The outer ruins gave way to something worse. Not rubble. Not fire. Stillness. Order. As if the chaos of the city had been frozen and restructured with purpose. Lana and the others passed under the fractured remnants of what once might've been a transit bridge. Twisted metal loomed above like the ribs of a dead colossus. Beneath it, the road had been paved not with asphalt, but with a dull bone-like stone that shimmered faintly in the sun.
Jason kept glancing around as they walked, his hand never far from the blade he'd scavenged back in the outer edge. "I don't like this," he muttered. "This place is too… clean."
Nyx walked several paces ahead, untouched by dust or dread. Her pale boots didn't make a sound. "It's not clean," she said. "It's curated."
Kieran moved with an animal's caution. Every shadow was a potential ambush. His body—though freshly healed—remained tensed, like something inside him didn't want to leave the corridor behind. Or couldn't.
They reached a plaza at the city's heart. It had once been circular, possibly a meeting space or amphitheater, but it had caved inward. A crater now filled the center, about fifty feet wide and thirty deep. At its base hovered something massive—an orb suspended in a vertical gyroscope of bone and mechanical veins. The Eye.
It was the size of a car, its pupil dilated, always moving. The frame that held it had fused with remnants of old statues, surveillance arrays, and stretched human spines. Bodies—failed Queen Candidates by the look of it—were wrapped around its base, their skeletons wired into the Eye's frame. Some still had scraps of clothing. Others had ceremonial symbols carved into their ribs.
The Eye didn't blink. It rotated once, slowly, then locked onto Lana.
She froze mid-step.
Jason gasped and took a step back, hand raised. "What the hell is that?"
Lana didn't answer. The Eye wasn't attacking. It was looking. Not with curiosity. With recognition.
Images struck her mind like low thunder: Evelyn in white. Specter's eyes. The broken chair. Kieran on an operating table. Nyx floating in a tank of blue light. All of it in seconds.
Nyx dropped to her knees, gripping her skull. Her voice was steady even as her body shook. "It's pulling memory. All memory. Even the buried ones."
Kieran clenched his jaw. "Stop it."
"I can't," Nyx snapped.
Lana stepped forward. The Eye focused tighter, and the pressure in her chest vanished. Her second heart aligned with it, pulsing in rhythm. It didn't hurt. It welcomed her.
The Eye blinked once. Then again. The air shimmered and a panel rose from the ground near the crater's edge. A rectangular prism of glass and bone, semi-transparent, glowing faintly.
"This way," Lana said quietly.
Kieran stared at her. "You knew that would happen?"
"No. But I wasn't surprised."
They entered the monument together. It wasn't a building—more of a shrine or archive, embedded in open space, exposed to the sky. Rows of skeletal remains lined the structure's inner wall, each posed in sitting positions, heads bowed, chests opened. Wires threaded through their ribs and into stone consoles at their feet. A memory vault.
Jason approached one. "Are these… people?"
"Candidates," Nyx said. "Ones who didn't awaken. Their last thoughts were preserved."
He flinched. "Why?"
"So others could understand what failure looks like."
Lana moved to a console and tapped it. A projection flickered to life. A teenage girl. She was screaming in a tank, banging her fists on the glass. The liquid inside turned black. Then she stilled.
Kieran watched another. Himself, younger. Pleading with someone off-screen. "Please, I don't want this. I can fight without it." Then a voice replied: "You don't get to want."
Jason turned away, face pale.
"I'm not watching mine," he said.
"You already are," Nyx whispered. "You live it every time you run."
Lana kept moving. Toward the center console.
It was larger. Marked with a nameplate: Velor.
She activated it. A man appeared. Tall. Hair slicked back, eyes gleaming. He stood before a crowd of other candidates. His voice was clear. Warm. Too warm.
"We are not victims. We are chosen. Sacrifice is not destruction—it's evolution. The Queen is not a tyrant. She is a correction. Join her willingly, and you will not be erased. You will be remembered."
Jason muttered, "I hate this guy already."
Nyx didn't smile. "He's not dead. He commands from the Sanctum."
Kieran growled, "We'll kill him."
Lana shook her head. "He's not waiting to fight. He's waiting to convince us."
The Eye outside pulsed.
They turned.
It hovered lower now—closer. Its gaze fell directly on Lana. Her breath caught. Then deepened. Her corridor-heart began to glow faintly through her shirt. The Eye blinked. Then pulsed again.
A single message dropped into her skull like a stone into water.
Welcome back.
Jason's eyes widened. "It's talking to her?"
Kieran stepped forward. "Get away from her."
Lana didn't move.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not."
Nyx stepped between them. "She's more fine than any of us."
The Eye retreated. Slowly. The plaza shook once, then stilled. A new path opened on the far side of the crater—a bridge of flesh-bound stone extending toward the heart of the city.
Lana turned without hesitation.
Jason watched her walk, then looked at Nyx.
"Where is this taking us?"
Nyx answered quietly. "To the Sanctum. Where the Queen sleeps."
High above, in a half-collapsed tower, Velor stood behind a screen made of shard-glass and breathing cables. He watched them move.
"She's early," he said.
And smiled.