The north-western cross of the Razor-Spires was known to mountain shepherds as the Knife-Edge of the Seraphs.
It was a ridge of pure, wind-scoured quartz and black hard speckled rock, barely three feet wide, spanning half a mile across the saddle between the Seventh Peak and the outer rim of the Sunken Crater. On both sides, the mountain dropped away into dizzying, upright precipices that plunged into churning banks of grey storm clouds.
Ren Prime led the file, his oak walking stick tapping rhythmically against the stone.
Behind him, Mira walked with her head down, her hand resting on the back of his coat. Unit Ren marched behind her. He carried the fifty-pound crate of star-fallen brass in his single functional iron arm with easy high-pressure balance. Apostate Ren brought up the rear, his tattered indigo robes whipping wildly in the crosswinds, his shattered brass star-compass turning in a steady, unbroken rhythm.
The sun sat high in the afternoon sky. A harsh, unshielded glare that turned the quartz ridge into a blinding mirror.
And once again, Ren Prime’s boots moved across the stone in total, unnatural bright glare.
Where the others cast long, dark silhouettes across the knife-edge, Ren’s path was fully clean. The sunlight washed over his shoulders and passed straight through to the hard speckled rock beneath his soles. To an observer standing fifty paces away, it looked as though his torso were floating on air, disconnected from the earth.
