LOGINPOV: Barzil AshfangPity was a sharper blade than hatred. Hatred made the blood hot; it fueled the muscles. Pity just made the stomach turn over, cold and heavy like a stone swallowed whole.Barzil walked through the labyrinth of rusted shipping containers. The air here didn't move. It hung stagnant, thick with the smell of wet oxidation, sulfur, and the sweet, cloying scent of sewage baking in the heat. He breathed through his mouth to spare his olfactory senses, but the taste coated his tongue—metallic and foul.He stopped before a structure made of corrugated tin and scavenged plastic tarp. It sat in the shadow of a collapsed cooling tower, a tumor growing out of the industrial debris.Inside, something scratched against the metal. Skritch. Skritch. Like a rat gnawing on bone.Barzil reached for his sword. The leather grip of the hilt was warm under his palm. His heart beat a slow, heavy rhythm against his ribs—thud-thud. He wasn't afraid of the fight. He was afraid of the smell co
POV: Commander IsharaRuins were just foundations waiting for a better architect. But the dust... the dust didn't care about the vision.Ishara wiped the grit from her forehead with the back of her glove. The friction scraped her skin, leaving a raw, red streak. The air in Sector 4 tasted of pulverized concrete and ozone from the plasma cutters—a sharp, metallic tang that coated the back of her throat and made her need to cough. She suppressed it. A Commander did not cough in front of her unit.She stood on the scaffolding of what used to be a high-rise shell. Below her, the hive of Nova Luna moved with a chaotic, deafening rhythm."Lift unit three is overheating," a voice crackled in her earpiece."Cycle the coolant," Ishara ordered. Her voice was hoarse, the vocal cords strained from shouting over the machinery. "And tell the shift foreman to rotate the crew. I see three Nulls shaking. If they drop that beam, we lose a week."She looked down at the site.A year ago, the sight would
POV: Neoma SolsticeShe walked out to a sea of faces. But she only saw four.Neoma stood behind the heavy blast doors of the balcony. The vibration from the other side traveled through the three inches of steel, up through the soles of her boots, and rattled the bones in her shins. It wasn't a hum. It was a roar. A physical assault of sound generated by thirty million throats screaming one name."Heart rate is 110," Wolfy said. He stood to her left, his eyes fixed on the datapad. He smelled of nervous sweat and ozone. "Your cortisol levels are spiking.""I'm fine," Neoma said. She wasn't fine. Her stomach felt like it was filled with cold water. Her hands, resting at her sides, trembled with a fine, high-frequency shake.She looked at her hands. The skin was pale, flawless, glowing faintly in the dim light of the staging area. They didn't look like her hands. They looked like porcelain."You don't have to do this," Viggo growled. He stood to her right, close enough that she could feel
POV: Viggo RorikThey ate like starving men. Because for seven days, they had starved for her.Viggo sat on the floor, his back pressed against the canvas wall of the tent. A plate of roasted venison rested on his knee, but he wasn't eating. He was watching.Neoma sat in the center of the circle. She held a bone in her hands—greasy, charred, real. She tore the meat from it with her teeth. Grease ran down her chin. She didn't wipe it away. She chewed, swallowed, and took another bite before the first bolus had even cleared her throat.Viggo’s stomach clenched. It wasn't disgust. It was a profound, aching relief that made his eyes burn.She was solid. She was messy. She was biological."Slow down," Barzil rumbled. The Commander was sitting to her right, slicing fruit with a combat knife. "You will make yourself sick. Your stomach has been empty for a week.""It wasn't empty," Neoma mumbled around a mouthful of meat. "It was gone. I didn't have a stomach. I didn't have hunger."She swall
POV: Wolfy VanceShe looked like Neoma. She sounded like Neoma. But she felt like the tide.Wolfy stood at the foot of the cot, his hands gripping the metal rail until his knuckles turned the color of old bone. The medical tent was stifling, smelling of antiseptic, ozone, and the sour, nervous sweat of the Vanguard. The air recyclers hummed a low, rhythmic drone that usually calmed him. Today, it sounded like a countdown.Neoma lay on the bio-bed. She was sleeping.Or rather, her body was dormant.Wolfy watched the monitors. The green line of her heart rate was too slow. Thirty beats per minute. A human heart would be in failure. A Lycan heart would be in hibernation. But Neoma... Neoma was neither."Tell me again," Viggo growled from the corner. The Alpha was pacing, his boots scuffing the temporary flooring. Thump. Drag. Thump. Drag. He wouldn't sit. He hadn't sat since they pulled her off the dais six hours ago."The cellular regeneration is... anomalous," Wolfy said. His voice was
POV: Barzil AshfangA star falling to earth usually leaves a crater. This one left a girl.Barzil shielded his eyes, but the light didn't just blind him; it pushed him. The air pressure in the crater spiked, slamming into his chest like a solid wall of compressed gas. He flew backward, his boots skidding across the melted basalt, until his back hit the remains of the safety railing.Crack.His spine jarred against the iron. The pain was sharp, immediate, and grounding.He gasped, struggling to fill his lungs against the overpressure. The air tasted of ozone and burning hair. It was hot—hot enough to singe the stubble on his cheeks."Stay down!" Wolfy screamed from somewhere to his left.Barzil ignored him. He forced his eyes open. The lids felt gritty, scraping against his dry corneas.In the center of the dais, the silver beam didn't stop. It was a solid column of kinetic energy, drilling into the spot where the knife, the book, and the bead lay.It wasn't just light. It was matter.







