FEW MOMENTS AGO —
The swords hummed a clean, cutting note through the late afternoon sky.
Seven of them sliced through the pale blue above the pine canopy, their riders standing atop the polished blades with the casual ease of people who had made this commute a hundred times. The Manhattan City orthodox disciples of the Azure Cloud Spire sect returned from their hunt in a loose formation, their white and silver robes catching the wind, sleeves billowing behind them like the wings of cranes.
They were all women, save for one.
Six of them, gorgeous in the way that only women who cultivated body-tempering arts every morning at dawn could be — skin luminous, hair glossy, figures carved by years of spiritual energy circulating through developing bodies into something frankly unfair. They laughed and bickered with the easy comfort of sisters, their voices rising and dipping through the cool mountain air.
