The silence in the lab was thick enough to taste, a metallic flavor of fear and ozone. Dr. Arne Larsen's warning hung in the air, a specter at their feast of discovery. Annihilation. Other. A prison for the Storm-Bringer.
But for Elena Petros, the warning was not a stop sign; it was a dare.
"He's an academic," she said, her voice too loud in the hush. She paced in front of the obsidian disc, which sat on its reinforced table like a slumbering king. "A linguist. He deals in dead words and theories. We deal in facts. In what we can see and measure."
"Elena," Maria said softly, her geologist's instincts screaming. "He was terrified. I've never seen a man that scared. He packed his bags and left for the airport without even collecting his fee."
