Chapter 32 · Burn the Throne

The command core hung above Varta like a second moon.

Black cables descended from its armored belly into the tower, pulsing with red light. Every pulse traveled through the city’s buried conduits, into the Ash Glass chambers, the defense towers, the drones circling the skyline—and into the bodies of the people Oren Vale had turned into weapons.

Ninety-seven percent.

The number burned across the cracked tactical display.

Eli stared at it while Unit 1 tried to tear his head from his shoulders.

The other man’s fingers closed around Eli’s throat. Metal flooring buckled beneath their boots as Unit 1 drove him down. His face was Eli’s face reflected through a nightmare—same jaw, same dark eyes, same mouth twisted by pain. Only the scar above his left brow made him different.

A thin line of blood slid from the scar and fell onto Eli’s cheek.

“Stop,” Eli rasped.

Unit 1’s hand tightened.

The ember beneath Eli’s skin answered with a violent flare. Scarlet light crawled up his neck, illuminating the veins beneath his flesh. Heat swelled in his chest, hungry and familiar.

Kill him, it whispered.

The command did not come from Oren.