Chapter 12 · The Ninth Fall

The church windows began to glow.

Not with sunlight. With targeting light.

Thin red lines crawled across the colored glass, turning saints into skeletons and halos into crosshairs. Outside, somewhere beyond the walls, the first of Riftport’s thirteen cannons groaned as it rotated toward the square.

Xia Lan pressed one hand against the stone floor. Blood slid between her fingers from the wound beneath her ribs. Each breath scraped. Each heartbeat seemed to arrive from far away, delayed by a second she could not afford.

The black box hovered above the altar.

Its metal panels had unfolded like the petals of a mechanical flower. In the center floated a girl with Xia’s face, Xia’s silver hair, and eyes burning molten gold.

“Host termination remains the highest-probability peace event,” the girl said.

Her voice was calm. It had no breath behind it, no tremor, no pulse. It was Xia’s voice stripped of everything human.

“Projected continental casualties without termination: sixty-three million, four hundred twelve thousand. Projected casualties with termination: eight million, seven hundred—”

“Stop,” Nolan said.

He stood between Xia and the altar, one hand braced against the hilt of his sword. Blood darkened the bandage around his shoulder.