The sun felt different. It was warmer, heavier, as if its light had been thickened by the new atmosphere we had brought back from the Void. But the warmth was hollow. I stood on the edge of the helipad, my hands still vibrating from the jump, and looked out over the transformed horizon.
The world was a patchwork of the impossible. I could see the shimmering spires of the Intersection city in the distance, but the mountains surrounding it were now etched with glowing red veins—the physical manifestation of my own blood-line anchoring the planet to this reality.
Then I saw the flyer.
It was crumpled like a discarded soda can against the obsidian side of the Observatory. The door was ripped off its hinges. Marcus Thorne was slumped against a rock, a jagged piece of glass embedded in his sh
