The sky shattered from the center outward.
The choking copper-crimson canopy that had hung over the empire for three painful days peeled away in massive, ragged sheets of dissolving violet fire. Where the artificial soft glow fell, clean, golden sunlight poured down upon the earth. Pure morning light that washed over the mountains, the river valleys. The tiled roofs of the Middle Imperial Ring.
The twenty-four-hertz rhythmic hum in Lin Tao’s molar teeth ceased fully.
The air was quiet again. An organic, living silence filled with the gentle whisper of the mountain wind, the rustle of pine needles, and the distant, rushing roar of the Dragon River flowing through the lower gorges.
Lin Tao stood up, using the bronze housing to steady his footing.
His test sight array swept the mortal encampments sprawled across the river terraces five leagues to the south.
Across the continent, four hundred million people were waking up.
In the refugee quarters of the Middle Ring, the woman who had dropped her barley ladle three days ago blinked in the bright morning sunlight. Her pupils dilated naturally, the vacant glaze vanishing from her eyes. She looked down at the weeping child clutching her hemp skirt, her face crumpling in sudden, overwhelming motherly recognition.
