Chapter 33 · The Sinner Broadcast

The command core came apart in layers.

First, the floor buckled beneath Eli’s boots. Then the walls screamed as the tower’s inner supports twisted, metal peeling away from metal with the wet, ugly sound of bone being torn from a joint. Red emergency light strobed through the smoke, turning Sera’s face into a sequence of sharp angles: blood at her temple, ash across her cheek, fury burning behind her eyes.

“Move,” she said.

Eli tried.

His left leg folded.

He caught himself against the ruined command dais, fingers sinking into a slab of black alloy still hot from Ash Crown’s last discharge. Beneath his palm, the metal pulsed like a dying heart. The ember under his skin answered with a violent flare, scarlet light threading up his wrist.

Sera saw it. Her gaze dropped to his hand, then lifted again.

“You’re bleeding through the armor.”

“I noticed.”

“That was not an invitation for a joke.”

“Then stop asking questions with obvious answers.”

A shockwave slammed through the chamber. The ceiling split open. Fragments of crystal and steel rained down, shattering against the dead command throne where Sera had stood only minutes before.