03:14 – The Sky-Port Aurora, Sub-Level 9, Night of the Hollow Moons
The lower docks smelled of rust and cheap starlight.
Freight dragons dozed in chains, wings folded like broken umbrellas.
Somewhere above, the Grand Aether Cup glittered for the rich; down here, the air tasted of coal smoke and last chances.
Lira Featherlight was nineteen, Level 38, and late for her shift.
She wore the grey coveralls of a dock-rat, sleeves rolled high enough to show the faint silver brand of a Giver-in-training.
Her hair was the colour of candle-flame left too long in the rain.
She hummed Velira's lullaby under her breath, the one the Choir children had sung at the funeral, because it made the dark feel smaller.
She never saw the shadow that stepped out of the freight crate.
Jonathan wore a dock-worker's coat two sizes too large, hood up, face hidden behind a porcelain mask painted with Velira's crooked grin.
In his gloved hand: a single brass gear, still warm from Cogsworth's heart.
He spoke one word—
soft,
apologetic,
poison.
"Quiet."
Lira's humming stopped mid-note.
The brass gear touched the hollow of her throat.
Her knees buckled.
The last thing she felt was the mask's painted smile pressing a kiss to her forehead.
Then the dock lights went out.
03:17 – The Obsidian War-Room
Arya woke with the taste of rust in her mouth.
The black seed in her chest—Velira's seed—had bloomed into a thorn.
It pulled.
She sat up in the dark, brass feathers drifting from Cogsworth's wings like slow snow.
Seventeen bodies slept around her in a tangle of limbs and grief.
Alexander's storm runes flickered across his bare chest in Morse code:
S.O.S.
She touched the thorn.
It sang.
A single image burned behind her eyes:
Lira Featherlight, candle-flame hair spread across black glass,
Jonathan's mask inches from her lips,
a brass gear glowing against her throat.
Arya was on her feet before the scream left her throat.
03:20 – The Briefing
They gathered in the war-room—
walls of living obsidian,
table carved from the first dragon Arya ever tamed.
Crystal orbs hovered like frantic fireflies, replaying dock footage in loops:
Lira walking.
Shadow stepping.
Mask kissing.
Lights out.
Solara's wings cast gold across the table.
"Sub-Level 9 is a maze," she said, voice raw from singing Cogsworth awake.
"Old smugglers' tunnels.
Jonathan's been building something down there since the funeral."
Morvox unfolded a map of dream-flesh—
ink that bled when touched.
"Three choke points.
Two void-gates.
One dungeon shaped like a heart."
Cogsworth's new chrome fingers clicked across the table,
spinning a brass gear that projected a wireframe:
cells of black glass,
chains of frozen sound,
a throne made of every crown Jonathan had ever broken.
Alexander's storm runes flared white.
"He's branding them," he said.
"Low-level Givers.
Stealing their first kisses.
Turning them into batteries."
Arya's halo cracked—
a hairline fracture that bled starlight.
She touched the thorn again.
Lira's heartbeat answered—
fast,
terrified,
alive.
"We have six hours," Arya said.
"After that, the brand finishes.
She becomes his."
She looked at her seventeen lovers—
faces carved from grief and gunpowder.
"Who's with me?"
Every hand rose.
Even the Choir children, tiny fists clenched around brass feathers.
03:30 – The Descent
They moved like a single shadow.
Gilgamesh ran ahead, golden blur scouting tunnels that smelled of rust and cheap starlight.
Milo and Lena levitated the cohort through collapsed shafts,
telekinesis soft as a mother's hand.
Sable's shadows cloaked them in midnight silk.
Liora froze the air into bridges of frost.
Cassia melted locks with blue fire that whispered apologies.
The twins fused into a four-breasted scout,
tails tasting the air for void-signatures.
Solara's wings dimmed to candle-flame,
guiding them through darkness that remembered Velira's laugh.
Cogsworth walked at Arya's side,
brass wings folded tight,
heart ticking in perfect 6/8 time.
Every step, she spun a gear between her fingers—
a promise to rebuild whatever Jonathan broke.
They reached the first void-gate:
a door of black glass,
etched with Lira's face mid-scream.
Arya pressed her palm to the glass.
The thorn in her chest burned.
Lira's heartbeat answered—
closer,
faster,
pleading.
04:05 – The Heart-Dungeon
The dungeon was a cathedral turned inside out.
Walls of black glass pulsed with stolen heartbeats.
Chains of frozen sound hung like chandeliers.
Cells lined the nave—
each one a low-level Giver,
eyes wide,
lips branded with Jonathan's void-rune.
Lira was in the centre,
suspended above the throne in a cage of brass gears.
Her coveralls had been burned away.
The brass gear at her throat glowed rose-gold,
spinning slower with every stolen kiss.
Jonathan sat beneath her,
mask gone,
face bare—
beautiful,
broken,
hungry.
He looked up as Arya stepped into the nave.
"Took you long enough," he said,
voice soft as the moment before a scream.
"I was starting to think you didn't care."
He stood.
Velira's dust swirled at his feet,
forming a carpet of shadow-petals.
In his hand: the gear-dagger,
still wet with Cogsworth's oil.
Arya's halo flared.
"Let her go," she said.
"Or I start breaking things you can't rebuild."
Jonathan smiled—
the same smile he had worn the moment he killed Velira.
He touched the gear at Lira's throat.
It spun faster.
Lira gasped.
"One kiss," he said.
"One voluntary kiss from you, Alpha,
and she walks free.
Refuse,
and she becomes my first battery.
Level 38 is so… delicate."
He stepped closer.
The throne room breathed.
04:10 – The Choice
Arya felt the cohort at her back—
seventeen heartbeats,
seventeen reasons to burn the dungeon down.
But the thorn in her chest screamed.
Lira's eyes—
candle-flame bright,
pleading—
locked on Arya's.
Alexander's hand found her shoulder.
"We end this now," he whispered.
"Together."
Solara's wings unfurled,
casting gold across the nave.
"Or we end him."
Cogsworth's gears clicked once—
tick—
a countdown.
Arya looked at Jonathan.
Really looked.
He was shaking.
Not from fear.
From want.
She saw the boy who had pressed paper phoenixes into palms.
She saw the monster who had murdered hope.
She saw the mirror.
She stepped forward.
Alone.
The cohort tensed—
ready to follow,
ready to die.
She raised her hand.
They stopped.
Jonathan's eyes widened—
suns eclipsed by storm.
Arya walked until she stood beneath Lira's cage.
She looked up.
Lira's tears fell like warm rain.
"I'm sorry," Arya whispered.
"Not for what I'm about to do.
For what I have to let him think."
She turned to Jonathan.
"One kiss," she said.
"But on my terms."
She kissed him.
Not surrender.
War.
Her tongue slid against his—
Pain/Pleasure Conversion flaring white-hot.
His Mana Leech tried to drink.
Her core ate it,
turned it into lightning that burned his throat.
The gear at Lira's throat shattered.
The cage fell.
Milo and Lena caught it mid-air,
lowered Lira gently to the glass floor.
Sable's shadows wrapped her in midnight silk.
Cogsworth's brass wings folded around her like a cradle.
Jonathan staggered,
blood on his lips—
his own.
"You—" he started.
Arya smiled—
slow,
sharp,
final.
"Checkmate," she whispered.
She snapped her fingers.
The cohort moved.
Alexander's storm became a hurricane.
Solara's wings became a sun.
Morvox's locked heart opened like a flower.
Liora and Cassia braided ice and fire into a single blade.
The twins' spear became a living comet.
Gilgamesh ran a golden circle around the throne,
kissing every chain until it shattered.
The Choir children sang a single note—
Lira's name,
over and over,
until the dungeon wept.
Jonathan lunged—
gear-dagger raised.
Arya caught his wrist.
The thorn in her chest bloomed.
Velira's twin dagger slid into his shoulder—
not deep,
just enough to brand.
Black glass petals bloomed from the wound,
spelling MINE in Velira's handwriting.
He screamed—
a sound that cracked the cathedral's ribs.
Then he vanished—
stepped through a shard of black glass,
leaving only the echo of his scream
and the smell of rust and cheap starlight.
04:30 – The Aftermath
They carried Lira out on a bier of brass feathers and shadow-petals.
Her brand was gone.
Her heartbeat was steady.
Her eyes—
candle-flame bright—
never left Arya's.
The dungeon collapsed behind them,
folding into a single black seed that drifted into Arya's palm.
Level 820.
The cohort surged—
Alexander Level 560,
Solara Level 710,
Cogsworth Level 620,
Lira Level 42 and weeping starlight tears.
They emerged into the dawn.
The sky-port was silent.
The continent watched on a hundred million crystal orbs.
Arya raised the black seed.
It bloomed into a single shadow-petal—
Velira's laugh,
Cogsworth's heartbeat,
Lira's first kiss.
She pressed it to her lips.
"We're coming for the rest." She whispered
The thorn in her chest slept.
For now.
The rescue arc had begun.
The war had a new name:
Lira Featherlight.
And the dungeon was only the first heart Jonathan would lose.