Chapter 10 · A Name in the Ashes

The first iron door opened beneath the city with a sound like the earth cracking its teeth.

Eli heard it through the tower floor.

He stood in the center of the ruined command chamber, barefoot on blackened glass, steam lifting from his skin. The armor had peeled away from him in strips of scarlet light, leaving only torn clothes, blood, and the ember pulsing beneath his ribs. Every beat sent a red reflection across the walls.

Open the river vault.

Take the eastern gate.

Leave no command alive.

The words still crawled through his skull in a voice that sounded like his own, only older. Colder. A voice that had never learned the difference between an order and a death sentence.

Across the chamber, Sera Vale pressed one hand against the wound in her side. Blood had soaked through her white shirt and stained the fingers of the other hand. She looked pale beneath the emergency lights, but her eyes remained sharp enough to cut wire.

"Eli."

His shoulders jerked.

Another iron door groaned open somewhere below them.

"Don't," he said.

Sera took one step closer. Her boots crunched over fragments of the command console. "That is a charming response.