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Chapter 70
The ventilation shafts of Solara were the lungs of the Empire. They were massive tunnels of iron and brass that ran from the very bottom of the undercity to the very top of the High Spire. They were always humming. They were always blowing. They carried the hot, stinking breath of the mana-foundries out of the city and pulled the cold, fresh air of the mountains in.But in one specific section of the shafts, the air did not smell fresh. It smelled like a graveyard in the middle of a swamp.Drogo Payne moved through the shadows of a giant, spinning fan. He was eight feet of silent obsidian. He had pushed his violet fire so deep into his bones that he looked like a piece of the wall. He was no longer the "Breaker" who roared at the sky. He was a shadow. He was a secret.In front of him, built into the very guts of the iron shafts, was a mansion.It was not a beautiful palace. It was a grotesque house made of rusted metal, black stone, and bone. It was the home of Baron Mordant. The Ba
Chapter 69
The purple light of the blade began to fade. The vibration slowed down. The energy was being pulled straight out of the blade and into Silas’s arm.Vane’s eyes went wide behind his mask. "What... what are you doing?! You can't touch a vibro-blade!""I can do anything I want with your energy," Silas said.Silas pulled.Vane was yanked forward, his optical camouflage flickering and failing. He was no longer a ghost. He was just a man in a black suit, and he was terrified.Silas raised his Black-Iron sword. "Wait!" Vane shouted. "I can give you the names! I can tell you where the Inquisitor is!""I already know where he is," Silas said.Silas didn't kill him. He didn't want to waste the energy. He drove his fist into Vane’s chest.THUD.It wasn't a punch. It was a Drain.Silas pulled every ounce of power from Vane’s Ghost-Suit. He pulled the energy from the internal batteries. He pulled the power from the dampeners.Vane collapsed. The black suit went grey. The mask went dark. Vane lay o
Chapter 68
Silas Iron-Grey feet hit the metal plates with a soft, rhythmic clink-clink. He was moving at forty miles per hour, his body low, his hands grazing the walls for balance. The Rot in his chest was a constant, stabbing pain, but the blue-white energy he had taken from the Caretakers was still burning in his veins. It gave him a speed that Kian’s body could never have imagined.Ren. Jax. Kaelie. Leo. Their names were a beat in his head."I told them to be ghosts," Silas whispered to the wind. "But I gave them the wrong map."He could feel the Stalker ahead of him. To his new senses, the creature was a void in the Haze. It was a cold spot in a world of heat. It was fast, faster than anything Silas had fought yet. He reached a junction in the pipes. One led to the laundry vats. The other led to the furnace.Silas stopped. He closed his eyes. “Breathe. Feel the vibration.”He felt the Sump. He felt the thousands of people sleeping in the trash. He felt the heavy thumping of the recycling
Chapter 67
The office of Instructor Vako was no longer a place of luxury. The beautiful mahogany desk was gone, replaced by a cold, grey slab of industrial metal. The walls were still scorched from the rocket blast. The smell of burnt plastic and old smoke hung in the air like a heavy ghost. Vako sat in a hard metal chair, his face half-hidden by thick white bandages. One eye peeked out, red and watery, twitching with a rhythmic, nervous beat.On the metal slab sat a small, black box. It had no label. It had no lock.Vako’s hand trembled as he reached for it. He opened the lid.Inside, resting on a bed of white silk, were three severed fingers. They were small and pale—the fingers of his junior associate, a boy who had only been on the job for a week. There was a note pinned to the silk with a silver needle.THE INTEREST IS GROWING, VAKO. THE NEXT BOX WILL BE LARGER.Vako let out a small, choking sound. He closed the box and pushed it away. He looked at the holographic clock on the wall. The P
Chapter 66
Pete stumbled off the walkway, his heavy boots splashing into the black water. He was off-balance, his chest open, his neck exposed.Kael stepped out from behind the pillar.The big man didn't hesitate. He swung the industrial pipe with a two-handed grip. He used the "Internal Flow" Silas had taught them, pushing the power from his heels through his core.CRUNCH.The pipe hit the back of Pete’s neck, right where the flesh met the metal port.Pete hit the ground face-first. The water splashed high into the air. He lay there, his red sensors flickering and dying. The giant iron arm was still locked in its upward swing, looking like a rusted monument.The Sump went silent.The workers didn't move. They stared at the fallen giant. They stared at the black oil leaking into the water.Ren walked out of the shadows. He was breathing hard, his face covered in soot and oil. He looked at the spike in his hand. Then he looked at Pete.He reached down and touched the cold metal of the cybernetic
Chapter 65
The Sump was a world that never slept, but it was not a world of life. It was a world of metal, grease, and the slow, heavy drip of poisoned water.In the lowest level of the Academy, the air was thick. It felt like breathing through a wet cloth. Huge pipes, the size of houses, ran across the ceiling, dripping green chemical waste into black puddles on the floor. Neon signs from the upper levels flickered far above, sending weak, purple light down through the layers of trash.Silas Kapito sat on a rusted beam, high above the main walkway. He was hidden in the deep shadows where the light did not reach. His Iron-Grey skin was cold. His silver-flecked eyes were fixed on the scene below.He was not going to help. "Tonight, they learn to walk," Silas whispered to the dark.Below him, a group of workers were huddled together. They were Dregs, men and women who spent fourteen hours a day sorting through the Academy’s trash.Their hands were scarred. Their spirits were broken. They were the
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