Chapter 8 · No Exit for the Winners

The golden eye beneath the arena blinked.

Every rune in the floor answered.

A deep metallic groan rolled through the stadium, shaking dust from the suspended balconies. Noble spectators screamed as the transparent shields around the arena flared white. Above them, Asterfall’s endless night glittered through the open dome—airships frozen in their moorings, lightning crawling between the city’s floating foundations, the entire sky-city held over the abyss by ancient engines and older lies.

Nora dropped to one knee.

Her left wrist burned as if molten wire had been threaded beneath the skin. The circuit she had rewritten still pulsed there, matching the rhythm of the enormous eye below. Every beat sent a sharp tremor up her arm and into her shoulder.

Kane caught her before she pitched forward.

His hand closed around her waist. Heat surged through the contact, not the clean warmth of a living body but the violent pressure of a storm trapped inside a cage. Blue-white veins of thunder crawled beneath his skin. His pupils had narrowed to silver slits.

Behind them, Adrian Vale lay half-buried in shattered crystal, his ceremonial armor split from collar to hip. The noble champion’s breath came in wet, furious gasps.