The bunker is quiet now. I’m still in the Lev’s room when he speaks.
“I saw you…at Valcross.”
I lift my head, staring at him across the dim room. He doesn’t look lucid. His lips twitch at the corners—something between a smirk and a snarl.
“They took your name, didn’t they?” he croaks. “Carved a new one into your skin.One-eight-seven.Stripped the boy out of you and left what was useful.”
The numbers burn at the mention. I don’t remember seeing him at Valcross.
“You were just a kid. Half the size you are now. But you’d already outlived all the others.” He laughs. “No one survives Valcross that long. Not like that. And there you were…elbows deep in blood, standing in the pit like death didn’t scare you.”
“Why were you there?”
He coughs, blood coating his chin. “Your father sent me. To kill you.”
My jaw clenches and my spine locks.
“Told me you were a stain. That if you made it out of that hellhole, you’d tear the whole system down. He thought Valcross would kill you, but when it didn’t—he sent me.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Lev turns his head slowly. His one good eye—swollen and bleeding—fixes on mine. “Because you weren’t Sterling. That’s what I was expecting. Another polished sociopath in a pretty suit.”
He shifts with a wince, breathing hard.
“I hated that man long before he locked me away. He built his empire on political lies, rot, and graves. And I helped him. I helped all of them.”
He grits his teeth. “When I saw you in the pit…I knew what you were. You’d make Sterling answer for what he destroyed. You’d be his fucking reckoning.”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
“I received kill orders for the others too.”
My gaze sharpens. “Dalton and Alistair?”
He nods. “But not from Sterling. Fromtheirfathers. All the Commanders in the South. The North. Even the North High Chancellor. They all turned on their sons. All of them.”
“Why? Dalton and Alistair bleed for the Sovereign. They’re loyal.”
“Exactly,” Lev mutters. “Too loyal. Too bound to the old ways. They wanted to cut the legacy clean, burn the bloodlines, split the Sections, and build something new. No Council. No balance. Just control.” His head tilts back, voice rasping. “They want a world that answers to no one.”
He wipes blood from his mouth, smearing it across his cheek. “I refused. And Sterling locked me in a tomb to rot before I got the chance to tell anyone.”
I grind my teeth until my jaw aches. Arsen was right. This isn’t just Sterling. It’sbiggerthan him.
“Why now? Why start again after all these years?”
“I don’t know. But I always knew if that first attempt failed…he’d try again. Didn’t matter how long it took.”
“Why keep you alive?”
“Because he could. Because watching me rot was entertainment.” He coughs again. This time, it takes longer for him to recover. His lungs sound like they’re drowning.
Then he laughs. “Last time I saw my daughter…I was shoving her into a panic room. I was covered in blood that wasn’t mine. Gunfire echoing through the walls. I told her I’d be back.” He turns his head toward the ceiling. “I fucking lied.”
The silence stretches.
“I couldn’t protect her. Not from Sterling. Not from the blood I gave the Sovereign. Not from the man I chose to be.” He coughs again, body convulsing from the force of it.
