Chapter Thirty: The Grey Vanguard
The air over the valley was no longer the crisp, hopeful scent of a new spring; it was the acrid stench of a world being sterilized. The green beams from the pods continued to stitch the sky, creating a grid of light that seemed to trap the very wind.
I stood at the head of the ridge, my silver-grey fur bristling as the pack gathered behind me. There were hundreds of them now—warriors from the House of Iron, the House of Silk, and the broken remnants of the High Guard. They didn't look at Elias with the worshipful awe they once had; they looked at him with the pity one gives a fallen prince. But when they looked at me, they bared their teeth in a grim, reflected hunger. I was the ghost of their synchronization, the echo of the power they had lost, and the only thing standing between them and the "gardeners" from the stars.
