While the gears of empires turned in the high palace, a different struggle for survival was unfolding millions of miles away. Deep within a primal forest where the trees reached for the clouds like jagged emerald spears, the 100,000 survivors from the Dome were carving a life out of the unknown.
At the center of this burgeoning colony, Lena, Cassandra, Chloe, and Lilly stood with Martha, Ethan's mother. Their faces were thinner, their eyes sharper, but the despair that had haunted them in the Crimson Sect was gone, replaced by a fierce, communal will to live.
Leading the scouting parties was Jason, Ethan's right hand. A week had passed since their arrival, and the "luck" of the Amethyst lineage seemed to have followed them even in Ethan's absence.
"The perimeter is secure," Jason reported, his voice vibrating with a new, resonant power.
