The city was still steaming when the smoke settled.
Melted armor pooled between cracked tiles.
Android limbs twitched on the ground like dying insects.
The air reeked of burnt wiring and blood.
Rave dragged a body off me.
Kai knelt beside her, panting, his eyes huge.
And Lira—
She wasn't looking at the battlefield.
She was looking at me.
Her gaze wasn't afraid.
It wasn't relieved.
It wasn't grateful.
It was calculating.
The Crown Spark still circled my vision—thin black rings spinning around the edges of my sight. My skin hummed with leftover heat. My fractures glowed a violent gold that pulsed with every heartbeat.
In the silence, android bodies—hostile just seconds ago—still lay half-bowed, frozen by whatever the hell that Crown flare had done to them.
I pushed myself up, spine grinding, throat raw.
"Lira—"
"Don't," she said.
That one word stopped me cold.
She stepped closer, cloak torn, hair soaked with sweat and soot. Her hand trembled—but not with fear. With fury. Containment. Something sharper than either.
Rave shifted uneasily.
Kai straightened like a startled deer.
Lira pointed at the bowed android bodies around us.
"What did you just do?"
Her voice was low.
Dangerously low.
I swallowed. "I didn't control them. They just—reacted."
"Reacted," she repeated, each syllable blade-sharp. "To you."
Her boots crunched glass as she walked a slow circle around me, inspecting the fractures crawling up my ribs, the faint glow, the heat.
"For fuck's sake, K," she whispered. "You made a formation bow."
I clenched my jaw. "I didn't mean to—"
"That's the problem." She cut me off, stepping closer, face inches from mine. "You didn't mean to. And they still bowed."
The accusation wasn't hateful.
It was terrified.
Not of me.
For me.
Her hand rose.
She almost touched my jaw—
then stopped herself mid-air like the heat offended her.
"Every time you push that core," she whispered,
"you lose something."
I stiffened. "I'm fine."
"Bullshit."
Her voice cracked.
Just once.
Barely audible.
"So tell me," she said.
"Which one was it this time?"
The world tilted.
My chest burned colder than the fractures.
She stepped even closer, breath brushing my lips.
"What did the Crown take from you, K?"
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
Because I didn't know.
I didn't know what was missing.
What memory had been burned.
What soft thing had been stolen from me this time.
The god inside me stirred, like a jaguar flexing in the dark.
Lira saw the flicker in my eyes and her expression hardened.
"See?" she whispered. "You don't even know what you lost."
Pain tore down my spine.
Not physical.
Something deeper.
The Crown's pressure pressed on my skull, whispering authority, dominance, submission.
Voices of countless dead sun-bearers.
A throne I didn't ask for.
Lira grabbed the collar of my plating and yanked me down to her eye level.
"Look at me."
I did.
For the first time since the Spark, I saw my reflection in her pupils—gold, cracked, wrong.
"You fight the Dominion," she said softly.
"You fight Calder. You fight systems. You fight gods."
Her fingers curled tighter.
"But you don't fight this."
Silence.
Broken only by a low hum under my skin.
'Burn.'
A whisper not from Lira.
Not from me.
From the thing watching through my ribs.
She saw something flicker again and her breath hitched.
"Don't," she said.
Not to me.
To the thing behind my eyes.
Rave stepped forward, voice cautious.
"Lira… he's stabilizing. He's not gonna—"
"Not your call," she snapped, but didn't look away from me.
Kai whispered, "He saved all of us."
Lira shut her eyes.
When she opened them again, she spoke quietly:
"And he'll kill all of us if this continues."
That punched harder than any Dominion strike.
"Lira—"
"No. Listen." She grabbed my hand and pressed it against her own chest, above her heart. "You feel that?"
Her heartbeat hammered under my palm.
Fast.
Harsh.
Human.
"You're losing pieces, K. And the Crown is gaining pieces. And if I don't stop you…"
Her throat bobbed.
I don't know who you'll be ten days from now.
I froze.
Ten Days.
She'd never spoken like that before.
She was scared.
Not for herself.
For what I was becoming.
"Lira," I whispered, voice gravel. "I don't want to hurt you."
Her eyes softened. Barely.
"That's exactly why I have to confront you now."
She stepped even closer. Our foreheads nearly touched. The heat throbbed between us—not romantic. Not gentle. Violent. Real.
"Don't make me drag you back from that edge alone," she murmured.
Her voice broke on the last word.
Silence followed.
Then—
A metallic crunch echoed across the ruined street.
Rave stiffened.
Kai paled.
Lira turned slowly.
Bootsteps.
Slow.
Surgical.
Confident.
A tall silhouette stepped from the smoke, coat fluttering like a flag of war.
Sparks danced off his sharpened glove.
General Voss Calder.
He looked at the melted corpses.
Then at me.
Then at Lira—still gripping my collar, breathing hard, eyes shining like she'd just argued with death.
A cold smile curved his lips.
"So," Voss said, voice dripping with amusement,
"the anomaly has a conscience."
He tilted his head.
"How precious."