Chapter 370 - 369: Southward
Location:Empire Borderlands → Virescent Expanse
Date/Time:TC1854.03.18 - TC1854.04.01
Seven Peaks disappeared behind them in the first hour.
Not gradually — the mountain was there, enormous and alive with formation light and Sylvara’s canopy catching the dawn, and then the sky-surfing blade carried them over a ridge, and it was gone. Replaced by farmland. By distance. By the particular emptiness of a sky that contained only two people and the wind between them.
Raven didn’t look back.
She’d considered it — one final glance at the mountain, at the living architecture, at the garden where Elian would be waking up and reaching for her hand and finding empty air. But looking back was a habit she’d broken across ninety-eight lifetimes. You looked forward. You moved forward. You trusted that what you’d built would stand because you’d built it to stand, and if it couldn’t stand without you watching, then you’d built it wrong.
Veyr pulsed once at her hip. The nameless colour — grief becoming scar. Then settled to silver. Forward.
Kairos stood behind her on the blade. He’d learned the stance during the Thornwall return — one foot forward, one back, weight low, hands braced against the rushing air rather than clutching her shoulders. The improvement over his first flight was significant. He no longer described the experience as "an assault on the concept of stability." He merely described it as "tolerable with qualifications."
The Kirin bead pulled. South. Always south. Stronger now than it had been at Seven Peaks, as if leaving the mountain had removed a barrier between Raven and whatever the bead was trying to reach.
She leaned into the blade and flew.
***
The Empire’s outer districts passed beneath them like pages turning.