Chapter 6 · The Heiress’s Cage

The rifles rose as one.

Eli heard the tiny mechanical clicks travel through the chamber, a wave of metal locking into place. Hundreds of rifles. Hundreds of black muzzles aimed at his chest.

The old warframes stood in perfect ranks beneath the Black Tower’s vaulted ceiling, their armor filmed with dust and silver frost. Red optics burned awake behind narrow visors. Some wore shoulder plates stamped with the faded Vale crest. Others carried weapons Eli could not name, weapons whose barrels hummed with contained lightning.

His breath caught.

The chamber smelled of cold iron, burnt oil, and something beneath both—ozone, sharp enough to sting the back of his throat.

“Eli,” Sera said.

She did not raise her voice. She did not need to. The tremor beneath it reached him anyway.

He glanced back.

Blood had soaked through the torn side of her coat and gathered in a dark line beneath her ribs. She kept one hand pressed to the wound. In the other, she held the black control key, its triangular edges glowing with a sickly blue light.