Chapter One: Another City in the Sky

No forecast had mentioned it, but news alerts were already calling it the most spectacular global aurora of the century. Linjiang stood at thirty-one degrees north. There should not have been an aurora here. Shen Yan’s hands moved before his thoughts. He mounted the wide-angle lens he had used for ten years, steadied the tripod, and set an eight-second exposure. The shutter’s familiar click briefly erased his debts, the credit a client had removed that afternoon, and the photograph that had destroyed his career seven years ago. The first preview appeared. Shen Yan stopped breathing. There was more than one financial district in the image.