The sky was no longer grey. It was becoming a blinding, incandescent white.
Within three hours of Vane’s ultimatum, the ambient temperature in the capital had jumped twenty degrees. It wasn't the natural warmth of a rising summer sun, but a forced, artificial radiation that made the very cobblestones of the plaza shimmer with a mirage-like haze. The soft, gentle rain Lucien had summoned earlier evaporated before it could hit the parched earth, leaving behind a cloying, humid fog that smelled of mineral dust and desperation.
Lucien stood atop the highest observation deck of the ruined palace, his shadow a sharp, black needle against the glaring stone. He felt hollow. Inside his mind, where memories of a father’s voice or the smell of a childhood home should have been, there was only a va
