The crystalline shard, a tiny, glittering spearhead of the Guardian's disapproval, lay scattered on the polished marble floor. No one else in the sprawling hall seemed to notice, the hum of post-announcement chatter, the clinking of champagne glasses, drowning out the subtle ping. Only Zayn felt the impact, a cold, sharp warning reverberating not in his ears, but in the deepest recesses of his mind. Correction sequence initiated. Your path is diverging too rapidly. The system's whisper was a chilling counterpoint to the roaring triumph he had just orchestrated on the global stage.
He forced himself to breathe, to keep the polite, if distant, smile plastered on his face as a flurry of congratulatory remarks and veiled probes washed over him. Elias Thorne, Julian's cousin, was long gone, ha
