“Absolutely no weapons beyond this point. No exceptions.”

Aurora Teller read the hastily-penned sign above the swinging doors out loud. She felt naked without her spear. The door’s wooden slats permitted the sounds and smells of the audition to drift into the hall. She gagged on the mixed odor of fresh blood and stale rice wine.

Aurora glanced again at the sign.

The red paint didn’t look dry. Nothing in this backwash sky city was dry. She attempted for the fifth time to fluff her white shock of hair to life. The cursed humidity added two pounds of stress on her neck.

Why had she ventured this far from the central aerena—to the floating outpost of Hong Gai? Here, the name Aurora Teller meant nothing. She was neither the frontier girl from Yellowknife nor the more recently made over poster child for the Children of God.

Her opponents knew her as the Spear Maiden. Unfortunately, she’d faced only six opponents thus far in her yet to burgeon career as an aether gladiator. Precisely this need for more and better opponents had brought her to these doors.

“I’ve made up my mind,” she said to no one.

Her current aether master was a borderline junkie, and his roster…Aurora rolled her eyes. Not one served as a worthy sparring partner. She had to aim higher.

“God ordains it, and God cannot be thwarted.” She smoothed the sleeves and tail of her multi-layered, sky blue robes. All but the innermost garment had been stitched from a sheer yet tensile silk harvested from worms exposed to aether. Finally, she slashed her hands outward. Tightening her fists, she slammed open the doors.

The tavern had been emptied of chairs to accommodate a half dozen fighting rings—the nearest one currently empty. In fact the entire room lacked the crowd she had anticipated. No matter.

She scanned the gawking faces of the lowlifes who’d come for free entertainment and cheap drinks. Among them, a fellow dressed simply in Western leathers caught her eye. Seated toward the back, his smile strived to indicate they knew each other. She dismissed the impossibility out of hand.

In the center of the room she spotted her targets. Du Sang and Flounder represented the two most reputable aether masters on the docket. They were the reasons she’d ventured to the sky city of Hong Gai.

Flounder had reached the prime time once—a step removed from the central aerena on the largest aether rig of all. Purportedly, the aether master had floundered. The name stuck. Some say he never got over the prime time loss that paralyzed his left side.

Aurora didn’t care. Half a Flounder was better than the picked-over fish skeleton she’d been fighting for. Determined to make her mark, she strode toward the central ring where a waif of a girl and a local villager trained in wushu were sparring.

Aurora’s billowing robes doubled her presence. Flying over the top rope, she interrupted the fight. “Don’t mean to be rude, but I haven’t the time or temperament to wait in line.”