The Grand Hall of the Azure Cloud Sect was silent as a royal tomb hall.
Pale dawn sunlight filtered through the high window row windows, cutting through clouds of white sandalwood incense to light up Chief Inquisitor Yan Tiexin standing at the center of the raised white jade dais.
Yan wore full dynastic judge regalia. A black iron crown, five-clawed scarlet robes lined with silver fur, and a royal mandate scroll bearing the Great Seal of the Censorate. His chest was still tightly bound beneath the silk. There, the reflected Yang lightning had cracked his ribs forty-eight hours earlier. But his sneer remained sharp as a black glass razor knife.
Flanking the dais were forty sect elders, all bowing their heads in scared silence. They avoided the gaze of the twenty armed royal court guards lining the outer edge.
Grand Elder Feng Xuan stepped forward. His aged face was pale with sycophantic deference as he presented a golden lacquer tray containing the sovereign running deed of the Seventh Smelting Ward.
“Inquisitor Yan,” Feng Xuan announced, his voice echoing off the gold-trimmed vaulted ceiling. “The Azure Cloud Sect acknowledges the total sovereignty of royal intellectual property. Disciple Lin Ke has engaged in secret technological heresy. By unanimous consent of the Elder Hall, his training is stripped. The Seventh Ward is hereby surrendered to the royal treasury.”
