The first snow of the northern winter fell in large, quiet flakes that drifted over the repaired castle walls of Black Rock Citadel.
The jagged breaches on the Second Terrace had been sealed with thick blocks of green granite and high-pulling melted rock waste mortar. The smoke from the smelting chimneys rose straight into the cold, grey sky in three powerful, steady columns. Their master pressure gauges were locked at two hundred and ten pounds per square foot.
The citadel was solvent. The furnaces were running.
Standing on the high battlement of the North Watchtower, wrapped in a heavy, charcoal-grey woolen greatcoat lined with wolf pelt, was Lin Ke.
Six weeks had passed.
Forty days of Apothecary He’s scalding bone-mending draughts, iron-leaf compresses, and total physical confinement had done their work.
Lin Ke raised his left hand, turning his wrist in the cold morning air.
The skin across his forearm was no longer charred meat. It had healed into a tight, pale lattice of tough scar tissue that looked like brushed pewter beneath the winter sun. The grip tendons had fused back into the Ashen Iron bone matrix, restoring seventy percent of his fine motor control.
