Date: TC1853.11.13
Location: Eastern Empire — Seven Peaks to Thornwall (312km)
The sky was empty, and the wind was sharp, and the world below her was very, very small.
Raven flew east on a blade of compressed spiritual energy, two hundred meters above the farmland that stretched between the mountain ranges like a green-gold quilt stitched with rivers and roads. Sky-surfing at CC Level 5 was effortless — the blade responded to thought rather than effort, adjusting pitch and speed with the fluid precision of an extension of her own body. At this altitude, the Empire's eastern territories unrolled below like a map made real. Villages. Towns. The dark thread of the Imperial Highway running north-south. Logging camps. Irrigation channels catching morning light.
