"Ayi Guli."
The name fell into the relatively quiet spectator stands like a stone into a deep pool, sending fine ripples spreading beyond anyone's control.
Low whispers quietly broke the stillness around them.
Li Xiang did not turn his head. Guided by his senses, he looked toward the area west of the square reserved for the forces of the Western Regions.
There he saw the woman behind the name—someone no one could look away from after a single glance.
Ayi Guli came from the Moon-Worshipping Cult of the Western Regions. The ascetics and wanderers of the desert revered her as its most beautiful moon.
Yet in Li Xiang's eyes, this moon held nothing gentle or cool. She was more like a blood moon hanging over a wasteland of slaughter, radiating undisguised wildness.
She stood alone. No one dared come within several paces of her.
Hers was a wild beauty.
Her skin was not sickly pale but a deep honey-brown, with a fine sheen of sweat like morning dew across its smooth, taut surface.
Her thick black hair had not been arranged in an elaborate style. A leather cord of unknown origin bound it high in a crisp ponytail.
Her features were striking and sharp, as though the finest artisan had carved them stroke by stroke.
Her brow bones were high. Her brows were neither the fashionable willow-leaf shape nor the distant-mountain arch, but clean, leopard-like slashes angled toward her temples.
Most unforgettable of all were her eyes.
Her clear, cold emerald pupils were vertical slits. The outer corners of her eyes swept upward, and the glints that passed through them held the alertness of a desert predator.
Her nose was high-bridged, her lips dark, full, and lustrous.
Now one corner of her full mouth curled into a defiant half-smile.
Dense