The wind at five hundred meters up was sharp enough to sting. Alina pressed one hand to her helmet and peered over the guardrail that ran along the massive stone staircase spiraling down the Rock Tortoise's shell.
"So there is a road here," she breathed, astonished. She had imagined Luciel simply commanding the tortoise to rise and lower them as it pleased — not this grand, winding stairway carved straight from the living rock. The sight made her knees feel hollow.
She quickly looked up, away from the dizzying drop below. Her heart thumped as she muttered, "This has to be recorded."
Pulling a roll of hide paper from the gap between her armor plates, Alina balanced it in one hand while she scribbled notes in quick, looping charcoal strokes. Black Tortoise City: three fortresses built upon the shell, each higher than the last…
