The small glass vial of iridescent moon-salts sat under the pale illumination of Kiara’s brass desk lamp, its crystalline structure softly humming with a unique, uncorrupted lunar frequency. On the dark mahogany surface around it lay several other rare botanical and mineral assets left behind by the terrified emissaries—dried night-blooming lotus fibers from the western valley, drop-extractions of pure mountain amber, and historical text fragments detailing primitive alchemical bonding methods.
To the Alphas who had offered them, these items were merely expensive tokens to purchase their survival. But to Kiara, they were the critical, missing biological elements required to initiate the second phase of her sovereign dominion.
She was no longer satisfied with merely forcing the packhouses
