Across Solara, the sky looked weird.
It started as a tremor in the light. Midday suns dimmed as if a veil had been drawn across them, their brilliance fractured by slow moving spirals of cloud that did not obey the wind. In Verathane, merchants stopped mid-transaction as shadows stretched in the wrong direction. Glass panes vibrated. Mana lamps flickered, then steadied into uneasy glows.
High above the Southern Archive, scholars poured onto balconies and towers.
Projection arrays bloomed to life as raw atmospheric mana twisted into visible currents. Lines of pressure formed rings in the sky, vast and rotating, faintly luminous.
"This is not weather," one archivist whispered.
Ervin stood still, eyes fixed on the forming crown far beyond the horizon. His hand tightened on his staff as the readings confirmed what instinct already knew. "Second sequence," he said. "The upper lattice has been disturbed."
