The obsidian table was still warm from the friction of a hundred signatures when the sky over Aethelgard turned a blinding, impossible gold. It wasn't the soft amber of a rising sun or the harsh neon of a High Rise advertisement. It was a searing, atmospheric roar of light that bleached the purple clouds into ash. Astra gripped the edge of the stone, her silver eyes narrow as the thermal sensors in the room shrieked a warning. The temperature in the Grand Atrium spiked forty degrees in a heartbeat, melting the water carafes into slumped silhouettes of plastic.
"Dante," Astra rasped, her voice dropping into the double toned resonance. "This isn't weather."
Dante didn't answer. He was already at the edge of the shattered glass wall, his Alpha shadows boiling off his skin to form a physical
