The pillar of light thinned as it climbed, resolving into something with edges, a shape neither quite solid nor quite mist, and at its heart, level with the top of the watchtower, a single vast eye opened with the same slow, deliberate patience Rama remembered from the mound in the valley. Every soldier still standing on that field froze at the sight of it, weapons forgotten, and even Ardhana beside him went utterly still.
The air around the pillar carried a cold that had nothing to do with any ordinary winter Rama had ever felt, a cold that seemed to press directly against thought rather than skin, and the ground within twenty paces of the crater had already gone white and brittle beneath a fresh layer of frost. He could feel his own System readouts flickering at the edge of his vision, numbers that had held rock steady through an hour of combat now stuttering as though even his stats weren't entirely certain how to categorize what stood in front of him.
