The golden chariot didn’t leave with the majestic, unrushed grace of its arrival.
Envoy Bai Ming scrambled over the chariot’s brass gunwale, his white-gold silk robes tangling around his gold-trimmed shin guards as his four heralds backed away from the terrace in hasty, disarrayed formation. Their sun-spears trembled in their gauntlets, and the golden fire-drakes hissed with wild, panicked clicks, sensing the deep-sea pressure streaming from the small blue slime below.
With a desperate slash of Bai Ming’s scepter, the chariot’s forward thrust glyphs flared with blinding, uneven fire.
The three sky vessels rocketed upward, leaving behind a shrieking sonic wake that tore a jagged rift through the morning cloud banks. In less than twenty heartbeats, the golden flotilla disappeared beyond the troposphere, retreating toward the forward picket where five hundred war galleons hovered in waiting formation.
On the terrace, the silence settled once more.
Su Ling’er stood beside the broken cedar table, her delicate hands resting upon the handles of her hidden hairpins. Tie Shan spat a glob of metal spit onto the stone. He rubbed his meteor-iron knuckle against his palm with a rhythmic, grinding rasp. Xiao Hei slowly relaxed his haunches, padding over to Lin Xiao and nudging the little blue blob with his cold, wet snout.
