The white star-jade plaza of Moon Eight seemed to breathe under Kaelen’s cloth slippers.
Every step sent a faint, crystalline tremor through the smooth stone surface. The air smelled of burnt gold and ancient incense, heavy with the weight of five thousand years of hoarded vitality.
Behind him, the vanguard maintained their tight hollow-square formation.
Sera Thorne kept Storm-Pike angled forward, her eyes scanning the stepped ramparts above. Her knuckles remained white around the cold iron shaft, but her breathing was calm and steady.
Mina walked on Kaelen’s right flank, her frost-chains tucked discreetly inside her sleeves. Beside her, Claire flipped another page in her ledger, checking the alignment of the nine surrounding celestial bodies.
“Moon Seven is thirty miles to the west,” Claire reported, keeping her voice low. “Moon Eight is directly beneath our feet. Moon Nine sits eighty miles to the north.”
“A triangle,” Barnaby observed, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “A giant three-legged kettle.”
“Not a kettle, Barnaby,” Claire corrected him. “A three-phase capacitor. These three moons store the primary charge before pumping it into the central furnace.”
