The cold echo of Sovereign Solon’s voice lingered in the vaulted chamber like the residue of a lethal poison.
Inside the grand observation dome of the Blood-Star Citadel, the thirty-day crimson hourglass hung suspended in the air. Each grain of celestial sand that dropped through the glass neck sounded like an executioner’s bell.
Ancestor Draven dragged himself upright against the obsidian dais, clutching his ruined breastplate. Black blood trickled through his fingers, sizzling where it dripped onto the stone.
“Thirty days,” Draven rasped, his cracked Saint Vessel pulsing with jagged purple agony. “The master will not grant an extension. If the Star-Array does not reach full power before the sand runs dry, we are all dead.”
Ancestor Pyre paced nearby, his scorched scarlet beard bristling with fury, while Ancestor Vesper watched from the balcony shadows.
The chamber hung high above the churning sea, mounted directly inside the orbital Star-Array’s lower control armature. Colossal bronze gears turned slowly against the outer sky, their teeth grinding with an ominous, mechanical groan. Through the reinforced observation slits, the crimson mist of the archipelago stretched for thousands of leagues.
Vesper looked through the eastern slit, staring across the ocean toward the faint silver radiance of Void Lotus Isle. His pale fingers tightened around his scrying mirror until the bronze frame bent.
