The Oasis of Borrowed Time
The war-room hums before anyone speaks a word.
Amani feels it in his molars, that low vibration of a thousand crystalline circuits breathing beneath the floor, threading light up through the obsidian-glass walls until the whole chamber glows faintly blue, like something alive and holding its breath. The Vaneth called this place the Chrysalis once, back when his grandmother sat the throne and technology still felt like wonder instead of armor. Now the generals just call it the war-room, and nobody corrects them.
He sits at his mother's right hand, spine straight the way she taught him, hands folded the way he taught himself so they would not fidget. Sixteen years old and already he understands that stillness is its own kind of language. The council reads bodies here as much as data.
"Movement along the eastern ridge," General Farid says, and with a flick of his wrist a hologram blooms above the obsidian table — grainy amber light resolving into dunes, into the jagged black teeth of the Kharesh mountains, into small red pinpricks crawling like beetles across the vibranium fields. "Three units. Possibly four. Chief Malik's colors."
The room tightens. Amani can feel it happen, the…
