Chapter 40 · Beneath the Ember

The lock beneath Eli’s sternum opened with the sound of a match being struck inside his bones.

For one heartbeat, the battlefield went silent.

Then every war core around the broadcast tower stopped moving.

They hung in the rain like iron gargoyles, weapons raised, red lenses fixed on the tower’s upper platform. More than a hundred machines crowded the avenues below, their armored feet crushing abandoned cars and scattering sparks across the flooded streets. Some had been disarmed by Eli’s command.

One had already vanished into the scarlet hunger under his skin. The rest waited in a frozen army, held motionless by a key that was not code, not command, but the rhythm pounding against his ribs.

His heart.

Eli staggered. Blood slid from the corner of his mouth and disappeared into the rain. The world narrowed to the heat behind his chest and Sera’s hand clamped around his wrist.

“Eli.”

Her voice reached him through the static, through the distant thunder of artillery, through the old command whisper still crawling inside his skull.

BURN THE CITY.

The words did not come from the speakers anymore.