Five miles above the underground cathedral, on the surface of the mortal world, the miracle was not subtle.
For three thousand years, the Southern Basin had been known as the Barren Lands. Across seven vast royal provinces—stretching from the jagged peaks of the Azure Cloud Mountains to the muddy banks of the Heavenly River—the earth had been dry, cracked, and exhausted, yielding only bitter wheat and stunted vegetables to the millions of common mortals who toiled from dawn to dusk.
The great sects had taught that this was the natural order. Mortals were destined to sweat in the dust. Meanwhile, the immortal masters soared through the clouds.
At the fourth hour of the afternoon, that natural order died.
It began with the water.
In the peasant village of Red Stone Creek, forty leagues north of the Continental Rift, seventy-year-old farmer Old Zhang stood beside the village well. He stared into the dry, stony darkness that had not produced a drop of moisture since the great drought of his youth. The village children were hollow-cheeked, their lips cracked. They waited for the weekly water carts from the prefectural seat.
Suddenly, the dry ground beneath Old Zhang’s hemp sandals trembled.
It wasn’t the jagged, terrifying shudder of an earthquake. It was a rhythmic, musical thrum, like the plucked string of a huge underground zither.
