Elara's POV
The chamber was a brutal fusion of sacrilege and science. The domed ceiling, once meant to view the stars, was now a twisted lattice of both crackling wires and dark crystals. In the center, suspended in a harness of tubes and glowing filaments, hung a young woman.
She was fragile-looking and pale, her head shaved. Wires were inserted at her temples, her spine. A translucent fluid that glowed with dim silver light, a stolen Potential energy? pumped through the tubes into the machine around her. Her eyes were open, but they saw nothing. They were pools of unending, pure sorrow. This was the source of the psychic weight that filled the Apex.
Mira's sorrow.
Standing before the harness was an old woman. She was slight, draped in simple grey robes, her hands clasped. Her face wa
