The shockwave lifts me. Steel tears free, heat sears skin. I feel myself breaking apart—bones splinter, vision whites out. My last breath is ash.
Somewhere in the roar, I think I hear her heartbeat.
Then silence.
Just the hollow sound of the Maze dying with me.
CHAPTER 21
LIORA
Iwake to dust in my mouth and a ringing in my ears that feels like it’s drilling straight into my skull. For a second—one fragile, foolish second—I think I’m still in the Maze. The air tastes like metal and smoke, and my fingers reach instinctively for Gyon’s arm, for the impossible strength of him braced above me, shielding me from falling debris.
But my hand closes on nothing.
Just cold floor. Empty air. Silence.
“Gyon?” My voice cracks on the second syllable. I try again. Louder. “Gyon!”
Nothing answers me except a distant drip of water and the groan of settling wreckage. The Maze lies in ruins around me—walls split open, lighting strips flickering in weak spasms. The last thing I remember is his arms around me, his body curling over mine like a living shield. The smell of scorched circuitry. His breath in my ear.Run when I say run.
But I never got the chance. His body went rigid, the world exploded in white, and darkness swallowed us whole.
My ribs scream when I push myself upright. Something inside me pulls sharply—a cramping, tearing sensation that makes me gasp and steady myself on a broken beam. The air iscold against my skin, but my forehead is slick with sweat. My vision wavers.
Not from injury.
From fear.
Because deep inside my belly, something shifts. Not painfully. Just… undeniably.
“No. No, no, no—please, not now.” My hand presses against my abdomen, trembling. It’s swollen. Not just from impact. Even beneath the grime and dust, I can tell. Too round. Too firm. Too fast.
Reaper biology.
My breath hitches. I close my eyes, and flashes of the last week burn behind them—his hands on my hips, the way he said my name, the way I let myself believe we’d get more time. That maybe the universe wasn’t as cruel as I knew it to be.
Stupid. I was so stupid.
A wave of panic rolls through me so hard I double over. “Gyon,” I whisper, but the fear in my voice makes it sound like a question. Like a prayer.
I force myself onto shaky legs. Everything hurts. My joints feel soft, unreliable, like they’ve forgotten how to hold me up. The Maze’s remains slope downward into a fractured passage that leads to an emergency hatch. It’s half open, warped, but still functional. I stumble through and emerge into harsh daylight that blinds me instantly.
Novaria’s upper levels burn bright—towering spires of chrome and glass slicing the horizon, hover lanes congested with morning traffic. But I don’t belong up there anymore. I can’t risk being seen. I tug my hood up, ignoring the way my hands shake, and take the maintenance stairwell downward.
Each step sends a jolt through my abdomen. Not painful—just... present. Like the life inside me is reminding me it exists. As if I could possibly forget.
I reach the sublevels, where neon signs flicker and holographic billboards sputter static. Steam vents hiss from ruptured pipes, filling the air with the scent of rust and engine coolant. This place is loud, chaotic, alive in all the ways I am not. I duck my head and keep moving.
No one looks at me twice. Down here, everyone’s running from something.
In a narrow alley behind an abandoned market, I collapse onto a crate and press both hands to my stomach. “I can’t do this,” I whisper. The words fog in the cold air. “I can’t do this alone.”
I wait for the universe to answer. For some sign he survived. For some whisper of his presence. But all I hear is the distant rumble of an exhaust vent and the shuffle of a scavenger bot rooting through trash.
“I should feel him,” I mutter. My hands curl into fists. “I shouldknow.”
Reapers imprint in ways humans can’t understand. When he touched me—when he claimed me—I felt it like gravity. Like fate stitching itself into the marrow of my bones. There should be some thread still connecting us. Some whisper of certainty in the back of my mind telling me he’s alive.
