Chapter 18 · Hounds in the Tower

The Black Tower took a breath.

Its walls expanded with a deep metallic groan, then contracted hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Scarlet light pulsed through the seams in the floor. Every pulse painted Eli’s hands red. Every pulse made the old number inside his skull burn brighter.

ASH ZERO.

The words had been broadcast across the city in his own voice—or something wearing it.

Sera stood between him and the kneeling warframe, one hand pressed against the blood-slick command plate at her wrist. The Ash Crown glimmered above her palm, a broken ring of black metal and pale fire. It had accepted her. The tower had accepted her. None of it felt like victory.

“Eli,” she said.

He tried to answer. His throat closed around smoke that wasn’t there.

The chamber tilted. For half a second, the polished floor became a battlefield. Snow fell through a red sky. Towers burned in the distance. Men in ash-colored armor stood shoulder to shoulder, rifles raised toward something enormous moving behind the smoke.

Then the vision snapped shut.

Eli staggered.

Sera caught his arm before his knees hit the floor. Heat rolled off him in waves.