The air shifted before the scenery did. It began as a subtle, prickling sensation against the skin, a static charge that made the fine hairs on my arms stand at attention. Then came the scent: a heavy, synthetic sweetness—crushed night-blooms, ozone, and a faint, cloying hint of metallic dust—layered over the sharp, ionized tang of the soil. It was the scent of a sepulcher that had been waiting for a funeral that never took place.
I stopped in my tracks. Elaris and Seth pulled up behind me, our boots sinking into a carpet of black, bioluminescent moss. It pulsed with a slow, hypnotic rhythm, forcing our own breathing to hitch and align with the beat of a pulse not our own. Above, the sky had bruised into a deep, sickly violet, dominated by three moons—sapphire, crimson, and amethyst—hung
