Chapter 12 · The Engine of Ruin

"Get your hands off me, Rowan!"

Mara shoved him. Hard. Her shoulder slammed into the archive wall with a dull, metallic thud that echoed through the silence.

She didn't look at him. She couldn't. Her breath came in jagged, shaking hitches, her eyes locked on the screen. The footage was still looping—the slaughter of an entire district. Ten thousand people erased. All because he decided she was the only thing worth saving.

Rowan didn't move. He stayed rooted, hands trembling, the ghost of the massacre burning behind his eyelids.

"I didn't have a choice," he rasped. "If I hadn't triggered the collapse, you'd be dead in that tunnel. Everyone would've died."

"Don't lie to me!"

Mara spun. Her combat knife flashed in the dim light, the tip hovering a fraction of an inch from his throat. The power shifted instantly. She was the hunter; he was just a fugitive with a guilty conscience.

"You played god," she spat, leaning in. "Ten thousand lives for one girl you barely knew. Who gave you that right?"

Rowan didn't flinch. He leaned forward, pressing his skin against the edge of the blade.