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The service tunnel shook.
Leia hit concrete, one knee down, one hand braced against the floor. The other clamped over the burn beneath her ribs. The metal security gate had slammed shut three seconds ago. On the other side, muzzle flashes strobed blue-white through the gap. A rifle round hit the gate and sprayed molten flecks across the tunnel.
Kane dragged her backward by the collar.
"Move."
She twisted free. "I can walk."
"Then do it faster."
He turned and ran.
Leia followed. Every step sent a hot wire of pain through her leg. The thing inside her—whatever the Covenant Engine had unlocked—hadn't vanished completely. The tunnel felt stretched thin. She could hear the tremor in the gate's locking bolts. The distant boots. The wet hitch in Kane's breathing beneath the hard rhythm of his stride.
She could even hear his blood.
Not the vague rush of panic she remembered from normal life. She heard it pulse beneath the skin of his throat. Felt the pressure of it in the air when he glanced back.
The ability was fading. But it'd left her senses sharpened to a dangerous edge.
Kane shouldered through a maintenance door ahead. Rust flaked from the hinges. Beyond it: a narrow chamber packed with dead pipes, broken control panels, and a single red emergency lamp that painted everything the color of old wounds.
He shoved the door shut and dropped the manual bar.
For one breath, neither of them moved.
Then Kane crossed the room in three strides, seized Leia by the throat, and drove her against the wall.
Her spine struck concrete. The impact jarred the burn beneath her ribs. His forearm pressed beneath her jaw—not quite crushing her windpipe, but close.
His face was near enough for her to see the blood drying on his lower lip. A shallow cut ran across his jaw. His eyes were gray, cold, furious.
"Who sent you?"
Leia gripped his wrist. "You already know who sent me."
"I know what the contract says." His pressure increased. "I was hired to escort Leia Morn to the lower transit line. I wasn't hired to fight a militia commander, breach a sealed crematory, or watch my passenger turn into a lightning strike. So I'll ask again. Who sent you?"
Her lungs began to tighten.
The Covenant Engine flickered behind her eyes.
[ACTIVE VOW: PROTECT DESIGNATED ESCORT]
[STATUS: FULFILLED]
[RESIDUAL CAPACITY: 08%]
[WARNING: PRIMARY COVENANT—LOCATE NOLAN MORN. RETURN ALIVE.]
The letters burned white, then dissolved into a lattice of blue lines. Kane's body became a map of pressure points. Vulnerable angles. The tendons in his wrist. The slight imbalance in his left knee. The weapon concealed along his hip beneath the black coat.
His heartbeat jumped.
Leia didn't know if he'd seen the change in her eyes. She only knew she had seconds before the room tilted black.
"Let go," she rasped.
Kane leaned closer. "Tell me the truth. How'd you know when to move? How'd you cross that gate before the blast? Why did the Engine answer you?"
The word struck her harder than his grip.
Engine.
He knew.
Leia drove her knee into his damaged leg.
Kane's grip loosened. Just a fraction.
Enough.
She twisted sideways, caught his wrist with both hands, and let the last residue of the Covenant's power spill through her muscles. His balance broke. She pivoted under his arm, slammed her shoulder into his ribs, and sent him into the control panel.
Sparks exploded.
Kane recovered fast. Too fast for an ordinary man. He spun, drew the blade from his hip, and slashed.
Leia ducked. The knife whispered over her hair. She caught his elbow, redirected the momentum, and drove him face-first into the wall.
The knife clattered away.
She snatched it before it hit the floor.
When Kane turned, she was already inside his reach. Her left hand closed around his coat. Her right pressed the blade beneath his sternum, tip aligned with the hollow just above his heart.
His back touched the wall.
Her breath came hard. So did his.
The red emergency light pulsed across his face, making him look less like a man and more like a warning painted on steel.
"Try that again," Leia whispered, "and I find out whether you bleed like everyone else."
Kane looked down at the knife. Then back at her eyes.
He didn't flinch.
That frightened her more than resistance would have.
"You could've killed me at the gate," he said.
"I saved you at the gate."
"You fulfilled a temporary vow."
The phrase went through her like cold water.
Leia pressed the blade harder. "You really do know what it is."
"I know enough to keep away from it."
"You touched it the moment you took this job."
"No. I touched you. There's a difference."
His voice stayed level, but the muscles in his neck had tightened against the blade. His gaze flicked once toward the ceiling. Toward the dead camera mounted above the pipes.
A habit. Or a signal.
Leia noticed everything now. The faint metallic taste in the air. The vibration beneath the floor. Three weapons beyond the maintenance door—not militia rifles. Compact pistols. Kane's right hand held empty, but his thumb kept moving against his palm. Counting.
"You're not afraid," she said.
"I'm many things. Afraid is rarely useful."
"Who hired you?"
"The same person who gave me your route."
"Name."
A distant boom rolled through the tunnel. The security gate was giving way.
Kane's eyes shifted toward the door.
"We've got about thirty seconds," he said.
"Then start talking."
"Your brother's in the Halcyon Annex. Beneath Transit Line Nine. The official maps call it a decommissioned power station. The unofficial maps call it a laboratory. Your brother's alive."
The knife trembled.
Not much. Just enough for Kane to notice.
"How do you know?"
"Because I saw the transfer order."
"When?"
"Six hours ago."
"Why were you there?"
His silence answered before he did.
Leia's blade shifted upward, grazing the fabric over his chest. "Why were you there, Kane?"
"I was looking for someone."
"Nolan?"
"No."
The gate boomed again. Dust rained from the ceiling.
Leia searched his face for the lie. His expression was a locked door, but his pulse betrayed him. A rapid, hard beat under the skin. Not fear.
Recognition.
He'd known her before tonight.
Or he'd known the name Leia Morn before she woke in the morgue capsule.
"You knew me," she said.
Kane's jaw tightened.
"No."
"That was too fast."
"I knew the file."
"What file?"
"The one with your face blacked out and your identity marked deceased."
The tunnel contracted around them.
A memory surged up without warning.
Glass. White light. A child's palm pressed against the other side.
Nolan's face—smaller than she remembered. His eyelashes wet with tears. A woman in a blood-stained medical coat standing behind Leia. One gloved hand resting on her shoulder. Silver hair. Pale eyes.
Sevlyn Voss.
*Your father made the first trade.*
The memory snapped apart. Leia nearly lost her grip on the knife.
Kane saw it. His gaze sharpened.
"What did you remember?"
"You don't get to ask me questions."
"If Voss is after you, you don't have time to indulge your pride."
"You know her too?"
"Everyone who works below the city knows Voss. She owns the cameras, the checkpoints, half the judges, and every soldier who thinks a uniform makes him clean."
"She was in the lab. She knew Nolan."
"Then your brother's more important than a missing courier."
Leia's throat tightened.
"I'm not a courier."
Kane looked at her for a long moment. "No. You're not."
The confirmation landed like a blow.
She pushed the blade into his coat until the point kissed skin.
"What am I?"
"The wrong person to ask."
"You brought me here. You said you could get me to the lower line. You knew about the Engine. You knew my identity was fabricated. Now you tell me my brother's alive and expect me to trust you?"
"I expect you to survive long enough to be useful."
"Useful to whom?"
"To yourself, if you're smarter than you look."
She almost smiled. No humor in it. "You keep confusing cruelty with honesty."
"And you keep confusing a knife with leverage."
He moved.
Not away from the blade. Toward it.
The knife tip pierced his coat and pricked his skin. Kane caught her wrist with one hand and slammed his forehead into hers.
Pain burst behind her eyes.
Leia's fingers spasmed. He tore the knife halfway free, but she drove her elbow into his throat. He gagged. Released her. She recovered the weapon with a savage twist.
This time she put him on the floor.
Her knee pinned his chest. The blade rested directly over his heart.
For the first time, something cracked in his composure. Not panic. Calculation. He was measuring how much pain he could endure. How much blood he could lose. Whether killing her would be worth the cost.
The thought turned her stomach.
"Say it," she demanded.
His eyes held hers.
"Say what?"
"That you need me."
"I need the access signature in your implant."
"That's not the same thing."
"It's close enough."
The gate screamed behind them. Metal warped inward. Voices shouted through the gap.
Kane looked toward the door. Then back at the knife.
"If they breach this room, they'll use a neural snare on you," he said. "It'll lock every motor function in your body while they cut the implant out. Voss will keep you alive for questioning. Your brother will disappear before sunrise."
"And your plan?"
"The underground transit line leads to Halcyon Annex. I can get you past the first checkpoint. After that, the only person who can open the laboratory doors is you."
"Why?"
"Because your blood's in the old corporate registry. Because the city was built on a control network your family designed. Because the Engine recognizes you as a legacy administrator. Not a courier."
The words came too cleanly. Too prepared.
Leia's vision blurred at the edges.
The blade stayed steady, but her hand was beginning to shake from exhaustion.
"My family's dead," she said.
"Your father is."
"And my mother?"
Kane's expression changed by one degree. A lowered eyelid. A breath held too long.
There it was.
Another secret.
Before she could force it out, the maintenance door buckled. A black-gloved hand punched through the metal. A rifle muzzle followed.
Kane rolled hard beneath her. The shot cracked through the room. Leia dropped. The bullet tore through the pipe where her head had been.
Kane kicked her blade hand aside, rose into the attack, and caught the rifleman by the wrist as he forced through the opening. Twisted. Bone snapped. The soldier screamed.
Leia moved on instinct.
She seized the fallen rifle, jammed the stock into the soldier's visor, and fired once.
The body vanished backward into the tunnel.
Two more silhouettes rushed the breach.
Kane grabbed Leia's arm. "Now."
They ran through the rear of the chamber as gunfire chewed the pipes apart. Kane kicked open a floor hatch hidden beneath a sheet of rusted plating. A ladder descended into absolute darkness.
"You first," he said.
Leia stared into the shaft. Hot air rose from below carrying the smell of oil, wet stone, and something chemical beneath it.
"If this is a trap—"
"Then you'll have to kill me before you hit the bottom."
He dropped down.
Leia followed.
The hatch slammed shut above them. Gunfire became a muffled storm. Kane landed on a narrow platform and caught her around the waist when her injured leg buckled.
His hand stayed there for one heartbeat too long.
Her body remembered the heat of him before her mind did.
The realization made her shove away.
"Don't touch me."
"Then stop falling."
They stood in a forgotten transit shaft. Narrow. Dim. The walls slick with condensation. Below them, the tunnel curved into black.
Above, boots hammered the maintenance room floor.
"They'll breach the hatch in under a minute," Kane said.
Leia looked down into the dark. "Where does this go?"
"Halcyon Annex. If we're lucky."
"And if we're not?"
"Then we find out what Voss is really afraid of."
He started down the ladder.
Leia hesitated. Her ribs burned. Her leg throbbed. The Covenant Engine had gone silent, but she could still feel its residue humming beneath her skin like an aftershock.
Kane glanced up from below. His face half-lit by the red glow filtering through the hatch.
"You coming?"
She gripped the ladder.
"If you're lying about Nolan—"
"You'll kill me. I know. You've made that clear."
His voice echoed up the shaft.
Leia climbed down.
The hatch above them exploded inward. A flashlight beam cut through the dark. A voice shouted. "Contact! Lower shaft!"
Kane hit the bottom and broke into a run.
Leia dropped the last few rungs and followed.
The tunnel was older than the service level. Pre-revolution architecture. The walls carved from raw stone, the ceiling braced with rusted iron beams. Water dripped from somewhere overhead. Her boots splashed through shallow puddles that reflected nothing.
Behind them, the soldiers were descending.
Kane didn't slow.
Leia's lungs burned. Her leg screamed. But she kept pace.
Ahead, the tunnel split. Left branch: a narrow passage choked with debris. Right branch: wider, lit by a faint green glow.
Kane went right.
The glow grew stronger. It pulsed in rhythm with something mechanical. A low hum that vibrated through the floor.
Leia's implant flickered.
[PROXIMITY ALERT: COVENANT NETWORK NODE DETECTED]
[DISTANCE: 47 METERS]
[ACCESS LEVEL: LEGACY ADMINISTRATOR]
She stumbled.
Kane caught her arm. "What's wrong?"
"The Engine. It's—" She couldn't finish.
The green glow ahead wasn't a light.
It was a doorway.
Carved into the stone. Massive. Twice the height of a man. The surface covered in symbols she didn't recognize but somehow understood. Old script. Pre-corporate. The words of the city's first architects.
Her family.
Kane stopped in front of it.
"This is as far as I go without you," he said.
Leia stared at the door.
Her hand moved on its own. Palm outstretched. Fingers trembling.
The moment her skin touched the stone, the symbols flared bright.
The door began to open.
Behind them, boots echoed through the tunnel.
A voice shouted. "Target acquired! Do not let them through that door!"
Kane shoved her forward.
They crossed the threshold.
The door slammed shut behind them.
Silence.
Leia's breath came in ragged gasps. Her vision swam. The burn in her ribs had spread to her chest.
Kane leaned against the wall, blood seeping through his coat where the knife had pricked him.
They were in a chamber. Circular. The walls lined with screens. Dead monitors. Control consoles covered in dust. And in the center—
A glass cylinder.
Empty.
But the base was still warm.
Leia walked toward it. Her legs barely held her.
Inside the cylinder, a single name was etched into the metal plate.
*NOLAN MORN*
*TRANSFER COMPLETE: 04:17:09*
Her heart stopped.
"He was here," she whispered.
Kane stepped beside her. His expression unreadable.
"Four hours ago."
Leia turned to him. "Where did they take him?"
Kane didn't answer.
Because behind him, one of the monitors flickered to life.
A face appeared on the screen.
Silver hair. Pale eyes.
Sevlyn Voss smiled.
"Hello, Leia," she said. "I've been waiting for you."