"Wake up, sleepyhead."
The voice cut through the fog in my head.
I groaned softly, blinking against the darkness. For a moment I expected to see the tangled canopy of Veilwood above me, moonlight slipping through ancient branches.
But the air smelled different.
Sharper. Charged.
My gloves twitched faintly, reacting to currents I couldn't yet understand.
"Come on," Kael said. "You're going to want to see this."
I pushed myself up slowly.
The world exploded into light.
Towers of glass and alloy stretched into the night sky, their surfaces threaded with glowing lines of Aetherflow that pulsed like veins of living energy. Neon highways curved through the air between buildings, streams of hover vehicles streaking past in ribbons of color.
Drones drifted high above, their lights flickering like distant fireflies.
For a moment I couldn't move.
The city spread endlessly in every direction—layer upon layer of platforms, bridges, and floating structures disappearing into the darkness below and the stars above.
Rain had recently fallen. Every street far beneath us gleamed like liquid glass, reflecting thousands of glowing signs and shifting glyphs.
"Welcome," Kael said quietly, "to Aetherion."
I stepped closer to the edge of the platform.
The wind tugged at my jacket as another stream of vehicles cut through the sky, their engines humming softly as they vanished between two arcology towers.
Bioluminescent plants spilled over the sides of nearby structures, glowing faint shades of violet and teal, their light blending with the neon glow of the city.
My heart pounded.
This wasn't just a city.
It was alive.
Something caught my attention far across the skyline.
High on a distant tower, a single glyph burned brighter than the rest.
My vision narrowed.
The world seemed to shrink around that one point of light.
I leaned forward slightly, trying to focus—
And the entire city reflected in my eyes.
Tower lights. Neon highways. Hover traffic streaking through the night.
Aetherion burned inside my vision like a living constellation.
Behind me, Kael shifted.
"They're watching," he said.
A shadow moved along the edge of a distant platform.
Too fast to be a drone.
Too deliberate to be random.
The feeling from Veilwood returned instantly—that quiet pressure in the back of my mind.
The sense that something unseen was studying every move we made.
I slowly straightened.
The wind swept across