Replaced by His First Love
“Then let them watch him grow up without their chains. They want a key? I’ll give them a goddamn supernova that burns their world to ash.”
Kael shifted against the rock behind me, a wet, rattling cough breaking the silence. He was physically decaying, his left arm bound in a black tactical sling that was now soaked through with dark, purple-tinged blood. He looked like a ruin of scorched leather and gray ash.
“They know,” Kael rasped, his voice a ruined vibration. “They know the Heart is active. They were just waiting for a heartbeat to map the focal point.”
He leaned his head back against the stone, conceding his crown to the corporations, to the ruins, to anyone who could keep the child br