Chapter 44: Judgment

The Dragon King read. Nobody in the whole great hall moved, from the kneeling court down both sides to the guards at the doors. The blue fire in the hanging lanterns burned without a flicker. Mei knelt on the white stone floor with her headscarf pressed against the wound in Fish's back and his blood warm under her palm, and watched the old man on the dais turn the pages of two books, one black and one blue, side by side, slowly, one after the other. She could see his face. It didn't change. It stayed long and ivory and lined and tired. But his hands, holding the books, began after a while to shake. He turned a page in the black book. He stopped. He looked at it, and didn't turn it. Mei knew which page it was without being told. She could see, even from the floor, a…