Chapter 29 · Make the War Machine Kneel

The warframe’s hand closed around Eli’s shadow.

Not his body. His shadow.

The black fingers sank through the tower floor and hooked beneath him, dragging at something older than bone. Eli’s knees struck the metal platform. Scarlet light burst from the seams of his gloves, then raced up his arms in hot, branching veins.

A heartbeat thundered inside the machine.

Then another answered beneath his ribs.

“Give me the Ember,” the warframe said.

Its voice did not come through speakers. It came through every surface in the command room—the glass, the cables, the teeth of the dead consoles. The city heard it through the emergency broadcast. Every citizen watching from a screen heard the demand crawl into their homes.

Eli tasted copper.

Across the platform, Sera Vale pressed one hand against the wound beneath her ribs. Blood had soaked through her white shirt and turned the edge of her coat black. She stood anyway, one shoulder braced against the shattered command dais, her face pale beneath the red glow pouring from Eli’s skin.

“Eli.”

He tried to answer. His jaw locked.

The warframe tightened its grip on his shadow. Pain ripped through him—