The rain began with a scream.
It struck the palace roofs in silver-purple sheets, bursting against ruby chimneys and diamond gutters, hissing where it touched the heated stone. Across the high terraces, white flags snapped like frightened birds. Below them, in the black-trimmed houses of Purponex, people poured into the streets carrying children, baskets, lanterns, anything they could save from the rising water.
“Goi ses mones!” they shouted.

