THE THRONE OF THE NINE HEAVENS

CHAPTER 6: THE BLOOD IN THE MARBLE

The elevator doors hissed open, and the scent of ozone and expensive cologne was instantly replaced by the metallic tang of blood. The lobby of Thorne HQ, usually a testament to glass-and-steel perfection, was a slaughterhouse.

"Elias, stay behind me!" Director Chen barked, his voice tight as he drew a compact sidearm.

"Like hell I will," I snapped. My skin was humming, a strange, rhythmic vibration deep in my marrow that I couldn't explain.

Suddenly, the ceiling tiles exploded. Four figures in matte-black tactical gear dropped like spiders on silken threads. The Void Eye.

"Director Chen," the lead assassin sneered, his voice distorted by a vocoder. "The Council sends their regards. And they want the stray dog dead." He pointed a serrated blade at me.

"A stray dog that’s about to bite your head off," I spat.

"Kill them. Now!" Chen ordered his security detail, but they were already falling. The assassins moved like shadows, their blades finding gaps in the body armor of the Thorne guards.

"Move!" I lunged forward.

As the lead assassin swung a heavy claymore at my neck, the humming in my bones reached a fever pitch. I didn't think; I just reacted. I threw my hand out, palms down.

CRACK.

The air itself seemed to solidify and drop. The assassin’s blade didn't just miss—it slammed into the marble floor with such force the stone shattered. The man followed, his knees snapping as he was crushed into the floor by an invisible weight.

"What the—" Chen gasped, stumbling back. "Elias, what did you just do?"

"I don't know!" I yelled, sweat beads forming on my brow. "I just felt... heavy."

Two more Void Eye operatives rushed me from the flanks, silenced submachine guns raised.

"Gravity's a bitch, isn't it?" I roared. I focused on the space around them and pulled.

The two gunmen were yanked toward each other as if caught in a collapsing star. They collided mid-air with a sickening crunch of ribs and tactical helmets. They hit the floor in a tangled, broken heap.

"You’re a freak," the final assassin hissed, vaulting over a reception desk. "A monster Thorne created!"

"Better a monster than a corpse," I retorted.

He swung a spiked flail, the chain whistling through the air. I waited until the spike was inches from my eyes, then I flipped my hand upward. The flail didn't just stop—it inverted. The heavy spiked ball flew backward, smashing into the assassin’s own jaw. Teeth flew across the lobby like hailstones. He collapsed, clutching his ruined face.

I walked over to the lead assassin, who was still pinned to the floor by the localized gravity well I was unconsciously maintaining.

"Who sent you?" I demanded, my voice sounding deeper, echoing in the ruined hall.

"You... you have no idea..." he wheezed, blood bubbling at his lips. "You're protecting the people who ruined you."

"Answer me!" I increased the pressure. The marble beneath him groaned and sank another inch.

"Finish it, Elias," Chen said, his voice cold and shaking. "He’s a ghost. He won’t talk."

I looked at the man's eyes—filled with a terrifying, zealot-like calm. I released the pressure and, in one fluid motion, snatched a fallen blade and ended it.

The silence that followed was deafening.

"We need to clear the floor," Chen said, stepping over a body. "More will be coming. Elias? Are you listening?"

I wasn't. I was staring at the lead assassin's corpse. His tactical collar had been torn during the struggle, exposing the side of his neck.

I knelt down, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

"Elias? What is it?" Chen asked, walking toward me.

I reached out and pulled the collar back further. There, etched in dark, jagged ink on the side of the man's throat, was a symbol. A weeping eye inside a cracked diamond.

My breath hitched. My vision tunneled until all I could see was that mark.

"No," I whispered. "This can't be."

"What’s wrong?" Chen demanded.

I looked up at him, my face pale. "This mark... this tattoo."

"What about it? It’s the Void Eye sigil."

"I know," I said, my voice trembling with a sudden, icy realization. "But Sarah had this. In the exact same style. She kept it hidden on her hip... she told me it was a birthmark she’d had tattooed over."

I stared at the dead killer, then back at the mark.

"My wife was one of them."