It started with a glitch.
Not on one screen. On all of them.
At 3:17 p.m. GMT, every live broadcast—news anchors mid-sentence, soccer matches, cooking shows, stock tickers—froze for exactly seven seconds.
Then the image dissolved into falling leaves.
Gold. Crimson. Black.
They swirled in silence, forming a face.
Lysander.
Not as he appeared in Axiom's sterile files or Aria's war-room dossiers. This was something older. His eyes glowed faint amber, pupils slit like a cat's. Vines coiled through his hair. Behind him, shadows moved—not cast by light, but breathing on their own.
No network claimed the feed. No government interrupted it.
Because no one could.
"I speak not as a king," Lysander said, voice calm but layered—like wind through ancient trees, "but as a witness."
He paused. Let the words sink into living rooms, subway stations, military command centers.
"You have broken the covenant."
