Prologue

The Day the

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12:44, February 28, 2284

Tøyengata 24, 0188 Oslo, Norway, Nordic Commonwealth territory

The last normal conversation Sigrún Fjeld would ever have with her father began with her hands trembling around a coffee cup that had gone cold ten minutes ago.

"Pappa," she began, her voice barely carrying over the too-quiet street sounds, "I…I don't want to continue with my Fusion Tech Management degree."

The words hung between them like a confession. Around their outdoor table, other diners ate in hushed tones, their eyes occasionally darting eastward where the morning's "routine maintenance blackout" in Fredrikstad had stretched into its eighth hour. The crisp winter air should have carried the usual Oslo bustle—fusion engines humming, children laughing, vendors calling. Instead, even the pigeons seemed to have vanished, leaving only the faint smell of baked potatoes from inside and something else beneath it. Something chemical. Something wrong.

Harald Omdal set down his fork with deliberate precision, the salmon kjøttkake on his plate suddenly forgotten. His sharp sapphire eyes—just like his daughter's—fixed on her face.

"What do you mean, 'you don't want to continue'?" His voice carried that particular sharpness that appeared when he was listening for more than just words.

Sigrún shifted in her seat, her finger tracing the rim of her cold cup. Through the restaurant window, she caught a glimpse of the owner pulling down metal shutters over his store—at barely one in the afternoon. "I've been thinking about it a lot these past few weeks. Everything they teach feels so corporate and rigid. I don't want to treat people like assets."

Her shoulder-length blonde hair caught in a sudden gust of wind that smelled of salt and rust—wrong for this far inland. She shivered despite her oversized gray sweater, watching her father's expression shift through calculations she couldn't follow. At seventy-three, Harald moved with the careful energy of a man who knew exactly how much strength he had left to spend. His white hair, swept back in thick waves above his neatly groomed beard, caught the weak February light. The crisp blue button-down and tailored slacks he wore seemed almost like armor against the world's chaos.

"The evacuation drill yesterday was the third this month," Harald said quietly, though they both knew no one called them drills anymore. His weathered hand moved unconsciously to his chest, where Sigrún had glimpsed him tucking something beneath his shirt that morning. "This is not the time to abandon certainty, sminne [my little one]."

"Certainty?" Sigrún's laugh came out brittle. "There's nothing certain anymore, Pappa. The Imperium dumps their Helionite waste in our fjords, the Alliance treats Skippergaten like their personal brothel, and our own government—" She stopped herself, noticing how his knuckles had gone white against the table.

"You must realize how much I've invested in your education," Harald said, but his gaze had shifted to the street behind her. Two Alliance officers in blue-white uniforms stumbled past, reeking of alcohol and perfume despite the early hour. One of them paused, leering at Sigrún, until his companion dragged him on.

"Pa..." Sigrún's shoulder slumped.

"Fusion Tech Management at Lund University is not cheap, especially after the European Union's collapse."

"I know." Sigrún's voice dropped to a whisper. In the distance, a siren wailed—ambulance, not police. The third one in the last hour. "But it's not what I want to do with my life."

The waitress arrived with their additional dishes, her hands shaking slightly as she set down the platter of smørrebrød. The exotic Martian spices couldn't mask the underlying scent of fear-sweat. She glanced at Harald, something passing between them—a warning? a confirmation?—before she hurried back inside.

"And what do you think you're going to do instead?" Harald's tone suggested he was asking two questions at once. "Chase—" he spat the word, though his derision seemed aimed at more than just her dreams, "—art?"

Sigrún's cheeks flushed crimson. "Yes," she whispered. "I want to sing. I want to create songs that inspire people. It's my passion."

At the adjacent table, crude laughter erupted. Two Imperial men sat with similar dishes, though one had stopped eating to stare openly at Sigrún. The chubby one with cropped hair elbowed his bald companion.

"Tā mā de liě! Suǒyǐ nǐ bǎ Kaori cāole?" he said in Mandarin, not bothering to lower his voice.

"Dāngrán la! Zuó wǎn dōu hēle, bù gàn zěn xíng," the bald one replied, but his eyes had found Sigrún, traveling from her face down to where her sweater clung to her curves.

"Ǎi, gé zhuō nà yáng niū hǎo xiāng a. Nǐ juédé gàn yīcì duōshǎo qián?" The bald man's gaze turned predatory, lingering on her chest before sliding back to her face with undisguised hunger.

Harald's jaw tightened imperceptibly. The temperature around their table seemed to drop several degrees.

"Nǐ tā mā quē nǎo a. Tóng zhuō tā lǎo diē, zěnme nòng sǐ nǐ dōu bù zhīdào!" His companion glanced nervously at Harald, whose stillness had taken on a dangerous quality. The chubby man waved frantically at his friend, finally breaking the bald man's stare.

"Qiè! Jiù huànxiǎng éryǐ huì zěnyàng?" The bald man spat a piece of salmon onto the ground—then froze. The fish was black at the center, its flesh writhing with something that wasn't quite rot. "Wǒ cāo. Zhè guīyú yǒu cì."

"Barbaric," Sigrún muttered, pulling her sweater tighter across her chest. She'd grown used to such stares—her mother's beauty had been legendary in certain circles, and Sigrún had inherited every curve and angle—but it never stopped making her skin crawl. "Don't they teach basic manners in the Imperium?"

"I've been watching those two," Harald said, his eyes never leaving the men even as his voice remained conversational. "They checked out of the Grand Hotel this morning. Three days early." He paused. "Along with every other Imperial tourist in the city."

Sigrún's hand stilled on her cup. "What?"

"The harbor's full of private vessels hiring passage to Copenhagen. At triple the usual rate." Harald finally looked back at her, and she saw something in his expression that made her stomach clench. "The Imperials know something. As do the Alliance officers who've been 'celebrating' since dawn."

"Then why are we still—"

"Because I had to be sure." He reached across the table, covering her hand with his. His palm was callused in strange places, speaking of practice with things other than fusion tech management. "And because I needed to give you this before..."

Harald's other hand moved to his collar, pulling out a silver chain. The pendant that emerged seemed to catch light that wasn't there, its blue jewel pulsing like a heartbeat.

"Pappa?" Sigrún's voice caught. The air around them had gone thick, electric, the way it felt before summer lightning.

"This has been handed down through generations in House Omdal," he said, unhooking the chain with practiced efficiency. Around them, the last few remaining diners were abandoning their meals, throwing money on tables, pulling children toward cars. "The Pendant of Mánagrát. Traditionally worn by the family's wisest daughter."

Sigrún stared at the pendant in his outstretched hand. The blue jewel at its center wasn't just glowing—it was singing, a frequency she felt in her bones rather than heard. "I'm not sure… shouldn't this go to someone who actually shares your name? I mean, I carry my mother's."

"You're an Omdal in all the ways that matter." Harald's fingers trembled slightly as he pressed the pendant into her palm. The metal was warm, too warm, pulsing in rhythm with her suddenly racing heart. "You're my daughter—the only one who inherited both her mother's tenacity and her father's true gift."

"But…I'm not…official." She glanced away, catching sight of the Imperial men abandoning their contaminated meal, backing away from their table with faces gone pale. "And Mama…she was a Leased Lily. People talk."

"Your mother saw this coming before anyone else. Why do you think she made me promise to train you, even if you never manifested?" Harald's eyes bore into hers. "Put it on, Sigrún. Now."

Her fingers moved without conscious thought, fastening the chain around her neck. The moment the pendant touched her skin, the world exploded.

Three figures crashed through her consciousness like breaking glass:

A young Maridian man screaming defiance, his ebony skin gleaming with sweat as monsters circled him. She could taste his desperation, his honor, his need to protect—and underneath it all, a yearning for connection so fierce it made her gasp. She saw herself through his eyes, golden and untouchable, and felt his future desire like a physical thing.

An Imperial programmer hunched over amber screens, and she was drowning in his grief, his loneliness, the ghost of android skin beneath his fingers. But when he looked up—when he saw her—the sorrow transformed into something else. Need. Recognition. A pull between them that transcended logic, that would drive him to betrayal and redemption both.

The last hit her like a blade between the ribs. A woman in crimson silk, beautiful and terrible, whose darkness matched Sigrún's own hidden depths. She felt the woman's hunger for power, for freedom, for touch—and knew with horrible certainty that they would hate each other. And in that hatred find understanding. Perhaps even more.

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"Sigrún!" Harald's voice seemed to come from very far away.

She gasped, blinking, to find the street transformed. The empty tables. The abandoned meals. The silence broken only by distant screams and the sound of something wet dragging itself closer.

"Who are they?" she whispered, one hand clutching the Pendant of Mánagrát, the other reaching for her father. "And what's happening?"

"Radi-Mons." Harald said. "Creatures that feed on nuclear waste and human flesh."

The first creature rounded the corner like a nightmare given flesh. What had once been human dragged itself forward on limbs that bent wrong, its business suit hanging in tatters from a body that rippled with subcutaneous movement. Its face—gods, it still had a face—split open along invisible seams, revealing rows of needle teeth.

"Draugs," Harald breathed, rising from his chair with fluid grace. "They've turned already. Must have intercoursed with someone carrying the Nucleus Virus."

More shapes emerged from the alleyways. A woman in a nurse's uniform, her pregnant belly distended with things that pressed against the skin from inside.

"Jeg tror ikke mine egne øyne—! [I cannot believe what I'm seeing!]" Sigrún's whisper cut off as the businessman-thing lunged for the Imperial men's abandoned table. It fell upon the contaminated fish, shoving blackened salmon into its splitting maw with desperate hunger. Then its head snapped up, nostrils flaring.

It had scented something sweeter than spoiled flesh.

"Don't move," Harald ordered, but his hands were already flowing through practiced gestures. "They hunt by pheromones. Fear, arousal, any strong emotion—"

The pregnant humanoid shrieked, a sound like tearing metal. Every Draug in the street oriented toward them.

"So much for that plan." Harald's voice carried grim humor.

The businessman-Draug charged. Harald stepped forward, his voice ringing with power: "Fulmen Argentum!"

Silver lightning erupted from his palms, catching the creature mid-leap. It flew backward, flesh sizzling, but was already regenerating as it hit the ground. The smell of ozone mixed with rotting meat.

Above them, shadows fell. Sigrún looked up to see winged horrors circling—bats stretched to impossible size, their eyeless faces all mouth and hunger.

"Radi-Mons..." she said, her mind racing even as terror flooded her veins, trying to comprehend the term. "That's what they're called?"

"Radiation-induced Monsters." Harald explained before raising both hands as the flying things dove. "Scutum Lunaris!"

A dome of silver light erupted around them, the creatures slamming into it with wet thuds. But Sigrún could see the strain in her father's shoulders, the sweat beading on his forehead. The shield wouldn't hold for long.

"When I drop this, we run," he said. "No hesitation. No looking back."

Through the barrier, she could see more Draugs converging. Dozens. And in the distance, something much larger moved between buildings, its bulk scraping against walls never meant to contain such horrors.

The Pendant of Mánagrát burned against her chest, and for a moment she saw through other eyes—the ebony-skinned man, strong and valiant, piloting a green mechanical beetle, facing down similar monsters, the scholarly Imperial man with his fingers flying over a keyboard as alarms blared, and the royal woman with hairpin holding her updo standing over a victim with tears streaming down her snow white face.

We're all fighting, a notion came to Sigrún's mind. All of us, across time, across the world.

"Now!" Harald roared.

The shield shattered like crystal, its fragments dissolving into motes of light. Harald grabbed Sigrún's hand and they ran, her boots slipping on cobblestones slick with fluids she didn't want to identify.

Behind them, the Draugs surged forward as one—then suddenly faltered. The businessman-thing stumbled, clawing at its head. The pregnant horror shrieked, but this time in confusion, spinning in circles.

"What's happening to them?" Sigrún gasped as they ran.

Harald's grip on her hand was iron. "Your pendant. It disrupts psychic connection to their Hivemind when threatened. But only briefly."

She could feel it now, the pendant blazing against her chest like a miniature sun. The blue jewel's light pulsed outward in waves she could almost see, and with each pulse the Draugs grew more erratic, more confused. Some attacked lampposts. Others bit at empty air. Two collided and began tearing at each other in misdirected hunger.

"The effect won't last," Harald pulled her around a corner as something massive crashed through the restaurant they'd just fled. Glass and concrete rained down. "Twenty seconds at most before they adapt."

Already she could see the nearest Draugs shaking off their confusion, nostrils flaring as they reacquired her scent. But those precious seconds had opened a gap.

"There!" Sigrún pointed to the maintenance access, its yellow warning signs barely visible through the smoke beginning to rise from the financial district.

"Fulmen Argentum!" Harald's lightning split the creature in two, the halves twitching on bloody concrete. Without pause, he pulled her toward the maintenance door.

Above them, the sky darkened. Not clouds—wings. Dozens of Radi-Mons, eyeless bat-things the size of dogs, circled like vultures. One dove.

"Scutum Lunaris!" Harald's barrier materialized just as talons scraped across it. The creature shrieked, wheeling away. "These Sky Shredders never give up…let's get to my car and drive to the Starport."

They sprinted through the tunnel, emergency lights painting everything crimson. Behind them, wet sounds echoed—Draugs had found the entrance. Ahead, blessed daylight from Sector H.

The silver fusion-powered car sat in bay 47, just as Harald had left it that morning. As they dove inside, a Sky Shredder crashed into the concrete pillar beside them, its eyeless head swiveling, echolocating.

"Hold on!" Harald gunned the engine, tires screaming as they tore out of the garage. Through the rear window, Sigrún watched the Sky Shredder unfold wings that dripped with some viscous substance, preparing to pursue.

The streets to Gardermoen Starport were chaos. Abandoned cars, scattered luggage, bodies they swerved to avoid. Military checkpoints already abandoned. In the distance, smoke rose from the financial district.

"Radio," Harald ordered, weaving between obstacles.

Sigrún turned it on: "—infection has breached containment in all major Nordic cities. Citizens are advised to evacuate to Copenhagen or Amsterdam. Repeat—"

"Liars," Harald muttered. "Amsterdam fell this morning."

"How do you know all this?"

"The same way I knew to keep that pendant close." His knuckles were white on the steering wheel as a Sky Shredder's shadow passed overhead. "Your pendant carries a fragment of something important. There are others. I'll tell you what it is someday. But first, we get you somewhere safe."

The Starport's towers appeared through the smoke. Military vehicles surrounded the terminal, soldiers in hazmat suits scanning refugees. As their car approached the checkpoint, the pendant grew warm against her chest.

"For now, remember," Harald said in a low voice, "just a family heirloom. Nothing special."

But Sigrún could feel it pulsing with her heartbeat, could sense something vast and patient waiting within the blue jewel.

They passed through the checkpoint. The soldier's scanner beeped at her pendant, but Harald murmured something, and they were waved through.

As they entered the terminal, Sigrún caught sight of the departure board. Half the flights canceled. The other half flashing 'DELAYED'. Through the massive windows, she could see Sky Shredders circling the control tower like moths around a flame.

The sky had fallen.

But she needed to keep going.

Eleven years later, Lorna Weiss would remember this moment with perfect clarity. Not as the frightened girl who fled Oslo's burning streets, but as the woman who learned to hunt the very monsters that had torn her world apart. The pendant her father pressed into her hands that day still hung against her chest, its weight a constant reminder of the adolescent she'd been — and the adult she must become.

In the mid 21st Century, an altered solar wind triggered changes that would reshape humanity's destiny. The discovery of Zephyrium — a source of limitless cold fusion energy — ignited the Third World War that led to the rise of Africa and Eastern Europe, accompanied by the collapse of powers including the United States, Communist China, the Russian Federation and other major influences relying on petroleum.

What remained of our societies emerged stronger, not only saving Earth from environmental annihilation but awakening psionic abilities in the next generation, ushering in an era of medical breakthroughs and societal transformation.

Humanity expanded across the Sol System. The Inner Sol — Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars — became bustling centers of civilization. Jupiter's transformed moons, dubbed "the Realm of Divines", offered new frontiers of both promise and peril. Saturn's domain earned the name "Realm of Grim-Harvest", as ships venturing there vanished without a trace. Beyond lay the untamed Uranus (Realm of Zenith) and Neptune (Realm of Sapphire Sea), where only the boldest dared venture.

Yet with progress came threat: the Radi-Mons, creatures born of radiation that fed on fusion waste and human flesh. These beings spread the Nucleus Virus — a sexually transmitted disease promising immortality at the cost of sanity — across every inhabited world known to man.

Over two centuries later, the balance of power had shifted. By 2295, Nordic Europeans became a nomadic people with Scandinavia in ruins, while the rest of Europe armed themselves through various means.

Meanwhile, the Imperium of Dragons rose from China to dominate Earth and beyond. Only the Terra Alliance of North America and the Emerald Directorate—uniting Africa with Latin America—stood against their expansion.

At the heart of their brewing conflict: the Moondust Crystal, an artifact of immense power buried within Osram—Earth's Moon—promising dominion to whoever claimed it.

In this crucible of ambition and survival, four lives would intertwine: as allies, lovers, and enemies. Their choices shaping the future of humanity.

Thus begins…

✨ MEET THE HEROES ✨

Note: From left to right, the human characters on this book cover are: Jabari, Lorna, Xin, and Dilinur.

That's a Kraken (a type of Radi-Mon) in the background. Our protagonists will get to face quite a few of those as the story goes.

As for the little reptilian guy on Xin's shoulder—he's rather important to the plot, but won't appear until a major event has happened. (No spoilers)

With that, I'll see you in Chapter 1! 🚀

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