Chapter 30 · Dragged into the Arena

The acrid tang of ozone hung thick enough to taste in Asterfall’s highest floating arena, the echo of Elias Vey’s recorded voice still ringing off the alloy rafters.

Nora Vey’s fingers hovered over the dented black box she’d pried open with her circuit probe, magnetic dust sticking to the sweat on her knuckles, the blood-seal wedding ring on her left hand still thrumming with the cool blue light of verified truth.

Beside her, Kane Rhoan’s jaw was set so tight she could see the muscle ticking, arcs of static leaping from his clenched fists to the cracked marble underfoot, his rage now redirected from her to the traitor festering in his inner circle—exactly as her father’s recording had warned.

Twenty feet to Kane’s left, Jax—one of the first men who’d broken him out of the execution cells three months prior, the man who’d carried his med kit through the undercity sewers—shifted his weight.