The Opera House was not silent.
To the refugees huddled in the orchestra pit, it might have seemed quiet, protected by the artificial hush of the Null Field Zane had stolen. But to Zane, the silence was a scream.
He sat on the prop throne at centre stage, his knuckles white as he gripped the velvet armrests.
Inside his chest, a war was raging.
The three Prime souls he had harvested—The Silent Sister, Caelus the Voice, and Ignis the Keeper—were not dead batteries.
They were heavy, complex, and furious. They didn't want to be digested.
They wanted to be heard.
Burn them, whispered the heat in his left lung. The memory of Ignis, smelling of incinerated bone. Clean the rot with fire.
Tell them, screamed the pressure in his throat. Caelus, desperate to broadcast one last truth. Ampli
