Page 71 of Sixth
The central Councilor rose, his eyes blazing. “You speak above your place.”
“Then you should have built your station higher,” shesaid.
The words struck like a hammer. The floor trembled. Light cracked through the ceiling dome, pouring in brilliant white streams. The chamber doors blew open again, and sound thundered down the corridor. The synchronized march of soldiers. The ring of metal on crystal.
They entered one byone.
First came Fifth, Locus, his armor glinting like obsidian. Hannah walked beside him, head high, fingers brushing the plates over his ribs as if to remind him that he did not stand alone. Aunit of rescued warriors fanned out behind them, faces fierce. The significance of their loyalty hit like awave.
Fourth and Maya crossed the threshold next. Heat wavered in the air around them. Their camouflage shimmered like living wind, bending light and hiding movement in the same breath. Maya’s eyes tracked everything, fox bright and unafraid. The faint pattern of his Elaroin heritage shimmered across Fourth’s skin and folded again until he looked carved from shadow.
Third strode in, tall, dark, exact as a blade. Anya kept pace at his side, golden hair a flare of rebellion. She moved like a storm contained in a human frame. The warriors under Tor’Vek’scommand filed in with ruthless order, shields rising in a wall that gleamed like atide.
Second entered with Elara. His warrior eyes were sharp, reading the kill zones and the angles where light hid threats. Elara’s palm rested against Zar’Ryn’s wrist where their bond connected skin to skin. The cuff mark glimmered faintly. Their breaths matched.
Finally, First arrived. Jo’Nay’s silver armor carried the history of a hundred wars. Scars caught the light in pale lines. He walked like a mountain in motion, Winn at his side. The hall shook beneath their combined presence. The single Valenmark that connected them all ignited, its energy surging through every warrior and consort until the chamber floor veined with living light.
The Council forces hesitated, then broke. Orders shrieked from the far tiers. Drones swarmed from recesses in the dome. The air filled with the sting of charged metal. The warriors moved asone.
Energy collided with steel. The sound tore through the chamber, plasma bolts and shield blooms and the crack of kinetic impact. Shouts ricocheted against crystal andgold.
Apex met the first wave at the crest, blade up, body turning in a fluid arc that left a silver trail. He carved through the drones with movements that were clean and terrible. He fought like a man who had already chosen the world he would build.
Emmy ran low along the curve of a broken step, heat brushing the line of her neck when plasma kissed stone. Hannah dropped beside her with a breath and shoved several coin-sized devices into herhand.
“Signal leeches,” Hannah said. She held up a small black disk no bigger than a dime, its surface etched with faint lines of light. “It drains power from enemy shields. The Council rigs their drones to an energy network. Each pylon on the floor keeps their barrier alive. You need to find the one glowing blue at the base, pry the cover open, and jam this right into the node. It’ll short the whole section out and drop their shields.”
Emmy nodded. “You know I’m going to owe you for this.”
“You already do. Keep moving.”
They split. Emmy sprinted along a line of fractured columns while the battle roared. Her skin sang with the Valenmark’s heat. She could feel Apex in the pattern of her breath. Not words. Not thoughts. Arhythm that steadied the edges of fear and sharpened heraim.
She slid behind a fallen standard and peered into the darkness under the lowest tier. There. Apale blue throb. She knelt in front of it and pulled the cover off before jamming one of the leeches home. The current jumped like catching lightning and forcing it toturn.
On the main floor, Fourth—Riv’En—and Maya moved together as one, their Elaroin camouflage bending light around their bodies until they seemed to melt into the air. To the enemy, it looked as though they disappeared and reappeared, but in truth they were darting through the fight with inhuman speed, their movements cloaked in rippling distortion.
An enemy squad fired into empty air and hit nothing at all, then gasped as Maya struck, her baton cracking against the first man’s wrist while Riv’En swept the second’s legs and used the first as a shield. The shimmer of their camouflage folded, then flared again as they slipped through the broken light to attack from another angle. When the last soldier fell, the distortionrippled once more and vanished, leaving only the echo of their movement behind.
Third held the central line. Anya ghosted the flank. She moved like a spark through dry grass. He didn’t look to find her. He didn’t need to. When a heavy unit broke through the shield wall, Anya slid under it and took the knee while Third took the neck. The machine dropped like a felled tree. Anya came up grinning, hair wild, eyes on fire. Third didn’t smile, but his shoulders eased a fraction as if a burden he would never name had shifted.
Second marked threats and routes as if he saw the chamber from above. He threw Elara a flash flare without looking. She caught it and rolled it into a crevasse. Light burst up and blinded the next wave of drones long enough for Second to cut three from the air. Elara’s calm voice kept a cadence in his ear. He matched it with each strike.
Jo’Nay took the brunt of a charge so the others didn’t have to. He planted his feet and met machine bodies with living strength. The floor cracked under his boots. He forced a hulking construct back step by step until the thing’s spine grated across the edge of the dais and snapped.
Apex reached the dais and met the inner guard, acircle of elite soldiers in burnished gold. They moved in a pattern designed to isolate. He refused isolation. He widened his stance and drew the fight into a circle where his blade could speak to all at once. The first man dropped, eyes wide with disbelief. The second swung too high. Apex caught the blow on his bracer and used the opening to break the line. Energy flared. The scent of scorched air and iron filled his mouth.
A scream cut through the pattern. Emmy’s head whipped right. Adrone hung above the second tier, mouth like a spinningmaw. Its target was a cluster of unarmed archivists who hadn’t made it out. Emmy ran before her mind could tell her she couldn’t reachthem.
Her legs carried her across a broken curve of steps, then out onto a stretch of slick gold tile. She skidded. Caught her balance with a hand on a pillar and threw the last of Hannah’s leeches. The devices struck the drone and buried itself. The spinning mouth coughed once. Stopped. The machine fell with a metallic gasp and shattered on the stair.
Apex turned as if he’d sensed her sprint. He met her eyes across the hall. For a heartbeat there was no noise at all. Only the sound of their breaths and the pulse under their skin. His mouth tightened. Pride and warningboth.
The light changed.
A hum rose, delicate and crystalline, threading through the riot. Lume appeared above them, drifting through the fractured dome like a comet reborn. She hovered in the air, wings spreading wide. She wasn’t small now, no longer a youngling, but a fully mature adult. Light poured into her until the shape of her body became a vessel for something more. Her eyes were twin suns. Color rippled outward with each beat of her wings.
The guards faltered. The drones hesitated. The battle paused as if the air itself had chosen to listen.
