze of deeply carved trigrams, their recessed lines filled with a pale, glassy paste that faintly shone with a cold, greenish soft glow.
On the stone stand stood no statue. The flat upper surface was empty. It was marked only by four circular depressions where the feet of a bronze or stone throne had once rested. A single, box-shaped socket three inches deep cut into the exact sharp-angled center of the jade.
Yan Zhiqiu halted three paces from the dais. Her breath caught in her throat, a short, ragged gasp that frosted the wool around her chin.
“This is the Station of the Fourteenth Sovereign,” she whispered, her gloved fingers trembling as she pulled the Broken Slate from her tunic. “The throne was removed when the Great Flooding began, taken down to the Vault of Absolute Zero. But the socket... Qiao Ming, look at the socket.”
