Torvin and Karys stumbled out. They looked scorched—their clothes singed, faces smeared with soot—but they were upright.
Dane pushed himself off the pillar when he saw me. His eyes dropped immediately to Selene.
“Is she…?”
“Alive,” I said. “She drained herself, but she’s alive.”
Relief washed over his face, so profound it made him sag. He nodded, once, sharp and professional.
“We need to move,” Dane said.
Through the blown-out windows of the main entrance, I could see the street. It was a sea of flashing blue lights. Sirens wailed, a cacophony of authority closing in.
“Vance’s team,” Dane shouted over the noise. “And half the city precinct. We can’t go out the front. If they see us like this—if they see her like this—they’ll take us into custody.”
“Back the way we came,” Goran rumbled. “The drain.”
We turned as a unit, heading for the grey doors of the service corridor that led back to the sub-basement. We were five steps away when the reinforced blast door behind the main atrium—the secure lift from the deep labs—hissed open.
“Leaving so soon?”
The voice was calm. Cultured. Completely at odds with the destruction surrounding us.
We froze.
Korenth Vhail stepped out.
He didn’t look like a man whose empire was burning down around him. He looked like a man inspecting a renovation. His suit was immaculate, his silver hair perfectly coiffed.
And he wasn’t alone.
Four augmented guards flanked him, their weapons raised. But it wasn’t the guns that made mestop.
It was the others.
Behind Korenth, four figures emerged into the red emergency light. They were Umbrakynn—young, slight, dressed in simple, white medical tunics that looked like hospital gowns. They were barefoot.
But they moved with a terrifying, synchronised grace, stepping in perfect unison.
Goran let out a low, dangerous growl. “Who are they?”
I turned, shielding Selene with my body.
“It’s over, Korenth,” I called out. “The machine is slag. You lost.”
Korenth smiled. It was a thin, cold expression.
“Did I?”
He walked forward, his shoes crunching on the broken glass.
“You destroyed the transmitter, yes. A pity. It was expensive. And the girl…” His gaze flicked to Selene, hungry and sharp. “She is more powerful than I anticipated. To overload a Silverite core… remarkable.”
He stopped ten yards away.
“But you were moments too late, Riven. The link held. Just long enough.”
He gestured to the four figures in white.
