Chapter 75 The Sovereigns Desperation
The loss of the shield was an agony I could not describe.
It felt as if my very soul were being unspooled.
I collapsed onto the cracked helipad, the silver fire in my veins stuttering like a dying candle.
Around me, the air was turning cold—not the clean, sharp cold of my magic, but the dead, sterile cold of the void.
The Culler stepped toward me, its obsidian boots clicking against the concrete.
“You were a successful experiment, Lilith’s daughter.
You proved that the Gene could survive the chaos of emotion.
But the experiment is over. The data is collected.
”
It raised the singularity staff, the violet light growing until it blotted out the sky.
Suddenly, a blur of black fur and raw fury intercepted the Culler.
Killian hadn’t waited for my signal. He had lunged from the shadows, his massive jaws locking onto the Culler’s obsidian shoulder.
The sound was like a wolf biting into a mountain—a sickening crunch of teeth against indestructible stone.
The Culler didn’t flinch. It grabbed Killian by the throat with a hand of cold stone and threw him across the helipad like a ragdoll.
Killian hit the ventilation units, the metal buckling under the impact.
He didn’t get up.
“Killian!” I screamed, but my voice was lost in the roar of the wind.
I looked at the twins. They were still at the edge, their eyes glowing with an intensity that made the air around them shimmer.
They weren’t watching the fight. They were watching the city.
“The people are crying, Mama,” Liam whispered.
“We can hear all of them. Seven million voices... they all sound like glass breaking.”
“Then fix it,” I wheezed, struggling to my feet.
“Leo, Liam... use the nodes. Don’t look at the ship.
Look at the people.”
The twins turned to me, and for a second, I didn’t see my sons.
I saw the Architects as they were meant to be—not harvesters, but creators.
“We can’t fix it without a heart, Mama,” Leo said.
“The Nodes need a heart to beat for them.”
I knew what he meant.
I knew the price. I reached into my chest, not for the magic but for the very core of my life force.
I pushed the silver fire outward, not as a weapon, but as a tether.
I connected my heart to the three nodes, and then I gave the reins to my sons.