Chapter 32 · Echo of the Thirteenth Reset

The city disappeared beneath the wings.

Not metaphorically. Not in the way a cloud swallowed a street or smoke blurred the roofs. The ruins unfolded beneath Riftport like a second sky, black stone ribs rising through avenues, plazas, and shattered barracks. Each rib was veined with pale blue fire. Between them stretched membranes of translucent metal, broad enough to eclipse towers and thin enough to show the crawling constellations of runes beneath.

Xia Lan stood at the center of the awakening structure with her arms locked at her sides.

Her wings were open.

She could feel every joint, every silver feather, every filament of light burning through the roots beneath her shoulder blades. The sensation was not pain anymore. Pain had become too small a word. This was pressure. A second nervous system had wrapped itself around her spine and was trying to remember how to move her.

“Xia!”

Nolan’s voice cut through the grinding roar.

He was twenty paces away, half-hidden behind the wreckage of a supply hauler. Dust streaked his face. Blood darkened the sleeve of his coat—not his blood, she thought, though she could not be sure.