The universe has always known how to trade.
Life for power.
Power for safety.
Safety for obedience.
What it has never known how to face…
Is something that cannot be bought.
⸻
The first thing the Predator takes is not a city.
It takes a meaning.
A small mountain settlement three territories east of Blood Moon wakes to find its river still flowing, its buildings still standing, its people still breathing—
But their future is gone.
Jason sees it through a fractured surveillance lattice and goes completely still.
“No,” he whispers.
Zane turns sharply. “What.”
“They still exist,” Jason says slowly. “But every probability strand that extends beyond the next forty-eight hours just… ends.”
I feel the heir stiffen inside me, a low warning coil of instinctive recognition.
“They aren’
