Chapter 39 · The First Me in the Black Box

The first coffin opened with a breath.

Not the groan of hinges. Not the scrape of metal against stone.

A breath—wet, desperate, and human—rose from the black rectangle beneath the square.

The crowd fell silent.

Xia Lan stood in the center of the execution platform with blood drying beneath her collar and the taste of iron coating her tongue. Around her, the newly risen coffins formed a ring of dull metal. Their surfaces were stamped with names that had vanished from the city records seconds ago. Names that had belonged to the dead.

Now every lid bore the same crimson mark: a recruitment seal.

Nolan’s hand closed around her wrist.

His grip was hard enough to hurt. Warm enough to anchor her.

‘Don’t move,’ he said.

‘That’s usually my line.’

‘You can have it back when we’re not standing on top of an army.’

The opened coffin shuddered again. A pale hand slid over its rim. The fingers were thin, jointed wrong, and threaded with silver cables. A figure dragged itself upright, wearing a uniform from no army Xia Lan recognized.