The sky above Ashenveil was bruised.
It was not the dark, rolling gray of a natural storm, nor the thick, sulfurous smog of the industrial forges. It was a deep, unnatural violet, glowing with a faint, pulsing luminescence that defied the angle of the sun. The clouds did not drift with the prevailing winds; they clung to the capital like iron filings dragged across paper by a magnet beneath the surface.
From the central observation terrace of the Eternal Forge, Zephyr watched the weather fail to behave.
He did not observe it with the mild curiosity of a meteorologist. He observed it with the cold, absolute attention of a structural engineer watching a bridge begin to hum at its resonant frequency.
