POV: Guildmistress Velra Syne
The city of Meridia woke to static.
Not noise.
Not silence.
Static.
A hum beneath the skin. A texture in the lungs. The sort of pressure that doesn't touch the body, but warps the space around it—like the air had forgotten what direction meant.
It crept in slow.
A war-drum with no rhythm.
First, the torchlight above the Sapphire Causeway dimmed—not out, just unfocused, like the flame had drifted out of phase with the world. Then the banners on the mage-towers began to twist inward, pulled by winds no one could feel.
That's when people noticed the taste.
The air soured. Like old copper and spent mana.
Every trained caster in Meridia went still at once.
They knew what it meant.
But none of them moved fast enough.
A beacon above the Grand Spire blinked once. The high-altitude orb—powered by seven converging ley-lines—shivered, then blinked again.
The pulse should've been measured. Bright. Timed.
This one came too soon.
