It’s here, I project to Kade, my mental voice sharp, cutting through the physical discomfort. Hold the line.
Always, he replies, his mental presence a solid, unbreakable wall.
The shadow reaches the orbit of Mars.
The sky above Blackthorn territory, visible through the reinforced windows of the war room, shifts from a bruised violet to a deep, absolute black. The sun is blotted out. The stars disappear. A massive, suffocating darkness falls over the Earth.
The pack howls. A sound of defiance, of terror, of absolute, unyielding resolve. It echoes across the territory, a physical force that shakes the glass in the windows.
The shadow reaches the orbit of Earth.
The gravitational shear hits. The ground beneath the Academy trembles violently. The monitors in the war room flicker, the hol
