If you want to know what salvation looks like when it finally burns away the sins of a broken world, you have to look past the blinding white fire and see the millions of broken threads weaving themselves back together into something resembling hope."Ethan, do not let go, stay with me, the light is breaking!" Evelyn screamed, her voice cracking as she threw her arms around my chest, dragging me back from the edge of the collapsing dais while the massive construct of the False Emperor shattered into a billion shimmering fragments of crystal light."I am still here, Evelyn, I am not going anywhere," I wheezed, my voice barely a breathless whisper as a violent wave of residual magical fallout crashed over my body, sending white-hot agony racing through every vein and nerve ending."His pulse is dropping, the backlash from the core is eating away at his vital energy!" Miller shouted, dropping his rifle and sliding across the ash-

If you think stepping into a dark hole at the bottom of the world can lead to anything good, you have never met my family."Hold my hand tighter, Ethan, the air down here smells like old iron and ozone," Evelyn whispered, her voice echoing softly off the metallic walls of the vertical shaft as we descended the ladder into the subterranean depths."I am right here beside you, Evelyn, do not let go for a second," I answered, keeping one hand locked around hers while my other gripped the rungs of the ladder, my shoulder still aching from the previous battle."If we find another army of zealots waiting at the bottom of this pipe, I am turning around and going back to sleep," Miller grumbled from a few rungs above us, his boots clanking loudly against the metal."You are not turning anywhere, Miller, we finish what we started," Lira called down from the top, her flashlight beam cutting through the dense, swirling dust

If you think the hardest part of surviving a war is defeating the tyrant who started it, you have never had to look a room full of tired people in the eye and tell them the real nightmare is only just beginning."You cannot seriously be asking us to fund a naval expedition across an ocean that swallowed our scouts whole, Ethan, not when half the outer districts still do not have clean water to drink!" a council elder argued, slamming his palm against the heavy wooden table as his face flushed with angry disbelief."If we sit here and wait for them to bring the war to our doorstep while we fix our plumbing, we will not survive long enough to enjoy the clean water," I snapped back, leaning over the table with my hands pressed flat against the wood, feeling the old wound in my shoulder pull with a sharp, warning sting."Ethan is right, we cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand just because peace feels nice for a change," Eve

The blinding flash of red light did not incinerate the dry dock as I feared, but instead snapped shut into a sickeningly quiet hum, locking the emergency magnetic seals around us before the bomb could tear the hull apart."You missed, you fanatic, the dampeners caught it!" I yelled, lunging forward through the thick smoke and tackling the robed zealot hard against the steel console before he could trigger a secondary charge."It does not matter whether I lived or died to see the spark, heretic, because the fire has already been lit across the water," the man wheezed beneath my weight, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the metal floor while a manic, bloody grin stretched across his pale face."Who else is working with you inside the shipyards, give me their names right now!" I demanded, pressing my forearm tightly against his throat while my fingers pinned his arms to the deck."You can drag me down to the deepest

Water should not scream when it breaks, yet the entire ocean seemed to shriek as those monolithic metal hulls tore through the surface, casting massive sheets of white foam and boiling spray across our decks."Hard to port, turn the bow into them right now or they will slice us in half!" Garrick screamed, his face locked in absolute terror as he whipped the iron wheel around with every ounce of muscle he possessed."We cannot turn fast enough, Garrick, look at the size of those things!" Evelyn cried out, her hands gripping the wooden railing so tightly her knuckles turned stark white as a mountain of dark, reflective steel towered over our starboard side."Don't just stand there staring at them, man the deck cannons, open fire!" Miller roared, sprinting across the tilting planks toward an automated turret while bullets and shrapnel began to rain down around us."It won't do any good, Miller, look at their hulls!" I shouted back