The chime had barely faded from Kaelen’s consciousness when the ocean above the trench shifted with terrifying, unnatural weight.
With thirty-six real hours remaining until Day Ninety, the grey sky above the Star-Fall Archipelago curdled into a sickly purple haze.
From the high cloud banks, Inquisitor Thorne-Crow’s black iron Censorate vessel descended in eerie silence.
The sleek warship drifted downward like a predatory falcon, coming to a halt directly beside The Void Lotus Adjudicator.
For the first time since the siege had begun, the Censorate and the Sanctuary fleet combined their forces for a single, unified assault.
Inquisitor Thorne-Crow stepped out onto his forward bridge deck, his black raven cloak swirling in the gale.
“Warden-Elder Moros,” Thorne-Crow called out, his voice sharp and metallic. “The Three Sanctuary Ancestors are observing this channel from high orbit. They do not tolerate further delays.”
“The boy is buried at the bottom of this throat,” Moros replied, his sunken eyes burning with feverish hatred. “I will not wait for orbital arrays. I will drag his carcass out with my own hands.”
