The purple thundercloud spiraled downward like an inverted cone of bruised ink.
Violet lightning crackled along the outer rim of the vortex, bathing the tiled roofs of Seven-Tower City in an eerie, jagged glow. The air turned heavy with ozone, sulfur, and the suffocating weight of celestial judgment.
Inside the study, Linnea levitated six inches above her woven rush mat.
Her dark robes billowed in a silent gale, and her violet eyes shone like twin lanterns of pure white fire. Her Nascent Soul vessel was expanding at a terrifying pace, drinking in the pristine medicinal energy of the two Cloud-Veined Supreme pills.
Before the first stroke of lightning could touch the rooftop, the study door banged open.
Old Barnaby Holt burst into the room like a charging war-bear. He held his blackened eight-pound cast-iron ladle raised high, his weathered eyes blazing with frantic fury.
Behind him crowded thirty clan patriarchs, their embroidered silk robes fluttering in panic.
“Are you trying to get us all executed?” Barnaby bellowed in a harsh, strangled whisper. “She is breaking through directly over Master Ash’s bedchamber!”
