Chapter 20 · Remember My Name

The tower door slammed shut behind Nia. The hunting hound hit it hard enough to bend the metal inward.

She didn't wait to see if it held.

Nia grabbed Elias by the front of his coat and shoved him toward the spiral stairs. "Move."

He stumbled, caught the rail, and looked back at the door. Something on the other side dragged its claws down the metal. Three slow screeches. Then a wet growl pushed through the seams.

"That door has a locking sequence," Elias said.

"Then lock it."

"I need a panel."

"You need legs. Use those first."

He gave her a look, but he ran.

The stairs climbed through the center of the Memory Tower, a narrow shaft lined with black glass. Faces moved behind the glass. Thousands of them. People from every district. Children. Workers. Dead officials. Whole families caught in old recordings, smiling, crying, yelling at someone who couldn't hear them anymore.

Everything the Crownstack wanted to keep.

Everything Veyra wanted erased.

Nia kept one hand on the rail, the other pressed against her ribs. The core sigil burned under her skin. It'd started as a black mark over her heart.