The tingling started in her spine.
ARIA was floating three thousand feet above the estate—absorbing Spiritual Energy the way she did every few hours, drawing it from the atmosphere through her skin and wings in long, slow currents that fed her evolving consciousness—when it hit.
A disruption. Faint. Like static in a frequency she didn't know she was monitoring.
Her wings stalled mid-beat.
Her mismatched eyes—narrowed. The golden veins beneath her luminous skin pulsed once, brighter than usual, an involuntary response to something her systems couldn't categorize.
Something was off.
Not anything she could name. Just… off. A disturbance in the spiritual atmosphere. Like the air had shifted a degree in a direction that didn't exist.
She reached outward. Every sense she possessed—and she possessed senses that many gods wouldn't develop for centuries—swept the area in concentric rings expanding at the speed of thought.
Nothing.
