The grand observatory at the apex of the High Spire was suspended in open sky, three thousand paces above the sea of clouds.
Under a vast hemispherical dome of enchanted, translucent crystal, the celestial cartographers of Caelum worked in hushed, frantic whispers.
In the center of the chamber, revolving silently in midair, was a massive celestial armillary sphere of forged brass and starlight crystal. The mechanical rings spun with a low, rhythmic clicking, projecting a ten-yard-wide three-dimensional map of the Earth-Moon orbital corridor into the cool night air.
Seraphina and Kaelen stood upon the observation terrace, having traded their coronation velvets for reinforced combat regalia.
Seraphina wore her fitted white dragon-scale battle armor, her sunstone bow and twin daggers sheathed at her hips, her twenty-foot wings of starlight folded tightly against her shoulder blades.
Beside her, Kaelen stood clad in his obsidian doom-plate, Gloom-Weaver resting against his armored thigh. His eighty-foot shadow-wings shifted beneath his dark-matter cloak like restless thunderclouds, his molten silver eyes fixed on the distant lunar projection.
"Focus the third optic, Vespera," Kaelen commanded in a low, gravelly baritone that cut through the observatory's mechanical hum.
Lady Vespera turned a brass wheel on the side of the central console.
The projection magnified exponentially, zooming past the blue jewel of Earth to the rugged, cratered gray surface of the Moon.
Hovering silently in synchronous orbit above the lunar dark side was the Star-Forge of Aethelgard.
It was a titanic, ring-shaped megalopolis of ancient white orichalcum and adamantine steel, twenty leagues in diameter.
At the center of the outer ring, suspended by four massive structural spokes, was an artificial containment sphere holding a dying miniature red giant star. The stellar core pulsed with faint, rhythmic crimson heartbeats, its solar flares held in check by ancient, dormant magnetic rings.
Yet around the perimeter of the ancient foundry, the black vacuum of space was swarming with parasitic shadows.
A fleet of twelve colossal, jagged dreadnoughts of blackened abyssal iron—the vanguard armada of Void-Admiral Karrus—had dropped out of the dark-matter stream.
Long, barbed umbilical cables of weeping soul-iron were already being drilled into the station’s primary solar radiator fins, pumping corrupting void-matter into the dormant stellar engine.
"They're not just trying to weaponize it," Seraphina said, her amber eyes blazing with sharp, diagnostic clarity as her paramedic instincts read the etheric telemetry.
Her golden crescent mark burned at the base of her throat, picking up the distress frequencies echoing through the celestial network.
"They’re force-feeding anti-matter directly into the containment sphere! If they trigger a forced supernova in that star-core, the resulting gamma-ray burst will scour the atmosphere from the eastern hemisphere of Earth and shatter the newly repaired Veil in a single stroke!"
"Karrus always was a cowardly butcher," Kaelen growled, his jaw tightening into lethal stone as his knuckles cracked against his sword hilt. "He won't fight on the ground where we can reach him. He wants to burn the chessboard from orbit."
"How do we get up there?" Seraphina asked, turning to face him. "Our wings can handle the upper stratosphere, but deep vacuum?"
Kaelen turned his gaze to her, a slow, predatory smirk touching his handsome face.
"The ancients did not fly to the stars on wings alone, my Queen," he said softly, his hand coming up to gently cup the nape of her neck, pulling her close until their foreheads touched. "Beneath the foundations of Caelum’s Reach lies the Void-Skiff of the First Sovereign—an etheric warship forged from the bone of the Elder Drake. It rides the solar winds like a falcon."
Seraphina smiled, her breath catching at the intoxicating warmth radiating from his skin.
"Then let's take your ship for a spin, Vance," she murmured against his lips.
Kaelen pressed a brief, fiercely possessive kiss to her mouth, sealing the promise before stepping back.
He drew Gloom-Weaver, raising the dark-matter blade toward the glowing projection of the moon.
"Sound the war horns!" Kaelen’s sovereign roar echoed through the High Spire, shaking the crystal dome to its foundations. "Ready the Void-Skiff! We take the battle to the stars!"