Chapter 24 · You would've fought me

"You would've fought me."

"Of course I would've fought you."

"You would've gone straight to the Tribunal."

"Because I trusted the law."

"And look where that got you."

The words landed like a slap.

I tore my hand free and held the core between our faces.

"Open it."

"It needs your blood."

"Then tell it to open."

"Mara, once it cracks, the authority trail will broadcast through every linked screen in Vesper Bay."

"Good. Let the city watch you fall."

"It won't only show my order."

"What else is in it?"

He hesitated.

That tiny pause cut deeper than his confession.

"What else, Adrian?"

"The extraction record."

"Whose extraction?"

"Yours."

The archive doors slammed.

Once.

Then again.

A voice boomed through the metal. "Mara Voss. Step away from the heir and surrender the authority core."

Adrian turned toward the doors.

"Marlow's enforcers," he said.

"You sound surprised."

"I expected them to come for me."

"They came for both of us."

"No. They came for the core."

"And if they take it?"

He looked back at me. "They'll rewrite the death order while it's still open. You'll be legally dead before sunrise.