In the shadowed archives of the Grand Athenaeum, where dust motes danced like reluctant stars in the slanted beams of afternoon light filtering through cracked leaded-glass windows, Elara Voss wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her sleeve. The year was 2147, and the world outside the crumbling marble walls of New Alexandria was a fractured mosaic of megacities and wild reclamation zones.
