Dawn never came.

The eastern horizon began to lighten—pale pre-dawn gray bleeding into the smoke-choked sky above New Portland's ruins. Then the light stopped. Froze. As if creation itself had paused mid-breath, uncertain whether to continue forward or collapse backward into primordial darkness.

Azrael felt it first through the Black Flame network. A wrongness spreading across the world like ice forming on still water. Not pain exactly. Not pressure. Just the fundamental sensation that ...