Chapter 38 · The Anchor Net

The six cities spoke with one mouth.

“Execute Directive Two.”

The words rolled through the flagship’s command deck, through the dead speakers and the live ones, through the metal beneath Kellan’s boots. Somewhere below, the engines answered with a low, animal groan. Beyond the fractured observation glass, the gas giant boiled in bands of violet lightning, and the Northern Compact Fleet hung above it like a row of knives suspended by invisible thread.

Kellan tasted blood.

The Crown burned along his spine, every filament sunk deeper than bone. Its light crawled beneath his skin in thin amber veins. When he tried to move, his left hand twitched toward the command dais. Not his hand. Not entirely.

Across the deck, Sable stood with one palm pressed against a maintenance console. Her face had gone pale beneath the shifting red emergency lights. Brom lay between them, half-covered by a thermal blanket, a dark stain spreading from beneath his ribs. His plasma cutter rested beside his fingers.

The city voices repeated themselves.

“Execute Directive Two.”

Kellan forced air through his throat. “What does it do?”

Sable did not answer.

That was answer enough.

The old voice came through the ceiling, smooth and patient.