"Don't you dare touch me, Bayu!" Galang shrieked, stumbling backward into a stack of dried hide crates inside Mother Jera’s tent. The wood splintered under his weight, kicking up a choking cloud of gray dust that settled instantly over the radioactive lavender glow radiating from his neck. "You’ve already killed your own connection! You think because you’re a hollow shell of a man now, you get to drag the rest of us down into the dirt with you?""I’m standing here, aren't I?" Bayu stepped forward through the settling dust, his expression entirely devoid of the frantic panic that had defined him weeks ago in the sewer-drain. His bare forearms were smooth, ordinary, and scarred by old shrapnel rather than glowing with the lethal violet lattice that currently mapped the entirety of Galang’s muscular frame. "Look at me, Galang. Am I dead? Am I rotting in the ash-wastes?""You might as well be!" Galang panted, pressing his glowing palm flat against his chest as if trying to physically cage

"Shut up, Draven," Galang snarled, his voice cracking with a manic, reedy pitch that betrayed the terror trembling underneath his bravado. He bared his teeth, the enamel faintly translucent, glowing with that sickening internal ultraviolet light that had once promised them the strength of gods, but now only offered a slow, agonizing dissolution of the flesh. "You’ve got your heavy steel plates, Alaric has his books and his endless schemes, and Bayu has his holier-than-thou martyrdom! What do I have left if I rip this out? Tell me! Nothing! I’m just a scavenger from the gutters who’s going to die in the dirt!""You’re going to die in the dirt anyway if you keep letting the conduit drain your marrow," Bayu said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the heavy, immovable weight of absolute finality. He didn't rush forward this time. He simply stood his ground in the center of Mother Jera’s crowded, dust-choked tent, his empty hands hanging loose and open at his sides. "Mother Jera told

"Mother Jera doesn't lie about the price of the conduits, Galang, and you know it," Bayu said, his voice dropping another notch into a flat, dangerous register. He took a single, deliberate step toward the trembling, glowing scavenger. "Look at your teeth. Look at your fingernails. The violet light isn't making you a god. It’s dissolving you from the inside out, and the palace is keeping a tally of every ounce of energy you burn so they can harvest what's left when your heart stops.""Shut up!" Galang shrieked, lurching forward with a speed made unnatural by the volatile lattice surging through his veins, his hand clawing out toward Bayu’s throat. "Just shut up!"Before Galang’s fingers could make contact, Draven moved with brutal, practiced efficiency. The heavy metal of his gauntlet intercepted Galang’s wrist mid-swing, a sharp crack echoing through the canvas tent as bone met hardened iron. Galang let out a choked gasp, his knees buckling beneath him as Draven twisted his arm down,

"You already are detonating, Galang, and we don't have the luxury of waiting for you to burn out," Bayu said, his voice entirely devoid of pity as he hauled the struggling scavenger to his feet by his collar, ignoring the stinging static of the ultraviolet light bleeding through his adversary's torn tunic. "Draven, take his left arm. If he tries to channel another pulse to clear the path, break his elbow before he can raise it.""Gladly," Draven muttered, his massive metal gauntlet clamping down over Galang’s wrist with bone-crushing pressure as the trio stepped out from the shelter of the debris trenches and directly into the wind-swept shadow of the palace’s outer wall.The structure towering above them was a monolithic nightmare of grey stone and black iron, scarred by decades of soot and neglect, yet radiating an oppressive, heavy authority that seemed to drain the very air from their lungs. High above, narrow slit-windows cast faint, sickly beams of violet illumination outward in

"I’ll do it myself, Galang. Do not test me on this," Bayu finished, his voice dropping into a register so chillingly devoid of threat that the frantic scavenger actually stopped thrashing.Galang swallowed hard, the violet veins pulsing furiously beneath the pale skin of his throat like trapped lightning. "You're... you're really going to kill me here? Outside the door? After everything?""If you blow us all to ash before we cross the threshold, the point is entirely moot," Bayu replied, not an inch of warmth in his dark eyes as he shoved Galang forward toward the towering, soot-stained iron doors of the palace. "Draven, keep his arm pinned. If that hand so much as twitches toward a conduit seam, snap the bone.""Already positioned," Draven rumbled, his massive metal gauntlet twisting Galang’s wrist into a vicious, agonizing lock that wrung a sharp gasp of pain from the smaller man. "Move, scavenger. The lanterns on the parapet are swinging back this way."They surged forward, boots c