0222 Ovi Wbm 7z -

To a casual observer, it was gibberish. To Elias, it was the key to a door he had been trying to unlock for twenty years.

But the "7z" was the piece that finally made his hands shake. It wasn’t a coordinate; it was a countdown. Seven days until the zenith. Seven days until the stars aligned over the crater where his father had disappeared. 0222 Ovi Wbm 7z

He leaned back, his eyes narrowing. "Ovi." In the old dialect of his home village, it meant The Witness . "Wbm"—an ancient navigational shorthand for West-By-Moonlight . To a casual observer, it was gibberish

The machine hummed, the signal dying as quickly as it had appeared. The silence that followed was heavy, pressing against the walls of the station. Elias didn't need to hear more. He stood up, grabbed his heavy coat from the hook, and stepped out into the biting winter air. It wasn’t a coordinate; it was a countdown