The silver glare pouring from the duplicate’s eyes did not illuminate the white salt desert; it stripped the color from their skin, leaving Cassian, Elena, Vanya, and Yuri like grayscale sketches against the blinding terrain.The kinetic pressure radiating from the blood-soaked ledger in his hand was so absolute that the salt dune beneath their boots instantly turned into liquid, glass-like quartz. Cassian slammed onto his knees, his broken body screaming as his bad knee sank into the molten slag. Yet, with a ragged, feral growl, he dragged himself in front of Elena and Yuri, his bare, blistered hands curling into defensive fists despite his shattered shoulder."I don't care whose face you're wearing!" Cassian spat, blood and white salt dust spraying from his cracked lips onto the cooling quartz. "You take one step closer to them, and I’ll tear that skin off your bones!"The silver-eyed Kaelen did not flinch. He lifted the human-skin ledger, its pages fluttering in a wind that no one

The grinding roar of the black glass tombstone splitting open was not the sound of breaking rock; it was the deafening screech of reality unspooling at its seams.Massive iron-toothed jaws, forged from calcified centuries and dripping with boiling solar plasma, erupted from the white salt desert. The kinetic vacuum generated by their ascent inverted gravity itself, ripping the quartz floor to shreds and sending Cassian, Elena, Vanya, and Yuri tumbling into a roaring whirlwind of white dust and liquid gold. Below them, the cosmic engine exposed inside Kaelen’s chest pulsed violently, throwing off blinding shockwaves of solar fire that collided against the cold silver static of the falling tribunal.Cassian hurled his broken frame through the atmospheric vortex, throwing his bad leg over a floating slab of quartz to launch himself toward Elena. His shoulder screamed as his shattered collarbone shifted, but his bloodied hand locked around her wrist, jerking her tight against his chest am

The inversion of the black glass hourglass did not make a sound; it sent a kinetic shockwave of sheer, suffocating dread through the freezing mountain air.Inside the upper bulb of dark crystal, Oi’s tiny, glowing golden soul-ember beat like a trapped hummingbird, thrashed against the walls as the heavy black sand began to trickle downward through the narrow neck. Every single grain of sand that fell into the lower chamber released a tiny, agonizing echo of Oi’s final grunt when he had wedged his arm into the key. The air around the peak turned to static ice, locking Cassian’s boots to the frozen stone as High Councillor Vane stood elevated on a pedestal of black ice, his restored fingers caressing the delicate iron rim of the glass."VANE!" Cassian roared, a feral, gut-wrenching shriek that tore his throat wide open, spraying fresh crimson onto the stained snow.Disregarding his shattered knee, Cassian lunged forward across the slick ice, his bare, bloodied fingers clawing at the fro

The downward slam of the titan’s iron fist did not merely break stone; it unseated the mountain’s mantle, hurling thousands of tons of ancient granite into the black abyss below.A blistering draft of superheated air and pressurized black ash erupted from the exposed furnace engine, instantly melting the snow into scalding torrents of water that cascaded down the crumbling rock face. Cassian was thrown backward across the fracturing peak, his shattered knee catching on a jagged crag as gravity vanished beneath them. Down in the roaring maw of the continental engine, massive iron pistons the size of city cathedrals hammered rhythmically against pools of molten black iron, each strike sending shockwaves of cosmic flame soaring into the night sky."ELENA!" Cassian screamed, his voice a raw, agonizing tear that sprayed blood into the thermal updraft.He reached blindly through the blinding smoke and ash, his bare, blistered fingers locking around Elena’s wrist just as the rock ledge benea

The reverse spin of the cosmic clockwork did not merely defy gravity; it ground the fabric of space into shimmering, razor-sharp fragments of frozen time.The massive pendulum blade, suspended high in the split black sky, groaned under immense mechanical torque as the parallel Elena held it fast with her bare, blood-soaked hands. Down on the collapsing granite ledge, the kinetic backlash of the reverse rotation slammed Cassian against the sharp rock face. Blood sprayed from his mouth as his cracked ribs shifted violently, but his single open eye remained fixed on the glowing, solar-lit figure hanging within the temporal machinery above them."ELENA!" Cassian roared, a frantic, desperate shriek that tore his throat raw against the howling solar wind.He reached frantically across the slick ice, his broad, scarred hand locking around the living Elena’s waist as the shifting gravity tried to pull her up toward the temporal rift."I’VE GOT YOU!" Cassian bellowed, his voice cracking with a