Chapter 36 · Reign in Ruins

"Get your hands off the console, Lucian! You're going to burn this whole city to the ground!" Vesper’s voice screamed over the roar of the reactor, her fingers digging into his shoulder, trying to yank him back from the edge of the abyss.

Lucian didn't move. He couldn't. Not because he was paralyzed—though his legs still felt like dead weights in the chair—but because the power surging through his spine was no longer his own. It was a tide of obsidian ink, cold and hungry, pouring out of the Rift and into every circuit of the palace's war-machine.

"I'm not burning it," Lucian gasped, his voice sounding like two grinding stones. "I'm rewriting it."

"Rewriting? Look at the gauges!" Vesper shoved a monitor in his face. The needles were pinned in the red, vibrating so hard the glass was cracking. "The city-killer is dropping. A million tons of steel is about to flatten the capital because you can't keep your god-complex in check!"

Lucian glanced up. Through the reinforced glass of the spire, the massive shadow of the orbital fortress was no longer a distant speck. It was a ceiling.