Cherry Samurai

There is one season in Bitlantis and it happens in the Orchard, under the eastern dome, for about nine days a year. The trees don’t know they’re a mile underwater. Someone loaded them before the Flood and never came back for them.

Xiomara goes there after jobs. She lays the sword on the path, which she has been told is disrespectful, and walks the rows with her armour off. The blade is mono-molecular; it would go through the trunk without the tree noticing. She has never used it on anything in the Orchard.

Kestrel asked her once what she does there. She said she counts the petals, and that the number is always different, and that this is the only thing in the city that is.

The Code Master built her to leave nothing confidential. He did not build her to keep something for herself. She did that on her own, which he says is the point.