I press my pillow hard against my face. I taste the scent of antiseptic from the orphanage, bitter and raw. I remember being small. Invisible. Afraid.
Then I remember his arms. His promise.
I roll over. Under the blanket, the cloth smells faint of his cloak — forest, soil, cold metal. I breathe it in.
I don’t know what danger is coming. I don’t know when the first spark will hit — the fracture, the betrayal, the blade behind smile.
But I know this: I’m not alone.
And I don’t want to be hidden in the dark anymore.
I whisper into the dark, to walls, to stars, to the promise between bone and flesh:
If you want war — I’ll bring fire.
I close my eyes. Heart pounding cold with fear — and blazing bright with resolve.
Because tonight… I choose to stand.
CHAPTER 20
VOKAR
The first sign of betrayal is silence.
Not the peaceful kind. The wrong kind.
A dropped-to-zero hum, like the whole compound is holding its breath in preparation to strike.
I’m in the command hall with Yorta, reading through voltage-routing reports, when every screen in the chamber flickers—blue, then red, then dead. The lights overhead stutter, casting long jagged shadows across the carved bone pillars. The warm haze of the morning lamps vanishes into harsh emergency crimson.
Yorta stills beside me.
Old warrior instinct.
His spurs flex with a faint scraping sound.
“…That,” he growls, “was not a glitch.”
I open my mouth to answer, but the room gives me its own reply.
A deep whump vibrates through the floor—followed by the unmistakable staccato crackle of internal power relays shutting down. The alarms should start screaming.
They don’t.
Trebuchet.
Only he could slip past our systems like a ghost with a surgeon’s hands.
My upper lip curls back in a snarl.
“Systems are blind,” Yorta spits. “He cut us at the spine.”
I pivot toward the main exit—then the wall beside it explodes inward.
Shards of wood and stone fly like daggers. I shield Yorta with my body as dust roars through the hall in a choking wave. Something heavy crashes through the debris, boots slamming onto the shattered floor.
Arnab.
