City Of Brass Novel Novels & Stories

CHAPTER 158 — EMBERS OF THE FALLEN The city’s skyline burnt with a quiet, smouldering fury. Streets that had once carried laughter and life now twisted into jagged paths of blackened concrete, scarred by Bishop’s fragment-fuelled rampage. But Riven stood at the centre, crown key in hand, heart pounding, eyes scanning the horizon. He could feel every pulse of Meridian, every breath, every heartbeat vibrating through his body. The city’s consciousness was alive, but it hung on the edge of fear.

The men didn’t take their eyes off the two of us even as they rejoiced, and I was sure that before I could even make it past the barricade, a bullet would have already gone through my head. I had no choice but to go along with them into the city, Seraphina perched perfectly on my back. No matter what I had expected, what Millbrook held inside its walls was worse. The stench was horrible. A suffocating mix of open sewage, rotting garbage, and death. The buildings were dilapidated and could collapse any second. A few of them were even inhabited. But it was the people that made my stomach turn.

I couldn’t afford to slow down, not when I knew what was coming after me. The Camp of the Curse was the place I’d had gone before to make a deal to take her life. It was the only place in all of Cambridge, the only creature that was willing to go to war against the SilverGold Pack. But now that she was after me, I was out of Cambridge. I panted heavily as I reached the City of Darkness. The city was as vacant as a cursed land. No sign of life. No sign of breath. “What is that?” I murmured, seeing a spike in the ground and a human skull hanging on top of it.

This led to their downfall even if they were exceptional warriors. I rode on Toast’s bareback into the first city we would visit on our new journey, the Whispering Herbarius. As we approached the once thriving and magical city, I saw how broken it was now. The city wall had large cracks, gaps and fallen stones littering the ground around it. You could see the stains of blood on the stone still and the black soil that surrounded it where the poison had been spread to help kill the plants and the people that lived in it. The large wood and metal gates were on the ground, busted to pieces.

New York, once a city of dazzling grandeur, was now slowly sinking into darkness. A full week of chaos. Every corner of the city was filled with fear—residents no longer dared to step outside, businesses continued to shut down, and Nuovo Ordine expanded its grip without resistance. For those who chose to stay, survival had become a struggle. Throughout the streets, the Silver Rose emblem—the symbol of Nuovo Ordine—began appearing on storefronts, abandoned buildings, even wrecked cars. It wasn’t just a symbol. It was a mark of ownership. Cassandra stood by the window in her office at the police station, staring at the empty streets. In mere days, New York had turned into a ghost town. Where b

On the street, men read the lines and flicked the pages like cards. A boy from the market—young hands, snot at the lip—held out a paper to Elara as she walked by on her way to the depot to see who had heard what. “They found your brass, miss. Men said you did it.” His voice held no awe and no fear; it was evaluating a fact as if it were bread. The fact that the city could say they saw mattered more than what the papers decided to call it.

Cass says, “please remember this time that we hate him.” Ava’s cheeks heat traitorously. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she says. She steps out into the hallway, the door closing softly behind her. Outside, the city hums, bright and indifferent. Somewhere across the river, a dark glass tower is already waiting. Waiting for a girl with the wrong last name. And a man who doesn’t believe in clean victories—only leverage. ### Damian Forty-seven floors above the street, the city looks quiet. It’s a lie, of course. Under the glass and steel, the same currents are running—money, rage, and hunger. Damian watches them through floor-to-ceiling windows, coffee cooling untouched on the table behind him.

Near the central bronze fountains, children bundled in thick scarves chased each other, their laughter echoing clearly through the plaza. Noah stopped near the edge of a frozen terrace, watching an elderly couple guide their grandchild toward the library doors. For years, Noah had viewed the city through the cold lens of a corporate architect. To him, the streets had been a chessboard; the buildings were assets to leverage, and the crowds were variables to manage or protect from the collateral damage of his family’s sins. "Look at them," Noah whispered, his breath pluming in the winter air. Vance stepped up beside him, his shoulder brushing Noah’s, shielding him slightly from the wind. "They