Sector 9 never truly slept, but there were hours—usually between the dying of the streetlights and the first bell of the watch shift—when it held its breath.
That hour had come.
But instead of stillness, the dormitories were alive with murmurs. Children, bruised and bone-weary, sat upright in their beds or stood at the narrow windows, gazing out at the main square.
There, under the twin moons’ dim light, Ares stood barefoot on the cracked stone. A circle of old symbols had been burned into the earth around him. They pulsed faintly, glowing with a strange energy unfamiliar to the eyes of the other orphans.
The symbols weren’t Emirate military runes.
They were ancient. Older than any Neva script taught in the Academies. Older than the Citadels themselves.
And Commander Nir was watching
