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Chapter 433
The night sky goes wrong without warning. At first, it looks like cloud cover. A dark smear stretching from horizon to horizon. Then the stars behind it dim. Not vanish. They fade, as if something drinks their light before it reaches the ground. Across the northern hemisphere, people stop walking.Cameras tilt upward. Telescopes scramble to focus. System sensors spike, then flatline.The aurora spreads. It is black, not empty. Thick bands ripple slowly, folding over each other like curtains pulled by unseen hands. No color bleeds from it. No radiation spills outward. Instead, the city lights beneath it flicker. Street lamps dim. Shield towers hum louder, compensating.In Solara Vant, the Grand Prism Plaza goes quiet. Oliver stands on a balcony high above the city, coat pulled tight against the wind. Iris stands to his right. Billy leans against the railing, chewing nothing, jaw tight. Above them, the aurora pulses once. The city’s light drops a fraction. Oliver’s HUD flares red.AN
Chapter 432
The plaza wakes before dawn. Workers move across the Grand Prism Plaza in straight lines, laying light panels into the crystal floor. Each panel locks with a sharp click. Towers surrounding the square brighten one by one, their facets catching the rising sun and bending it into clean bands of color. Drones hover low, stringing ribbons of hard light between spires. By midmorning, the city hums.Crowds pour in from every avenue. Civilians. Travelers. Soldiers in patched armor and polished boots. Some wear medals. Some wear bandages that glow faintly with healing fields.Children ride on shoulders. Vendors shout over each other, selling food wrapped in translucent paper that steams when opened.Above it all, lanterns float upward, released in clusters. Each lantern holds a small core of light, warm and steady. They rise slowly, drifting like stars being born.Oliver stands behind the stage, listening. The noise presses in waves. Cheers. Laughter. The low roar of thousands of voices la
Chapter 431
The scar is visible from orbit. The transport slows as it crosses the old boundary of Veyra Reach. The sky shifts color. Clouds thin, then break apart. Below them, the plateau stretches wide and empty. At its center lies the wound.A valley of black glass cuts through the land, miles long, its surface smooth and cracked like frozen waves. Light bends along its edges. Faint motes drift upward, slow and steady, as if the ground itself exhales.Oliver stands at the open ramp as the ship descends. Wind tears at his coat. His boots vibrate against the deck.Billy leans near the console, chewing on a strip of synth-tobacco he never lights. “Sensors are screaming,” he says. “No threat lock, but everything’s humming.”Iris steps beside Oliver. Her hand rests near her sidearm, not touching it. Her eyes track the valley. “I can hear it,” she says.Oliver nods once. “So can I.”The transport sets down on a ridge overlooking the scar. The engines cut. Silence rushes in, heavy and thick. It pres
Chapter 430
The first rumor arrives as a broken signal. A scout skiff limps into Solara Vant’s outer airspace with half its hull melted and its beacon flickering. Dock crews rush to it before the alarms finish sounding. The hatch opens. No one steps out at first. Smoke spills onto the platform. Then a hand appears, shaking, fingers burned black at the tips.Oliver stands at the edge of the dock with Iris and Billy behind him. He does not move when the medics run past. His HUD flickers once, then stabilizes.A word scrolls across it. ANOMALOUS SIGNATURE: UNCLASSIFIEDThe scout is carried out on a stretcher. His eyes stay open. They track the ceiling lights as if counting them. “Zone?” a medic asks.The scout swallows. His throat clicks. “Deep,” he says. “Past the mapped lanes.”“Threat level?”The scout laughs. It comes out wrong. He coughs blood onto his suit. “There was no threat,” he says. “There was a place.”They wheel him away. Billy exhales through his teeth. “That’s never good.”Iris wat
Chapter 429
The training hall was silent, except for the faint hum of energy coursing through the floors.Rows of Light Division recruits lined up on polished crystal panels, weapons at the ready. Light arcs traced along the walls, calibrated to simulate rift instability. The air felt thick, heavy with residual energy from yesterday’s exercises.Iris stood at the center. Her gauntlets gleamed under the hall lights, sleeves rolled up, bandages still faintly visible beneath the fabric. Sweat ran down her temples. Every muscle in her body was tense. “Begin,” the instructor said. His voice was clipped, sharp.The air shifted. Energy pulses fired from the walls, arcs of light bending through the hall to test the recruits. Some flinched, some ducked. A few held their ground.Iris inhaled. She focused on the glow in her veins, the faint resonance left behind by Oliver’s Anchor. It pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat, steady, constant.She raised her hands. Light bent around her palms, fragile at first.
Chapter 428
The deal happened in a broken loading bay under Solara Vant. The lights flickered overhead, one panel dead, another buzzing with a soft whine. Cargo crates sat stacked in uneven towers, most stamped with old Guild markings scratched nearly clean.Billy Harrow stood with his hands in his coat pockets. Across from him, three people waited. Two were Travelers with mismatched armor plates and no insignia. The third was a woman in civilian gear, her sleeves rolled up, knuckles scarred.She slid a data slate across a crate. “Convoy leaves at dawn,” she said. “Medical supplies. Structural braces. Power cells. All legit. All heading to the Reach.”Billy didn’t touch the slate yet. “And the route?” he asked.“Old smuggler lanes,” she replied. “Safe enough if you know where the blind spots are.”Billy nodded once and pulled a small cred chip from his pocket. He flicked it across the crate. It skidded to a stop near her hand. “That clears your debt,” he said. “And buys you a Guild escort.”One
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