Chapter 13 · The Hunt Order

The first thing Nora heard was the city screaming.

Not people. Asterfall itself.

The arena’s foundation groaned beneath her boots as the thunder towers woke one by one, their blue-white crowns stabbing into the storm clouds above. Every bridge in the Trial District shuddered. Glass windows burst along the surrounding towers. Somewhere beyond the arena walls, a hundred warning bells began to toll in perfect, merciless rhythm.

Then the voice of the Execution Bureau rolled through the rain.

“ROYAL SUCCESSION PROTOCOL ACTIVE. SUBJECT IDENTIFIED: KANE RHOAN, LAST BLOOD OF THE THUNDER CROWN. LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED.”

Nora’s fingers tightened around Kane’s hand.

His palm was cold. Too cold. Lightning still crawled under his skin in thin, violent threads, flashing beneath his veins and vanishing into the torn cuff of his coat. He stood beside the black box, shoulders rigid, face bloodless beneath the arena’s strobing light.

The recording had ended less than a minute ago.

Her father’s voice still clung to the air like smoke.

Lock the royal chamber. Overload the Crown. Bring the Thunder Court down.

And Nora had drawn the auxiliary circuits.

She remembered none of it.