The seventh day dawned under a cold, clear sky that smelled of mountain frost and burning coal.
On the grand check terrace of the Seventh Smelting Ward, forty royal censors stood in formation around a circular bronze dais.
At the center of the dais stood High Checker Lu, a stern, grey-haired judge sent directly from the Imperial Capital. Behind him, propped up on two gold-trimmed walking crutches, stood Yan Tiexin.
Yan’s face was sunken and yellow, his lips bloodless, his training crippled to a hollow shell after the total backlash of his suicide hex.
Yet his amber eyes burned with poisonous fever as he stared at Lin Ke standing before the dais in a plain gray apprentice robe.
“High Checker Lu,” Yan Tiexin rasped, his voice trembling with spite. “This boy’s training is a demonic fraud. His spirit veins are twisted glass, his techniques are stolen from forbidden texts. His foundation is unstable sludge. Deploy the Heavenly Mirror of Orthodoxy and strip away his camouflage!”
High Checker Lu nodded gravely.
He raised his hand, commanding four royal attendants to unveil a six-foot mirror of polished sky jade, mounted on an ornate gold stand.
