The sky over the Ash-Lands wasn't just gray; it was a choking, physical weight. I stood on the jagged ridge of the Obsidian Crags, watching the latest caravan of refugees stumble through the sulfurous fog. They were coughing, their lungs burning from the very air they were supposed to find freedom in."Cassian, they’re dying!" Mallow shouted, his voice cracking as he dragged a half-conscious miner away from a vent of toxic steam. "We brought them here to save them, but the land itself is finishing what the Alliance started!""Keep them moving toward the center!" I yelled back, my eyes stinging from the grit. "Silas! Status on the distillation vats?"Silas scrambled up the ridge, his goggles caked in white soot. "The vats are primed, but it’s suicide, Cassian! You’re talking about mixing alchemical salts with raw atmospheric toxin. If the reaction doesn't stabilize, we aren't just making air—we're making a bomb!""It’s not just air," I said, stepping toward the massive iron cauldron we

The white light of the orbital invitation had barely faded when the reality of the Ash-Lands snapped back into focus. I was still standing on the deck of the downed frigate, my boot on Valen’s chest, when the air fifty yards away began to shimmer like a desert heat mirage."Cassian, get back!" Mallow barked, his hands still dripping with the black sludge of the Void-Qi hoses. "Another raid?""No," I said, squinting as the shimmer coalesced into the shape of a man. "This is too quiet for a raid."The figure that emerged was draped in robes that shifted colors like a dying sunset—indigo to gold, crimson to violet. He carried a staff topped with a crystal that hummed a hypnotic, low-frequency chord. Behind him, four guards followed, their armor polished to a mirror finish, reflecting a sky that wasn't gray with ash, but a perfect, impossible blue."The Third Star sends his greetings," the man announced, his voice smooth as oiled silk. He didn't walk; he glided over the soot as if he were

The sky over the Ash-Lands had been replaced by a ceiling of iron. Five hundred armored airships, each a fortress of brass and steam, hung in a perfect, suffocating ring. The "Great Wall" wasn't a metaphor; the sheer mass of the fleet blocked the sun, plunging our sanctuary into a permanent, artificial twilight."They’ve done it," Silas whispered, his hands trembling as he adjusted his binoculars on the ramparts. "Five hundred hulls. The heavy-hitters. Those are Dreadnought-class carriers. They aren’t just blockading us, Cassian. They’re forming a physical shell.""Distance?" I asked. My voice felt hollow, the weight of the "Long Shift" pressing into my marrow."One kilometer out. They’ve established a static-anchor field. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. Not even a message-glider." Silas turned to me, his face pale under the soot. "They’re calling it the 'Iron Shroud.' We’re in a coffin, Boss.""A coffin is only a coffin if you're dead, Silas," I said.Mallow stormed up the stairs,

The sky over the Ash-Lands had turned into a bruised purple tapestry, illuminated by the burning wrecks of the five frigates I’d just dismantled. I stood in the center of the crater, my lungs screaming for oxygen that was no longer there, watching the *Invictus* retreat like a wounded dog."He's running! Look at that coward go!" Mallow’s voice boomed from the ramparts, followed by a roar of cheering from the Dross."He isn't running, Mallow," I said into the comm-stone, my eyes fixed on a single, silver transport shuttle descending from the flagship’s belly. It didn't have the markings of the Alliance. It bore a seal I hadn't seen in twenty years—a blooming lotus wrapped in barbed wire. "He’s making room for someone else.""Cassian, get back to the gates," Silas urged, his voice tight. "The sensors are glitching. That shuttle... it doesn't have a heat signature. It’s like it’s made of ghost-light."I didn't move. The shuttle touched down thirty yards away, the landing hiss sounding li

The white whirlpool of the First Star’s light didn't consume me. It spat me out into the sub-basements of the Falling Laboratory, a place the green fire hadn't reached. The air here was dead, heavy with the smell of formaldehyde and high-voltage ozone."Cassian! Can you hear me?" Silas’s voice was a jagged mess of static in my ear. "The lab is sinking into the Trench of Sorrows. You have three minutes before the water pressure crushes the hull!""I’m not leaving yet, Silas," I growled, pushing myself off the cold steel floor. My heart was thumping a steady, aggressive rhythm, the Heart-Thaw potion surging through my veins. "Vespera was hiding something deeper than just acid and children. I can feel it in the Void. A pull. Like a drain at the bottom of the world.""Boss, the First Star is still up there!" Mallow yelled. "He’s holding the time-stasis! If you don't move now, you'll be frozen in the dark forever!""He’s busy holding the explosion back," I said, stepping toward a door mark