Chapter 29 · The Name Being Erased

The crimson fire did not burn.

It remembered her.

Xia Lan felt it slide beneath her skin, through the thin bones of her wings and the fractures in her ribs, searching for something buried deeper than blood. The Ashfall Core had no heat, yet every nerve in her body screamed as if she had been lowered into a furnace. Red light pulsed through the chamber in time with her heartbeat.

Once.

Twice.

On the third pulse, Nolan disappeared from the edge of her vision.

Not moved. Not hidden behind the fire.

Gone.

Xia Lan's hand clawed at the empty air where his shoulder had been. Her fingers closed around nothing. The stone floor rushed up beneath her knees, and the world tilted sideways.

"Nolan!"

Her voice struck the chamber walls and came back wrong.

No answer.

Behind her, Milo shouted something. Boots hammered across metal grating. The enforcement unit had broken through the outer door, and their rifles spat blue-white bolts into the red haze.