Chapter 28 · Light After Ash

The first thing Eve forgot was the color of her mother’s eyes.

The realization struck harder than the heat.

She stood barefoot on the black glass floor of the Ashlight chamber, cables of gold-white energy wound through her arms and ribs. Light poured beneath her skin in branching veins. Each pulse of the core lifted her off the ground by an inch, then dropped her back with a force that made her knees buckle.

Somewhere beyond the chamber walls, the city was coming alive.

Turbines coughed. Transit rails sparked. Apartment windows ignited one by one across the drowned districts, pale squares shining through the acid haze. The dead billboards above the inner wall flickered awake, spilling advertisements over streets where people were still breaking emergency locks with hammers and pipe wrenches.

The city had power.

Eve could feel every watt passing through her.

And every watt took something in return.

“Eve!” Cain’s voice came through the chamber, roughened by pain and distance.

She turned toward him.

The movement sent a blade of pressure through her skull. For half a second, she saw only a stranger in a dark officer’s coat, his face cut by gold light and blood.