Petrus tried to stir, and the first thing the Aberrant inside him checked was vitality.
Not pain. Not pride. Vitality, the pulse of the world that told it where prey walked and where fear still had a warm throat.
Spendworth Hills was thick with it. Over fifty thousand hybrids already answered the call, and Petrus sent them out again, hungry orders carried on the same infected instinct.
In Cairnlight Barterhold, Radeon moved first.
He activated the Vitality Obscuring Array. The air changed, subtle as a veil pulled across a face.
Hybrids that were used to hunting by lifeforce found the streets suddenly wrong.
Warm bodies became harder to find. The living turned into dim candles behind frosted glass.
Calyx, still pinned a heartbeat ago by throne and javelin, broke out of the seal.
Darkness billowed from him, a smoke so heavy it pushed men back without touching them.
It rolled over stone, swallowed sight, and when it thinned the throne and the javelin were gone.
