[POV: Sofia Lanka]

"Alistair, if you don’t mask that thermal signature in the next thirty seconds, we are going to be sitting ducks in a very large, very sandy bathtub. The air is already starting to taste like ozone. That only happens when the Spire is adjusting its focal point. Do you have the dampeners online or are we just waiting for the King to drop a mountain on our heads?"

Sofia’s voice was like a whip-crack against the howling wind of the Gobi. She stood at the mouth of a jagged red-rock cave, her boots sinking into the fine, shifting silt of the Dead Zone. Her silver-gold eyes were...