Chapter 35 · The War-Heart Below Riftport

The square broke beneath them.

Not cracked. Not collapsed.

It opened.

Stone sheared away in a widening circle, taking banners, soldiers, broadcast pylons, and screaming civilians into the dark. The sound swallowed every other sound—the gunfire, the alarms, Ivra Kohn’s orders—until Riftport seemed to be falling through the throat of some enormous beast.

Xia Lan’s boots lost contact with the ground.

For one weightless second, she saw the whole city beneath her: towers tilting toward the harbor, bridges snapping like rotten bones, silver artillery lines rotating in unison as every cannon on the continent obeyed the same buried command.

Then Nolan caught her wrist.

His other hand clamped around the edge of a broken platform. Blood poured from the bullet wound beneath his ribs, darkening his uniform and dripping into the abyss.

“Don’t look down,” he growled.

“I’m not.”

“You are absolutely looking down.”

“I’m calculating.”

“Calculate faster.”

A chunk of marble tore loose beneath Nolan’s elbow. His fingers slipped half an inch.

Xia’s silver wings flared on instinct. The force that burst from her spine struck the falling stone and shattered it into glittering fragments.