The hand of Empress Yan Huaisu dropped through the golden light of the canopy like a dropping terrace of semi-clear marble.
Her huge palm, three arm-lengths across and polished to the smoothness of river silk, hovered one handspan above the cobalt flags. From the center of her palm came a soft, radiant warmth that washed over Yan Zhiqiu’s kneeling form, drying the cold sweat upon the scroll-keeper’s brow and filling her exhausted limbs with the soothing vital ether of the ancient dynasties.
“Arise, daughter of the High court,” the Empress spoke, her voice filling the chamber with the majestic deep ring of bronze chimes. “Arise, and receive the decree of the Nadir.”
Yan Zhiqiu rose slowly to her feet. Her legs no longer trembled. Her eyes were clear and glowing, reflecting the golden light of her ancestress. She stood shoulder to shoulder with Qiao Ming on the twelfth step, looking up into the calm face of the sovereign.
The Empress turned her palm upward, and upon the smooth surface of her skin, a three-space-folding projection of light materialized.
It was a tiny light-projected model of the Ark Nadir. A huge vessel shaped like a flattened, eight-sided nautilus eighty leagues in width and twelve leagues deep. The model rotated slowly in the air, showing every internal deck, every watertight inner wall. Every one of the eight hundred and fifty entry halls that formed its outer edge defenses.
