Chapter 9

Master and Pupil

Bai faced the entrance to the Sacra’al Monastery of Lomgrad, our hearts rippling thunder.

The structure etched into a mountain, half of it swallowed in stone, most of the chambers carved deep into the rocky façade. Each of the pagoda’s eight floors was enclosed by a carved wooden balcony, polished columns lining it in perfect intervals. From the balconies flowed glazed tiles dark as the sky at the cusp of sunrise, covering the rooftops of the floors below with their arching tips. The Monastery’s beauty ......