The wind on the Ridge didn't howl anymore; it screamed with a high-pitched, metallic frequency that made the very air feel like it was composed of needles. Killian, the twin who had lived in the shadows of the North Star, hung suspended in the air, his expensive white suit fluttering like a broken wing. The creature—the thing that wore Kaelen’s face but possessed a soul of white fire—held him by the throat with a single, obsidian-scaled hand.
"Kaelen, stop!" Elara shouted, her voice barely audible over the sub-harmonic roar of the dying Sun-Core.
She scrambled toward them, her knees scraping against the jagged shards of shattered amber. The golden glass was no longer warm; it was leaching the heat from the environment, turning the crater into a sub-zero tomb.
The creature turned its hea
