The air inside the throat of the atmospheric spire was non-existent. It was a vacuum of static, pressure, and the cold, unfeeling pull of the violet field. Giulia’s fingers clutched at the empty air over the shattered railing, her skin screaming from the friction of the forcefield that had severed her from Matteo. Far below, the black, frothing maw of the Atlantic swallowed his silhouette in less than a heartbeat.
No. The word didn't leave her throat; it was crushed backward by the sheer g-force of Il Regina’s ascent. The rusted freighter was no longer a ship; it was a payload, a piece of ancient debris being sucked into the belly of an obsidian god.
"Matteo!" her mind shrieked into the network, but the frequency was dead, choked by the authoritative violet hum of the new core.
"He is u
