Chapter 14 · The City of Memory Anchors

The command deck smelled of hot metal, ozone, and blood.

Kellan Vey stood beneath the fractured tactical display while the Crown burned along his spine. Every pulse of it crawled beneath his skin like a second heartbeat, too fast and too cold. Beyond the armored observation glass, the Crown Fleet turned in formation above the storm-wrapped planet. Their weapon arrays opened one after another, bright as artificial stars.

Below them, Seventh City vanished beneath a lattice of targeting lines.

“Marra,” Kellan said. His voice came out rough. “How long?”

Static cracked in his ear. Then Marra Pell answered, breathless and buried beneath the roar of collapsing tunnels. “For the city? Seven minutes before the fleet completes the firing solution. For the last evacuation column? Twelve, if the eastern shaft stays open.”

“Keep it open.”

“I’m trying.”

A tremor ran through the deck. Somewhere above, the fleet’s guns charged. Blue-white light bled through the seams of the hull.

Brom Hark lifted his rifle and kept it trained on Sable Quinn.

She did not look at him. Her face was pale, one hand pressed against the side of her skull where the backup Crown’s connection had burned into her nerves.