The colour-soaked space around Rohan began, gradually, to tremble — a fine, growing instability that hadn't been present moments before, the Guardian's vast presence flickering at its edges with something that felt, unmistakably, like genuine alarm.
The boundary's degradation is accelerating, it said, its vast voice carrying a new, sharpened urgency. External interference. Something on your side of the wound is actively disrupting the crossing's stability.
Meridian, Rohan thought, dread flooding through him with sudden, sickening clarity. Ashwood's people. They must be doing something to the equipment, trying to force a different outcome.
