The cloud cover didn’t drift apart. It was snapped open by raw heat-powered force.
A circular downdraft of high-speed sky air struck the black roof slates of the palace, driving cold mist outward in sheets that rattled against the lead roof edges with the fury of thrown river pebbles. Through the newly opened eye of the storm, forty deep-water lengths above the marble stone railings, a creature dropped with wings outstretched, moving with an eerie, rhythmic silence that defied the gale.
It was a spirit crane. Its body measured twelve feet from yellow beak to trailing tail, feathered in clean, snow-white plumage that repelled rainwater like oiled shark-skin. The main wing quills were as thick as ash-wood spears. It shook at high sound frequencies that flattened the puddles in the Grand Square into glass-smooth sheets. Atop the bird’s back, balanced lightly upon the junction where the long neck met the chest spine, stood a solitary figure.
Deacon Han Tianfeng of the Cloud Mist Sect.
He appeared thirty-five winters of age. Even so, the Imperial Court’s secret genealogies recorded that he had overseen the ascension and burial of three successive Yan monarchs. His skin was pale, smooth, and devoid of the wrinkles, scars, and weathered grain that marked men who labored under the sun. His raven-black hair was pinned in a tight, flawless topknot beneath a carved coronet of semi-clear sea-blue jade. He held fast against the churning downdraft without a single loose strand. He wore three layers of robes woven…
