Chapter 16 · The Command I Gave

The stairs beneath Signal Tower 13 did not descend so much as swallow them.

Each step was cut from black metal, slick with condensation that smelled of iron and old rain. Blue-white light pulsed beneath the seams, brightening whenever Xia Lan put her foot down, as if the tower were counting her approach.

One. Two. Three.

Behind her, Nolan’s breathing scraped against the narrow stairwell. He had one hand pressed to his ribs, where a soldier’s blade had opened him beneath the armor. Blood had soaked through his shirt and dried in a dark fan along his waist, but he refused to slow down.

“You’re bleeding again,” Xia said.

“I noticed.”

“You’re leaving a trail.”

“Then the tower can follow us.”

She glanced back. His face was pale beneath the emergency lights, his jaw locked against pain. He still carried the torn execution order in his fist. The paper had been reduced to a handful of shredded strips, but he had not let them fall.

A person, not a weapon.

His voice from the platform remained inside her like a struck bell.

The projection had shown her face—silver eyes, white hair, a mouth shaped exactly like hers—