Chapter 28 · Crowned in Scarlet

The warframe stepped out of the Black Tower with the night still burning around it.

Ash Zero Prime was taller than the ruined entrance, its shoulders scraping sparks from the fractured archway. Scarlet light pulsed beneath plates the color of old bone, each beat bright enough to paint the smoke red. Its head turned once, slowly, toward the ring of armored vehicles surrounding the plaza.

Every rifle lifted.

Eli felt the movement through the machine before he saw it. A thousand targeting systems tightened around him like invisible wire. The warframe’s fingers flexed. Blades unfolded from its forearms with a sound like a cathedral door being dragged across stone.

“Prime,” Eli said.

The machine’s voice rolled through the ground. “HOSTILE ARRAY ACQUIRED. LETHAL RESPONSE AVAILABLE.”

Sera stood beside Eli on the broken pavement, one hand pressed beneath her ribs. Blood had soaked through her shirt and darkened the side of her coat. She was pale enough to look carved from the same ash-gray stone as the tower, but her eyes remained sharp.

“Tell it no,” she whispered.

Across the plaza, the city’s security forces formed three armored lines. Riot carriers locked shields together.