The brigadier had clearly never been to Byllura. The capital city, Hestobyll, was constructed on a waterfall. No—it had been constructed as a waterfall, or more precisely, a river delta carved into a steep diagonal slope. Kerra had seen the remarkable formation on their approach from orbit. Byllura’s largest landform was a high plateau, separated from the sea by towering escarpments all around—everywhere but near the southern bay, where the drop-off to the ocean had been sculpted into terraces. A grid of canals cut in a hexagonal pattern broke each terrace up into hundreds of six-sided city blocks, with water cascading pleasantly down from one level to the next through dams. Raindrops from the tropical forests at the continent’s center, high above, thus completed their long journey into a rippling blue sound, lapping at the edge of the geometrical shore. Kerra turned toward the pinkish sun and inhaled deeply. Fresh ocean air filled her lungs, reminding her of her Aquilarian home, years earlier.
