The ash-woods did not rustle; they scraped.
The ancient pines of the northern wilderness, once lush and heavy with dark green needles that smelled of resin and high-altitude frost, had been petrified by ninety-eight years of Aurelius's atmospheric calibration. Their trunks were skeletal columns of calcified charcoal, and their branches were jagged, brittle wires that rattled like dry bones whenever the heavy, localized gravity of the imperial cruisers pressed down from the upper stratosphere.
Gwen stood behind the stark silhouette of a dead oak, her golden eyes narrowed as she pulled the hood of her soot-stained cloak over her silver-iron hair. The solar furnace within her chest plate was completely dampened, running on a minimal, silent baseline to prevent her heat signature from registering on the sky-nets above.
