The air inside the observation deck felt like a tomb that had been opened after a thousand years. Clevatess stood before the empty quartz throne, his violet eyes tracking the movement of the black mirrors. These were not mere decorations; they were windows into the network of Sun-Gates, each one now flickering and dimming as the Absolute Zero pulse from the Feeding Station moved through the ley lines like a slow, cold poison.
Alicia moved to the center of the room, her blue aura reflecting off the dark glass. Something is wrong, she whispered, her hand tightening on her hilt. The Queen is many things, but she is not a coward. She wouldn't leave her northern seat unless she was inviting us into something far worse.
Clevatess didn't answer immediately. He stepped toward the throne and picked up the discarded golden glove. As his fingers touched the sun-glass fabric, a searing heat jolted through his arm, clashing with the violet mana beneath his skin. The glove didn't just contain warmth; it contained a memory—a flash of a sky turned to molten lead and a city drowning in a light so bright it erased the shadows of the living.
He dropped the glove, and it hissed as it hit the frost-covered floor. She isn't retreating, Clevatess said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. She is consolidating. She is pulling the heat from every gate in the kingdom to feed the Flame of Dread at the capital. She is going to burn the world to save her crown.
A sudden, violent tremor shook the glacier. It wasn't the grinding of gears or the collapse of ice. It was a sound from the sky—a heavy, rhythmic beating that felt like a giant heart made of brass. Outside the high windows, the clouds began to swirl into a massive, glowing vortex.
Nelluru ran to the edge of the deck, her lime-green aura pulsing with pure terror. That isn't a Sky-Reaper, she gasped, pointing upward.
Clevatess walked to the window, his raven-feather mantle flaring as the pressure in the room shifted. Emerging from the clouds was a vessel three times the size of the ship he had frozen in the pass. It was a Dreadnought, plated in black iron and glowing with a fierce, concentrated solar core that turned the falling snow into a scalding rain.
The Dreadnought didn't fire its cannons. Instead, a hatch opened at the bottom of the hull, and a single, massive chain made of white-hot light shot downward, piercing through the roof of the observation deck with the force of a falling star. The chain latched onto the quartz throne, the heat instantly vaporizing the frost in the room.
The ceiling began to buckle as the Dreadnought started to pull, the entire summit of the fortress groaning under the strain. Clevatess looked at Alicia and Nelluru, his expression unreadable in the blinding gold light.
Then, the floor beneath them simply vanished.