"MOVE!!" he screamed across the rooftop. "GET OFF CENTER— NOW!!"
The orange glow came first.
Deep inside the dragon's throat, something built slowly— not fast, not explosive, just steady and pressurized like a furnace being fed from the inside. The air around its jaw visibly warped from the heat, shimmering in waves that made the entire rooftop feel suddenly, wrongly warm despite the open sky above them.
"Open sky…"
The words left Si Hon's mouth almost absentmindedly as he tilted his head upward for half a second, eyes drifting past the rooftop chaos.
And then he paused.
Because the sky wasn't open anymore.
At some point during all the screaming, collapsing buildings, dragons, emotional damage, and near death experiences—
The entire sky had changed.
