The central courtyard of the Royal Alchemical Conclave had been transformed into an open-air trial.
Beneath the soaring dark rock pagoda of the Main Hall, nine carved sandalwood chairs were arranged in a semicircle atop a raised marble dais. Seated in the chairs were the nine Elder Masters of the Conclave. Ancient men and women with hair like spun silver, draped in heavy brocades of crimson, jade, and gold, their fingers adorned with massive spirit rings that glowed in the torchlight. The elders held the collective power of forty royal provinces, their word total across all matters of healing craft.
At the center of the dais sat High Inquisitor Meng, a stern, withered matriarch whose right eye had been replaced by a glowing many-sided emerald magic charm.
To her right stood the three Imperial Censors. Their brushes were held ready over yellow silk scrolls bearing the Emperor’s vermilion seal. To her left stood Grand Potion-maker Yan, pacing like a caged beast, his crimson robes flapping furiously with every turn. His waxy face twitched with suppressed mania, his fingernails digging into the fiery stone of his scepter.
In the center of the flat stone slab courtyard, surrounded by fifty heavily armed palace guards with drawn axe-spears, stood Lin Tao and Tie Shan.
