Arkael’s sharp call had stopped Kai at the western gates. The subtle tremor, the faint hum of energy beneath the uncharted western continent, had been a cold jolt of dread for Arkael, a premonition of Xandar’s awakening matrix. Kai, however, had merely felt the anticipation of the unknown, masking the deeper truth.
"Your Majesty?" Kai had asked, his brow furrowed with mild surprise, pausing at the threshold of the unexplored. Arkael’s gaze, fraught with unspoken warning, had met Elara’s, a silent, terrible understanding passing between them. But Kai, ever the man of action, could not see the distant, cosmic chess pieces moving on the board. He saw only the horizon, vast and beckoning.
Three months later, the western continent was no longer merely a blank space on a map; it was a sprawlin
