Kaelen rushed to the shattered glass where Lyra lay. She was bleeding from a deep cut on her thigh, her face pale.
"Is he dead?" she rasped.
"He's dead," Kaelen said, tearing his cloak to bind her wound. "But he was right. We were too late."
He looked at the desk, where a map was spread out. It didn't show cities or trade routes. It showed the mountain range where the Nest sat. There were red marks all over it, labeled "Extraction Points."
"They're going to mine the whole mountain," Lyra realized, her voice trembling. "Kaelen, if they do that... the Nest will collapse. Everyone will die."
Kaelen looked at her, his eyes hard. "Not if we destroy the machines first."
For the first time, Kaelen realized his "second life" wasn't about being an assassin. It was about leading a revolution against a future he had already seen go wrong once before.