Starvation teaches the world a terrible truth:
Everything that lives will eventually try to eat what it cannot afford to lose.
⸻
The pilgrims reach the outer valleys of Blood Moon at dawn.
Not screaming.
Not rioting.
Just walking.
Millions of hollow-eyed lives moving on instinct alone, pulled by the only place left that still breathes with unbroken viability. They do not beg at the gates.
They kneel.
Not in worship.
In biological recognition.
The heir feels them all at once.
Not as individuals.
As a starving system pressing against a single unpriced heart.
I cry out as the pressure floods me so violently that my vision fractures into white light.
Zane catches me instantly.
“They’re overwhelming her,” he roars.
Jason is already redlining every stabilizer in the sanctum.
“T
