The first sign of their return was the silence.
Lyralei woke from dreams of burning gardens to find that the usual dimensional hum of the Arbiter had gone completely quiet. In eight years of sailing the multiversal currents, she had never experienced such absolute stillness. It was as if reality itself was holding its breath.
She reached for Reed beside her, but found only cold sheets. The chrono-display showed 0347 hours—too early for him to be up unless something was wrong.
"Reed?" she called softly, not wanting to wake the children in the adjoining chamber.
No answer.
Lyralei rose and padded barefoot through the ship's corridors, her enhanced senses picking up subtle wrongness in the air. The smell of ozone. The taste of copper on her tongue. The prickle of energy patterns that made her genetic modifications stir uneasily in her cells.
