"Raise the main sail and cut those dock lines before the council guards block the harbor exit!" Silas roared, his voice carrying across the polished wooden deck of the flagship.Three heavy iron chains snapped tight along the stone pier as a detachment of fifty armored council guards marched double-time down the harbor steps. They wore the fresh silver tabards of the capital's new provisional government, their long pike spears glinting in the morning sun."Halt that vessel!" the chief councilor shouted from the top of the stone stairs, holding up an official parchment scroll stamped with red wax. "By order of the provisional council, all guardian-class ships are impounded for the defense of the capital!"Lyra stood near the helm, her pale hands holding the three dull grey metal fragments. Above her palms, the small floating arrow of pure crystal ice pointed directly out toward the open ocean, glowing with a soft, pale blue light."We do not take orders from your council, magistrate!"

"Get those heavy iron crowbars onto the lower ledge before the sea swells again!" Silas bellowed, his voice cutting clean through the roaring steam.The massive, hundred-foot mechanical gate stretched two miles across the boiling sea, its rusted black iron bars blocking the alliance fleet entirely. Cascades of hot water drained off the ancient stone pillars, filling the air with bitter sulfur fumes."We cannot shoot our way through two miles of forged guardian plate!" Silas yelled toward the quarterdeck, pointing a thick finger at the waterlogged stone housing at the base of the central pillar. "The manual override housing is sitting right above the waterline! Lower the longboats!""Silas, that stone platform is scalding!" Lyra called out, holding her guardian staff steady as she kept the cooling light active around the flagship's hull. "The mechanism has not moved in hundreds of years!""It will move today!" Silas growled, dropping his heavy coat onto the wooden deck.He reached down

"Pull him out of the water before that shadow beneath his boots swallows him whole!" Lyra shrieked, her hand clinging to the wet rope net.Silas kicked his legs frantically, his thick leather uniform soaked through and dragging him down into the freezing deep. Beneath his boots, the deep ocean water flared with an intense, pulsing blue light. The massive silhouette surged upward with terrifying speed, displacing hundreds of tons of seawater and lifting the entire flagship three feet into the air as its back broke the surface."Hold on to the rigging!" Silas bellowed, grabbing the net with both hands as a massive, moss-covered dome rose out of the waves right beneath his feet.The creature was gigantic, easily twice the length of the flagship. It was a living crystalline turtle native to the deepest uncharted waters of the Wilds. Its immense, rounded shell was not made of simple bone, but constructed from interlocking plates of glowing blue quartz and translucent crystal. Nestled withi

"Cover your eyes, Lyra, before that shadow tears the sight straight out of your skull!" Silas roared, shielding his face with a heavy leather-wrapped forearm.The towering thirty-foot geyser of liquid shadow roared like an angry ocean, shooting high into the damp air from the shattered remains of the turtle's primary shell crystal. Dark ink swirled through the sky, blotting out the pale sunlight and coating the wooden decks of the alliance flagship in a freezing, midnight frost.Then, the roaring dark waterfall stopped moving.The massive plume of liquid shadow froze mid-air, contracting violently into a single, dense point of light. A blinding flash of pale blue frost and deep midnight darkness erupted outward, illuminating the ocean for miles in every direction.Standing in the center of the shattered crystal stood Marcus Vance.He was no longer the wounded, fading warrior who had vanished into the spatial tear. His physical form was completely stable, glowing with a brilliant fusio

"Do not open that main exhaust valve or the pressure spike will kill her where she lies!" Marcus roared, his double-layered voice shaking the metal bridge walls.The master bridge of the crashed space-vessel was turning into a furnace. Glowing red lines crept along the curved steel floorboards, and thick white steam hissed out from every copper seam. In the center of the room, the crystal-clear stasis-pod stood illuminated by a steady blue light. Inside the thick glass, Clara Vance remained frozen in deep sleep, her dark hair floating gently in the surrounding fluid.Marcus rushed toward the master control pedestal, his dual elemental eyes scanning the flickering brass dials. His hands hovered over the primary power levers, but a sharp, mechanical alarm screeched from the ceiling speakers.BEEP-BEEP-WARNING."Security firewall active," a cold, automated voice echoed through the bridge. "Primary engine core linked to bio-life support unit. Manual shutdown of core will result in immedia