The first morning of the Sanguine Age did not break with the chirping of birds or the rustle of leaves. It began with the deep, tectonic groan of a continent that had been forced to rewrite its own laws.
I stood on the edge of the Sovereign's Terrace, my feet bare against the polished granite. Below me, the world was a study in violent beauty. The Great Tundra, once a graveyard of grey salt-dust, was now bisected by the Sanguine Range—a labyrinthine spine of translucent red glass that glowed with an inner, solar fire. The sun, rising as a heavy, liquid orb of gold, struck the glass, sending pillars of refracted crimson light stabbing into the heavens. It was a landscape of fire and crystal, a physical scar of the battle I had barely survived.
