Chapter 39 · The Eighth Package

The brass package knocked again.

Three taps had come from inside it. Then silence. Now, as Veyra shuddered beneath their feet, the sound came once more.

Knock.

Lio Wren stared at the black number stamped across the lid.

8.

The package was warm against her palm—not hot enough to burn, but alive with a slow, deliberate heat. The metal pulsed beneath her fingers like a second heartbeat. Around them, the ruined platform groaned as the city settled back into the sky. Broken seal-stones flickered along the floor, their ancient symbols bleeding sparks into the blue-white darkness.

Cael Rook stood three steps away, one hand pressed to his side. Blood had soaked through his coat and dripped between his fingers. His sword lay on the stone beside him, its severed edge still glowing faintly from the cut that had broken the First Chair's connection to the Seventh Seal.

“Tell me you’re not going to open that,” he said.

Lio looked at him. “You say that like you have a better idea.”

“I have several.”

“Name one.”

“Throw it into the abyss.”

“The abyss is under us.”

“Then throw it harder.”

A tremor rolled beneath the platform. The open sky tilted.