Chapter 36 · Before the Thirteenth Reboot

The war order kept playing.

“By authority of the Ashfall Strategic Command, all continental forces will mobilize at once. The winged tribes are classified as an existential contamination. No prisoner will be taken. No nest will be spared.”

The voice was hers.

Not the voice Xia Lan used now, roughened by smoke and cold air. Not the quick, sarcastic voice that had cursed at broken rifles, rotten rations, and Nolan Vey’s suicidal battle plans. This voice was lower. Clearer. It carried through the chamber like a blade sliding from its sheath.

“Total extermination is authorized.”

The memory ended in a burst of white light.

Xia staggered backward. Her heel struck the metal rim of the command dais, and the shock traveled up her leg. Beneath her boots, hundreds of concentric rings pulsed with molten gold. Symbols crawled over them, rearranging themselves into the same angular script that had followed her through every nightmare.

The woman standing in the air above the core watched her without blinking.

She had Xia’s face before the scars, before the hunger, before the silver eyes learned how to narrow at the sight of a gun.