[The Silent Threshold — Seventh Space — Day 68 — 6:30 AM]
The presence at the center of the seventh space took shape.
Gradually. The spiritual signature that Kira read as *expectant* and that Raven's F3 recognized as active condensed into the space between the team and the central point of the forty‑two‑meter circle.
A spectral form — the kind that F3 produced when Raven summoned Army of Bones, but different. Raven's skeletons were matter animated by F3. This was spiritual plane with form. The difference between a shadow cast by a candle and the candle itself.
A man. Or what had been a man at some point far enough back that the remaining form was approximate — the correct contours, the recognizable proportions, the features with sufficient precision.
His eyes — if they could be called eyes — held the same irisless crimson that Fragment bearers had at high corruption.
Fixed on Alex.
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The team didn't attack.
