Chapter 27 · Testimony in a Beating Heart

Cael’s heart beat three times.

The first beat sounded human.

The second struck like a hammer against a locked door.

The third made every loose bolt on the maintenance platform tremble.

Lio pressed both hands against his chest. Beneath his torn coat, his ribs rose and fell, but the rhythm underneath them belonged to something older than blood. A thin silver light pulsed through the cracks in his skin, tracing the shape of a blade buried inside his heart.

Below them, metal screamed.

The buried beast clawed its way up through the shaft. Its talons punched through the platform, each one thick as a carriage axle. Mara’s copper barrier flared around them, bending under the impact. The air smelled of hot iron, dust, and the bitter ozone of overloaded magic.

“Lio,” Mara shouted, one knee buckling. “Whatever you’re doing, do it faster!”

“I’m trying!”

“You’re touching the thing that tried to cut us in half!”

“I noticed!”

Cael did not answer. His lashes lay dark against his blood-streaked face. The old hunter’s armor had vanished, but the impression of it remained in the air—a phantom weight, a cold pressure that made Lio’s teeth ache.