The vibration in the walls turned into a steady, rhythmic thrumming that matched Elian’s pulse with terrifying accuracy. Every time he reached for a cold, metallic ladder rung, his fingers instead found something soft, yielding, and alarmingly warm. The spine of the Citadel was no longer made of steel and concrete. It was being overwritten by a biological imperative that defies every law of architecture Elian had ever studied.
"Watch your left!" Sarah shouted, her voice echoing up the narrow shaft. "The conduits are expanding!"
"I see them!" Elian called back, his muscles screaming as he hauled himself upward. "The structure is reacting to the pressure Thorne is putting on the grid. It is growing, Sarah."
"It is not growing, it is devouring!" she panted, kicking away a cluster of thin,
