Chapter 21 · After the Ceasefire

The order died before it reached the ground.

Eli felt it happen through the command lattice—a brief, impossible stillness followed by a violent recoil. Three hundred armored war machines froze across the upper hangar, their cannon housings locked halfway through their surrender sequence. Then every red optic flared at once.

The sound rolled through the Black Tower like thunder trapped inside metal.

Sera’s hand tightened around the black interface column. Blood ran from the cut in her palm, slipping between her fingers and dripping onto the glassy surface. “What did you do?”

“I told them to stand down.” Eli stared at the tactical projection suspended above the command dais. Blue icons representing the Seventh Legion flickered, vanished, and returned as a mass of hostile crimson. “Someone overrode me.”

A laugh crawled through the chamber speakers.

It was warm. Almost amused.

“Oren,” Sera whispered.

“Not merely Oren.” The voice deepened, carrying a second resonance beneath the first, as if something vast was speaking through a human throat. “The heir has offered her blood. The commander has offered his name. The city has offered its fear. The war begins.