The needle went in two inches deep beneath Lin Ke’s right collarbone, and he didn’t even flinch.
Apothecary He cursed under his breath, twisting the hollow bone needle to drain the congealed, charred lymph from Lin Ke’s shoulder muscle. The smell of burned skin and vinegar filled the small medical pavilion. It mixed with the bitter steam of crushed comfrey root.
“Third-degree burns across seventy percent of both forearms,” He grumbled, slapping a wet linen pad soaked in chilled snake-gall ointment over the blackened flesh. “Outward waveguides are inflamed to the thickness of wheat straw. If you take another high-heat load before these tissues regenerate, your bone-skin will slough off like rotten cabbage.”
“The cooling loop performed within margin of error,” Lin Ke said, his voice flat and hoarse.
Through the open window of the pavilion, the sky had turned from bruised purple to a world-ending, burning bronze.
Envoy Chu Rong had discarded all pretense of office review.
High in the upper troposphere, the judge stood upon a floating golden chariot drawn by four clockwork void-drakes. Unfurled behind him was a mile-long crimson banner emblazoned with the black seal of the Upper Realm Inquisitorial Court:
DECREE OF ANATHEMA: CLASS-ONE HERETICAL REBELS.
