The four-inch finger-bone metal pen twisted ninety degrees against the weeping lead skull of the Cardinal’s war-mace.
SNAP.
Thin black fractures of osteo-ink spider-webbed across the purple necro-lightning, shattering the enchantment like brittle ice. The nine-foot weapon clattered from Cardinal Vane-Krell’s gauntlets, crashing down upon the iron dais with a hollow, dead boom.
At the same instant, the spirit chains wrapping around Ren Vale’s spine shattered into grey smoke.
Ren drew in a massive, ragged lungful of air, pushing himself up from his knees. His eyes burned with cold, unbending iron. His right hand closed firmly around the handle of his mammoth ivory awl.
Behind him, Mira stepped onto the floor of the tiered arena, her quartz right arm flaring back to life with blazing bright amber bright glare. Beside her marched Lord Ren and Vane Vale, their presence streaming the combined, crushing majesty of royal command and mercantile supremacy.
“Notary,” Ren commanded, stepping onto the first tier of the eight-sided dais. “Present the record.”
Necro-Scribe Ren reached into his heavy black coat. Then he pulled out the forty approved folio rubbings of the Precursor Debt-Tablet. With a sharp, sweeping motion of his ink-stained hands, he slammed the star-iron rubbings directly onto the central altar of the dais.
