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"Move and I open your throat."
Mira's blade is cold against my neck. I can feel the edge, sharp enough that swallowing would probably draw blood.
"Mira." Carson's voice cuts through the room. "Put it down."
"You brought a royal into my workshop." Mira's hand doesn't shake. "You brought one of *them* into the lower wards."
"She's the only one who can—"
"I don't care what she can do." The blade presses harder. "My mother died in the purge. My brother. Half the families down here lost someone when the old king decided we were too expensive to feed."
I keep my hands where she can see them. "I was six."
"You were *alive*." Her breath is hot against my ear. "That's more than my brother got."
Carson takes a step closer. His hand is on his sword. "The wall's failing. North section, seven minutes ago. If she doesn't stabilize it, the tide comes through and kills everyone left in this city. Including your workshop."
"Then we all die together." But Mira's voice wavers. Just a fraction.
I watch Carson's face. He's weighing it. Her loyalty against the city's chances. His squad against the civilians still sleeping in the lower wards.
The screen flickers in the corner of my vision.
[STRUCTURAL ALERT: North Wall Sector 7 — Integrity 34% and falling] [Estimated breach: 4 minutes 12 seconds]
"Four minutes," I say quietly. "Then it won't matter who your brother was or what my bloodline says. The wall comes down and the tide doesn't care about justice."
Mira's grip shifts. "You don't get to talk about justice."
"No." I meet her eyes in the reflection on the control panel. "But I can keep you alive long enough to put a knife in my back later. Your choice."
For three seconds, nobody moves.
Then Mira steps back. The blade leaves my neck. "You get one chance. One. The second you finish fixing that wall, I'm telling everyone in the lower wards what you are."
"Fair." I turn to Carson. "I need full access. The control ring locks me out of half the repair protocols."
He doesn't budge. "You get supervised access. I'm not letting you trigger a city-wide lockdown the second I turn my back."
"Then we're both going to watch people die because you don't trust me."
"I *don't* trust you."
"Good." I pull up the interface, working around the restrictions. "That makes two of us."
The central control room is smaller than I expected. Three walls of screens, one cracked down the middle. A table covered in hand-drawn maps. The air smells like rust and old coffee.
Mira moves to the corner, arms crossed. She hasn't put the knife away.
I focus on the screen. North wall, sector seven. The structural diagram looks like someone took a hammer to it. Cracks spiderwebbing out from a central impact point, stress fractures spreading faster than the system can compensate.
"What hit it?" I ask.
"Tide-class beast." Carson stands behind me, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him. "Rammed it three times before we brought it down. The wall held, but the core couldn't distribute the damage fast enough."
"Because someone's been rationing power to the lower districts."
"Because we've got forty percent of the core capacity we had two years ago and twice the wall to cover."
I pull up the repair interface. The ring on my wrist burns cold, restricting half the options. I can stabilize, but I can't reinforce. I can seal cracks, but I can't reroute power.
"I need the restrictions off."
"No."
"Carson—"
"You get what I give you." His hand lands on the table beside me, close enough that his sleeve brushes my arm. "Fix the wall. That's it."
I grit my teeth and start working. The system responds, sluggish under the control ring's limits. I route power from the east gate, where the tide's been quiet for three days. Seal the primary cracks first, then the fractures branching out.
The screen updates.
[Integrity: 38%... 41%... 43%]
"It's not enough." Mira's voice, flat. "You're just slowing it down."
She's right. The wall's still degrading, just slower now. Whatever hit it did more damage than the core can heal with the power I've got access to.
"I need to run a full structural reinforcement," I say. "That means drawing from the reserve core."
Carson goes very still. "The reserve's for emergencies."
"This *is* an emergency."
"The reserve's for when the main core fails. We drain it now, we've got nothing left when the next wave hits."
"You've got nothing left *now* if that wall comes down."
He doesn't answer. I can feel him thinking, running the numbers. His city. His people. His call.
The timer ticks down.
[Estimated breach: 2 minutes 38 seconds]
"Do it," he says finally. "But if you try to access anything outside that sector, I'll trigger the ring and drop you where you stand."
"Noted."
I pull up the reserve access. The interface fights me, layers of security protocols that weren't there before. Someone locked this down hard after the old king fell.
I override the first layer. The second. The third asks for a blood sample.
I glance at Carson. "I'm going to need that blade."
He draws a knife from his belt and hands it over, handle first. The blade's clean, sharp enough to catch the light.
I press it to my palm. Blood wells up, hot and fast. I press my hand to the scanner.
[Royal bloodline confirmed] [Reserve core access: GRANTED] [WARNING: This action will be logged and transmitted to all active command nodes]
The screen floods with power. I route it into the north wall, feeding the damaged section until the cracks start to seal. Not just stabilize—*heal*. The core hums, a sound I can feel in my teeth.
[Integrity: 48%... 56%... 63%]
Mira steps closer. "What's it doing?"
"Fixing itself." I watch the diagram shift, stone and mortar realigning, the structure pulling itself back together. "The reserve's got enough power to trigger the old protocols. The ones that made this city impossible to break."
[Integrity: 74%... 81%... 89%]
The wall stops cracking. The timer disappears.
[Structural repair complete] [North Wall Sector 7: Integrity 92%]
I let out a breath. My hand's still bleeding. I wipe it on my pants.
Then the screens light up. All of them. Every panel in the room floods with the same image.
A crest. Royal. The old king's seal, the one that was supposed to be burned with the palace.
And under it, in letters that fill the cracked screen:
[UPGRADE COMPLETE] [CITY CORE AUTHORITY: RESTORED] [BLOODLINE RECOGNIZED: HOUSE VOSS]
Mira's knife is back in her hand. "What did you do."
"I didn't—" I stare at the screens. "I just fixed the wall."
Carson grabs my shoulder, spins me around. His sword is out. The tip is an inch from my throat.
"The core just broadcast your bloodline to every functional node in the city." His voice is so low it sounds like it's coming through his teeth. "Every guard. Every survivor with a working screen. Everyone now knows we've got a royal inside the walls."
The blade moves. Not much. Just enough that I feel the tip break skin.
"So you're going to tell me, right now, exactly what you are." His eyes are flat. Cold. "And you're going to tell me what *kingbreaker* means."
The screen flickers behind him.
[NEW IDENTIFIER DETECTED] [DESIGNATION: KINGBREAKER] [CLARIFICATION REQUIRED]
Mira's staring at the screen. "Kingbreaker. You're the one who—"
She doesn't finish. The alarm cuts her off.
Loud. Shrill. The kind that means something just came over the wall.
Carson doesn't lower the sword. "Mira. Report."
She's already at the monitor, pulling up the perimeter feed. Her face goes white.
"It's not the tide," she says. "It's worse."
I follow her gaze. The screen shows the north wall, the section I just repaired.
Something's climbing over it. Slow. Deliberate.
It's wearing armor. Old armor. Royal colors.
And it's not alone.
"Corpse-guards," Carson says. "How many."
Mira's hands move across the controls. "Three on the north wall. Two more coming up the east ridge. They're not attacking the wall—they're climbing *over* it."
"They're coming for her." Carson's blade is still at my throat. The tip digs in, just enough that I feel blood slide down my neck. "They're coming for the last royal."
"I didn't call them," I say. "I don't even know what they are."
"Corpse-guards are what the old king used to hunt down deserters." His voice doesn't change. "They don't stop. They don't tire. And they only answer to royal blood."
The alarm keeps screaming.
Mira's still watching the screen. "Carson. They're inside the perimeter."
His jaw tightens. The sword doesn't move.
"Let me help," I say. "I can—"
"You can shut up." He leans in close enough that I can see the scar on his jaw, the way his pupils have gone narrow and hard. "Because the only reason you're still breathing is that I need to know what you did to my city before I decide if killing you is worth it."
The first crash comes from the north corridor. Heavy. Metallic.
Carson's head snaps toward the sound. The sword stays exactly where it is.
"Mira," he says. "How long."
"Thirty seconds. Maybe less."
He looks back at me. The blade presses harder.
"What does kingbreaker mean."
The door at the end of the corridor explodes inward. Something steps through the smoke.
Armor. Blackened steel. Eye sockets that glow the same blue as the screens.
It turns its head toward me. Slow. Deliberate.
And then it starts walking.