The cell smelled of damp shale and dried blood that had never been washed out of the mortar.
Lin Ke sat on a slab of cold iron bolted into the bedrock of the Hall of Heavenly Penalties. Across the room, two royal court guards stood rigid as stone pillars, their magnetic axe-spears grounded against the threshold.
Suspended in the air four feet before Lin Ke’s chest was the unrolled Imperial Nine-Rounds Soul-Leash Scroll.
It was made from tanned spirit-python hide, cured in red stone and human fat, lined with golden thread that hummed at a rhythmic seventy-two pulses per minute.
Every time the scroll pulsed, Lin Ke felt an answering tug in the center of his chest. It wasn’t a physical ache, but a sickening magnetic pull on his bloodline, trying to synchronize his heart rate with the ancient object’s tempo.
On a bronze tray beside the scroll sat an inkpot filled with thick, coppery paste. Crushed vermilion mixed with old family binding marrow.
“One print,” Court guard Chen grunted from the door, his hand resting on the handle knob of his execution blade. “Your right thumb on the ink, then against the seal. The Imperial Censorate takes twenty-five percent of your monthly cultivated Qi, and your life continues.”
