Chapter 31 · Cracking the Iron Titan

"Move, Raven!" Seraphina slammed her shoulder into his chest and drove him behind a broken pillar as twin cannon rounds tore through the chamber.

Stone burst over his back. Hot grit filled his mouth. The blast shoved Seraphina against him, her armor grinding against his ribs while the blood-tether between them snapped tight.

"You call that moving?" Raven coughed.

"You're alive, aren't you?"

"Barely."

"Then stop whining and look up."

He looked.

The iron titan stepped through the smoke.

It stood nearly four times Raven's height, built from black plates, brass pistons, and thick chains that dragged across the floor. Ten tons of steam-powered iron armor. Its head had no face, only a narrow red slit burning beneath a crown of riveted steel. Two siege cannons rested on its shoulders, still glowing from the shots that had nearly crushed them.

A white crest had been stamped into the center of its chest.

The same crest worn by the High Seat.

"Judicator," Seraphina said.

Her voice went flat.

Raven noticed. "You know it?"

"I know what it was built to do."

The titan's chest opened with a metal shriek.