The bunker didn't feel like a sanctuary anymore; it felt like a coffin. Above us, the "Inquisitors" were not making the loud, arrogant entrance of the Purifiers. There was no thunder of Drop-Pods, only the rhythmic, metallic tink-tink-tink of magnetic pitons being driven into the statue’s base. They were coming down the shaft with the silence of spiders.
"They’re using the 'Void-Mesh'," Mara whispered, her eyes darting to the ceiling. "They don't have heat signatures. They don't have heartbeats. They're the ghosts of the Council."
I gripped the obsidian box—the "Prime-Sequence"—against my chest. It was cold, colder than the air in the tomb, and it hummed with a frequency that made the scars on my arm itch. My father’s mummified face seemed to watch me, his empty sockets reflecting the
