The thing tilted its head. The glass plain shuddered.
"You opened the Gate of War," it said, "inside a ship that has forgotten how to fight. What do you imagine will happen now?" kwntr-bab-alharh
On the other side was no corridor, no engine room. There was a plain of shattered glass under a sky that bled. And standing in the middle of it, wearing the face of Kaelen's own dead mother, was a thing made of angles and echoes. The thing tilted its head
The elders warned him. "The gate is not a lock. It is a wound." But the ship's core was failing, its artificial sun flickering from white to sick amber. The hydroponic bays wept rust. And the whispers from behind BAB-ALHARH had grown loud enough to rattle the bolts. What do you imagine will happen now
Behind him, the gate did not close. It waited .