Forty arm-lengths above the chaotic floor of the High Dais, suspended upon the black iron ram of the Brass Sovereign, Yan Zhiqiu watched the face-off unfold.
The air at this height was icy cold. The azure mist rising from the great parchment below had gathered into a dense, swirling vortex around the warship’s hull, condensing against the cold-rolled armor plates and freezing into delicate, crystal-clear rime that sparkled like diamond dust in the dim lantern light.
Forty arm-lengths below, the great star-pattern mosaic seemed small, a shimmering circular pond of lapis lazuli and white pale limestone floating in the smoky gloom. The heat from the blast fire rose around the warship’s hull in shimmering waves of heat distortion. But wherever the fire draft collided with the azure mist rising from the map, the heat was put out instantly. A micro-climate of arctic severity had established itself around the forward section of the vessel. It wrapped the anchors and hawse-pipes in heavy sheets of glazed ice.
The four heavy chains of cold-cooled black iron that bound her wrists and waist to the ship’s timbers were crusted with thick hoarfrost. To the guards stationed on the forecastle deck fifteen paces above her, the prisoner appeared half-frozen, her pale face bowed over the grey stone slab upon her lap. Her body shook with the shivers of impending freezing sickness.
