Two mornings later, the sky turned the color of bruised plums.
A thick, foul-smelling mist rolled down from the upper struts of Sky-Tether Two, blotting out the azure horizon. The ocean breeze died away, replaced by a suffocating stillness that made the hair on the soldiers’ arms stand on end.
From the deck of the vanguard flagship, Princess Valeria squinted through her viewing scope toward the iron fortress suspended between the clouds.
“Something is wrong,” Valeria said, her knuckles tightening around the brass cylinder. “The defensive runes around the second tether are shifting from silver to a dark, rusted red.”
Elder Sterling stepped up beside her, his hand resting on the hilt of his heavy blade. “That is not standard Censorate array work. That stench smells of sacrificial blood.”
Five miles above the water, inside the Blood-Star Citadel perched upon the lower collar of Sky-Tether Two, Ancestor Draven paced across the cold obsidian floor.
His withered hands trembled as he peered through the narrow embrasures.
Below him, an endless carpet of ships and floating platforms stretched across the western sea. One million cultivators were moving in disciplined siege formations, completely unbothered by the citadel’s heavy ballistas. Every single warship proudly flew that maddening gray banner with its ridiculous inscription: “Come Back Next Month.”
