The dawn was an ember glow on the horizon, but Arcadia's gates had been sealed for hours. The Queen of Ashes might have been banished, yet her influence lingered like a smoldering ruin. Reports came from every quarter: villages at the Frostbound border turned to cinder, hostile ashstorms blotting out the sky. The Emberpetal Garden's wards pulsed desperately, the petals blackening at their edges. I stood before the Grand Hall's entrance, boots planted on frost-cracked marble, as Seraphina, Yuria, Valmira, Astraea, and Zephira assembled around me.
"Smoke's thickening," Seraphina said, frost-staff tracing protective runes in the air. "Our wards hold, but only just."
Yuria clenched her gauntlets. "Ash drifts in the Lightning Tower's conduits. The grid's flickering."
Valmira pored over her Codex. "Cinder storms coalesce into hostile fronts—moving toward the Academy. They carry embers that resist our wards."
Astraea drew Eclipse. "We can't let them breach the walls."
