Serena's lips trembled as she sat in her dorm room, the communicator's dark surface reflecting her pale face. She wanted to laugh off Kain's warning, call him paranoid, but the steel in his voice—conviction, fear, urgency—choked her denial. The Abyss wasn't a distant threat that would only occasionally threaten the empire when an outbreak occurs a couple times a year. It was coming in full force in ten months, and the Eastern Continent was already experiencing the full extent of such an invasion.
"I'll… ask my father," she whispered, the words sour with treason. Her father, a high official in the Celestial Empire, held secrets even generals couldn't touch. If anyone knew, it was him. But the thought tightened her chest. A part of her didn't want to receive confirmation. To move from the doubtful state to one of certainty due to the truth. Not if the truth is that.
