The Wei-Xing supply depot loomed out of the mist like a sleeping beast—a sprawling complex of gunmetal-gray towers and barbed wire fences, nestled in the shadow of a dormant volcano. From their vantage point on the ridge above, Yuchen counted twelve patrol drones circling the perimeter, their searchlights cutting through the pre-dawn gloom.
Jiang adjusted the scope on his binoculars with a quiet curse. "They've tripled security since the Xuanwu went down. Those turrets are new too—plasma-fed, rapid-fire. One wrong move and we're confetti."
Beside him, Xing whined low in his throat, his silver-marked fur bristling. The pup had grown nearly to full size in the months since Border City-17, but right now, pressed flat against the damp earth, he looked every bit the scared puppy Yuchen had found in the wastelands.
Yuchen ran a hand through Xing's ruff. "We'll be fast."
Lucien, crouched to Yuchen's left in a surprisingly practical black tactical suit (Versailles the peacock had been left with Vera, much to her dismay), tapped a finger against his wrist display. The holographic map of the facility shimmered to life between them.
"Dr. Lin's last transmission indicated she's being held in Sublevel 3," he murmured, zooming in on a cluster of structures near the center of the complex. "But the real prize is here—" His finger hovered over a heavily fortified bunker at the base of the volcano. "The neural core for their new Titan."
Yuchen studied the map, memorizing the labyrinth of corridors and checkpoints. His pulse thrummed in his throat—not just from nerves, but from the memory of glass pods and silver-eyed children.
"How do we get in?"
Lucien smiled and produced three thin silver bracelets from his pocket. "With these."
The bracelets, it turned out, were Valois tech—miniature holographic projectors that could mimic the appearance of Wei-Xing's security badges.
"They'll fool the scanners for about ninety minutes," Lucien explained as he fastened one around Yuchen's wrist. The device hummed to life, casting a pale blue glow over his skin before solidifying into the image of a Level 4 security clearance badge. "After that, the energy signature decays. So do try to be quick."
Jiang snorted, examining his own forged badge. "Ninety minutes to break into the most secure facility in the hemisphere. What could go wrong?"
Their entry point was a service tunnel on the eastern edge of the complex, hidden behind a waterfall of runoff from the volcanic springs. The water was scalding hot, forcing them to edge along the narrow ledge behind the steam-choked cascade.
Yuchen's boots slipped on the wet rock. Xing caught his sleeve in his teeth, steadying him with a quiet growl.
"Thanks," Yuchen whispered, ruffling the pup's ears.
The tunnel beyond was pitch-black, the air thick with the scent of sulfur and machine oil. Lucien activated a palm-sized orb that cast a dim red light ahead of them—just enough to navigate by without alerting patrols.
"Stay close," he murmured. "And for heaven's sake, don't touch anything."
The service tunnel emptied into a maintenance corridor, where the hum of distant generators vibrated through the walls. They moved in silence, pausing at each intersection to check for patrols.
Then Xing froze, his ears pricking forward.
A second later, Yuchen heard it too—the rhythmic clank of armored footsteps rounding the corner ahead.
Jiang shoved Yuchen and Lucien into an alcove just as two Wei-Xing guards appeared, their black-and-crimson helmets scanning the corridor.
"—swear I heard something," one muttered, his voice distorted by the helmet's vocoder.
"Probably just the pipes," the other replied, tapping his rifle against the wall. "This whole place is falling apart."
Xing, pressed against Yuchen's legs, let out the faintest whimper.
The lead guard's head snapped toward the sound.
Yuchen's hand found the knife at his belt.
Then—
A loud clang echoed from further down the corridor, as if someone had dropped a metal panel.
The guards spun toward the noise. "What was that?"
Lucien's fingers twitched. A tiny silver sphere rolled from his sleeve, vanishing into the shadows.
A second later, a deafening alarm blared through the complex—but not from their direction.
"Breach in Sector 7!" a voice crackled over the guards' comms. "All units respond!"
The two guards took off at a run, leaving the corridor empty.
Jiang raised an eyebrow at Lucien. "Convenient timing."
Lucien smirked. "I may have left a few surprises in their security grid."
Dr. Lin Mei's lab was smaller than Yuchen expected—cluttered with holographic schematics and half-dismantled machinery, the air thick with the sharp scent of ozone. The woman herself stood with her back to the door, her dark hair streaked with silver, her fingers flying over a glowing console.
She didn't turn as they entered. "You're late."
Yuchen blinked. "You were expecting us?"
"Not you specifically." Dr. Lin finally turned, her sharp eyes flicking over each of them before settling on Lucien. "But I knew the Valois wouldn't leave their investment unprotected."
Lucien inclined his head. "We brought gifts." He tossed her the data chip with the access codes.
Dr. Lin caught it with a humorless smile. "These will help. But they won't stop what's coming." She tapped a command into the console, and the holograms shifted to show a massive skeletal frame—the Titan, its neural core pulsing like a grotesque heart.
"They've moved up the timeline," she said quietly. "The first live test is in forty-eight hours."
Jiang cursed. "That's impossible. Even Wei-Xing can't rush a neural sync that fast."
"Unless they've found a way to force it." Dr. Lin's hands clenched. "They're using the children as conduits. Burning them out to power the core."
Yuchen's vision swam. He remembered the pods. The wires. The silence.
"Where are they?" he asked, his voice barely audible.
Dr. Lin met his gaze. "Sublevel 6. The heart of the volcano."
Lucien checked his wrist display. "We have sixty-three minutes before the holograms fail. Enough time to reach the surface—"
"No." Yuchen's hands were shaking, but his voice wasn't. "We're getting them out."
Jiang exhaled sharply. "Kid, even if we could get down there, we don't have the firepower for a full extraction."
"Then we improvise." Yuchen turned to Dr. Lin. "Is there another way into Sublevel 6?"
She hesitated, then nodded. "The coolant shafts. But they're guarded. And even if you reach the children, the neural sync has already begun. Severing the connection could kill them."
A beat of silence.
Then Lucien sighed. "Well. This just became exponentially more complicated."
Xing growled, his silver markings flaring brighter—as if in challenge.
Yuchen straightened. "Show us the shafts."
The coolant shafts were a nightmare of narrow, rusted ladders and searing-hot steam vents. Yuchen's hands burned through his gloves as he descended, the metal rungs trembling under his weight. Below him, Xing picked his way down with careful precision, his claws clicking against the grating. Above, Jiang muttered curses every time a burst of superheated vapor hissed across their path.
Lucien, somehow still immaculate despite the heat and grime, paused at a junction. "According to Dr. Lin's schematics, we should reach an access hatch here that leads directly into Sublevel 6."
Jiang wiped sweat from his brow. "And if she's wrong?"
"Then we die horribly," Lucien said cheerfully, prying open the hatch.
Beyond it lay a dimly lit corridor, the walls lined with pulsating cables that throbbed like veins. The air here was thick with the scent of antiseptic and something sharper—ozone and scorched metal.
Yuchen's skin prickled. "This is it."
Sublevel 6 was nothing like the sterile labs above. The chamber stretched deep into the volcanic rock, its ceiling lost in shadows. At its center stood the Titan's neural core—a monstrous sphere of alloy and circuitry, suspended in a web of glowing conduits.
But it was the pods that made Yuchen's breath catch.
Dozens of them, arranged in concentric circles around the core. Each housed a child, their small forms nearly swallowed by the tangle of wires feeding into their limbs and temples. The glass fronts were fogged with condensation, but Yuchen could still see their faces—pale, too still.
Xing let out a low, distressed whine.
Jiang's jaw tightened. "Wei-Xing's really outdone themselves this time."
A flicker of movement near the core. A figure in a white lab coat adjusted a console, their back turned.
Yuchen's hand went to his knife.
Then the figure turned—and froze.
It was the girl from the hologram. The one with silver eyes.
She couldn't have been older than twelve.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. The girl's eyes—unnaturally bright, pupils dilated from the neural sync—flicked between them. Then, to Yuchen's shock, she raised a finger to her lips.
"Quiet," she whispered. "The overseer is coming."
Lucien stepped forward, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. "What's your name?"
"Song Lihua," the girl said. Then, with a grimace, she touched the silver circuit marks on her wrists. "Designation: Echo-7."
Yuchen's stomach twisted. He'd heard that tone before—the hollow resignation of someone who'd been told they were property.
Jiang moved to the nearest pod, examining the readouts. "These kids are deep in sync. Yanking them out now could fry their nervous systems."
Song Lihua shook her head. "You can't stop it. Not from here." She pointed to the neural core. "The control node is inside. But it's guarded."
"Guarded how?" Lucien asked.
The answer came from the shadows.
A low, mechanical growl reverberated through the chamber as two hulking figures emerged from behind the core—humanoid, but wrong. Their limbs were reinforced with steel, their eyes glowing the same eerie silver as the children's.
"Ah," Jiang said dryly. "That kind of guarded."
The enhanced soldiers lunged.
Yuchen barely had time to dodge before the first soldier was on him. The thing moved faster than anything that size should, its fist slamming into the ground where he'd stood a second before. He rolled, his knife flashing out—but the blade skittered harmlessly off the reinforced plating along its ribs.
To his left, Jiang was locked in a brutal grapple with the second soldier, his plasma pistol sparking against its armored chest. "Kid! The core!"
Lucien, meanwhile, had somehow produced a slender rapier from his coat and was fencing with a third soldier Yuchen hadn't even seen arrive. Versailles would've been proud.
Xing snarled, leaping onto the first soldier's back. His teeth sank into the cabling at its neck, and the thing roared, swiping at him.
Yuchen seized the opening. He ducked under its arm and drove his knife into the gap between its shoulder plates. The soldier staggered—then collapsed as Xing ripped out a handful of wires.
Song Lihua stared at them, her silver eyes wide. "You... killed it."
"Yeah," Yuchen panted. "We're good at that."
A deafening alarm split the air. Red lights flashed along the ceiling.
"They know we're here," Lucien said, disengaging from his opponent with a graceful spin. "We're out of time."
Song Lihua grabbed Yuchen's wrist. "The node—you have to destroy it before the sync completes!"
Yuchen looked at the neural core, then at the pods. The children's faces were contorted in silent pain.
"Jiang—"
"Go," Jiang barked, firing at the remaining soldiers. "We'll cover you!"
Yuchen didn't hesitate. He sprinted for the core, Xing at his heels.
Up close, the neural core was even more grotesque—a pulsating mass of organic circuitry, its surface veined with glowing blue filaments. At its center was a sealed hatch, just large enough for a person to crawl through.
Song Lihua pressed her palm against a biometric scanner. The hatch hissed open.
"Hurry," she urged. "The sync is at 87%."
The inside of the core was claustrophobic, the walls lined with throbbing neural tissue. Yuchen gagged at the smell—like burnt sugar and rotting meat. At the center of the chamber sat the control node: a crystalline spire crackling with energy.
Xing growled, his fur standing on end.
Yuchen reached for the node—then froze.
Embedded in its base was a familiar insignia.
The Luo phoenix.
"What the hell—?"
Song Lihua's voice was barely audible over the core's hum. "They used your family's research. To make the Titan obey."
Yuchen's vision went red.
He didn't remember drawing the explosive charge from his belt. Didn't remember slamming it against the node.
All he knew was the detonation—the shockwave that sent him crashing into the wall, the searing light that filled the chamber.
And then, the screams.
Not from the core.
From the pods.
The neural core died in a cascade of sparks. The conduits feeding the pods went dark, their connections severing with a sound like snapping bones.
Yuchen stumbled out of the core, his ears ringing. The chamber was in chaos—soldiers rushing in from every entrance, alarms blaring.
Jiang hauled him upright. "We gotta move, kid!"
"The children—!"
"Lucien's got them!"
Sure enough, Lucien was herding the dazed, silver-eyed children toward a service elevator, his rapier cutting down anyone who got too close. Song Lihua brought up the rear, her small hands glowing with an eerie light as she disrupted the soldiers' neural links.
Jiang shoved Yuchen toward the exit. "Go! I'll hold them off!"
"Like hell—"
"That's an order, brat!" Jiang tossed him a second plasma pistol. "Get those kids out!"
Xing barked, nipping at Yuchen's sleeve.
Yuchen made the hardest decision of his life.
He ran.
The service elevator shuddered as it ascended, the sounds of battle fading below. The children huddled together, their silver eyes wide with fear and confusion.
Lucien wiped blood from his brow. "Jiang better have a damn good exit strategy."
As if on cue, the elevator doors opened to reveal Vera Sutherland and a squad of heavily armed retainers.
"Took you long enough," she said, tossing Yuchen a fresh plasma cartridge. "Skimmer's waiting. Let's move."
÷
Yuchen didn't move. "Jiang's still down there."
Vera's expression darkened. "I know."
A distant explosion rocked the facility. The lights flickered.
Then, from the smoke-filled corridor, a familiar figure emerged—limping, covered in soot, but very much alive.
Jiang grinned. "Miss me?"
Yuchen nearly collapsed with relief.
Vera rolled her eyes. "Save the reunion for later. We've got company."
Behind them, the volcano rumbled.
The volcano's first tremor sent a rain of loose gravel skittering across the landing pad. Yuchen barely kept his footing as he herded the last of the children onto the skimmer, their small hands clutching at his sleeves. The facility below was a nightmare of flashing alarms and billowing smoke, the skeletal remains of the Titan's neural core still sparking in the cavernous depths.
Jiang hauled himself over the skimmer's railing, his left arm hanging at an unnatural angle. "Go, go, go—"
Vera didn't need telling twice. The skimmer's engines screamed as she wrenched the controls upward, sending them lurching into the ash-choked sky just as the second tremor hit. Behind them, the mountainside split open like a rotten fruit, vomiting rivers of molten rock.
I
Lucien, pressed against the rear gun turret, let out a low whistle. "That's one way to cover our tracks."
Yuchen didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the silver-eyed girl—Song Lihua—who stood rigid at the skimmer's prow, her small hands fisted at her sides. The other children huddled around her like satellites, their expressions hollow.
Xing whined, nudging Yuchen's knee.
"They're in shock," Jiang muttered, wincing as he tried to set his dislocated shoulder. "Wei-Xing had them wired into that core for weeks. Their minds aren't their own yet."
Yuchen reached for the medkit strapped to the bulkhead. "Let me—"
"Leave it." Jiang batted his hands away. "Focus on the kids. They're the priority now."
A third tremor rocked the skimmer. Vera cursed, fighting the controls as a shockwave of superheated air buffeted them sideways. "Someone wanna tell me why the volcano is exploding? That wasn't part of the plan!"
Song Lihua turned. Her voice, when it came, was eerily calm.
"Because they woke it up."
The Sutherland med-bay was too bright, too sterile. Yuchen sat on the edge of an examination table, watching as the fortress's white-robed healers moved between the children, scanning their silver-marked wrists and murmuring in hushed tones.
Xing, sprawled across Yuchen's feet, lifted his head as the door hissed open. Vera strode in, her flight suit streaked with soot.
"Wei-Xing's calling it a 'tragic accident,'" she announced, tossing a data pad onto the table. The screen showed a news bulletin—Catastrophic Eruption at Wei-Xing Research Facility, All Personnel Lost.
Jiang, now sporting a fresh sling, snorted. "Convenient."
"Too convenient." Lucien appeared in the doorway, Versailles perched on his shoulder. The peacock's feathers were ruffled, one eye gleaming with unnatural intelligence. "Our sources confirm the Titan project wasn't destroyed. Merely... relocated."
Yuchen's hands clenched. "Where?"
Before Lucien could answer, a commotion erupted across the room. One of the children—a boy no older than eight—had begun convulsing, his silver eyes rolling back as his small body arched off the bed.
Song Lihua was at his side in an instant, her palms pressed to his temples. A pulse of light radiated from her fingertips, and the boy went limp, his breathing steadying.
The healers recoiled.
"Psychic dampening," one whispered. "She shouldn't be able to—"
Song Lihua's head snapped up. "They're calling us."
A chill crawled down Yuchen's spine. "Who is?"
The girl's pupils dilated, her voice no longer entirely her own.
"The others."
They gathered in Vera's war room—what was left of their ragged coalition. The holographic map flickered between them, casting ghostly blue light over their exhausted faces.
Lucien tapped a command, and the image shifted to show a sprawling complex half-buried in desert sands. "The original Titan research site," he said. "Abandoned after the first prototype went rogue. Now, according to Song Lihua's... vision, it's active again."
Jiang scowled. "How many kids are we talking about?"
"Hundreds." Vera's knuckles whitened around her cup of bitter black coffee. "Wei-Xing's been collecting awakened children for years. These twelve are just the ones they were dumb enough to keep on-site."
Yuchen stared at the hologram. The pieces were falling into place—Wei-Xing's desperation, the Titan's sudden progress, the unnatural precision of the volcanic eruption.
"They're using the children to control it," he realized. "Not just as pilots. As fuel."
A soft chime interrupted them. The hologram dissolved, replaced by the shimmering image of Luo Jinhai.
"Grandfather?" Yuchen straightened.
Jinhai's face was grave. "The Wei-Xing fleet has mobilized. They're moving on the Valois border."
Lucien went very still.
"And," Jinhai continued, his gaze locking onto Yuchen, "they've issued a formal declaration of war against the Luo Dynasty. For the 'unprovoked destruction of sovereign research assets.'"
A beat of silence.
Then Jiang laughed—a sharp, ugly sound. "Those bastards."
Vera slammed her cup down. "This was their play all along. They wanted us to blow up that facility. Gave them the perfect excuse to—"
"No."
All eyes turned to Song Lihua, who stood in the doorway, her slight frame dwarfed by the towering Sutherland guards flanking her.
"They didn't want you to destroy it," she whispered. "They wanted you to see."
The hologram flickered again—not Jinhai's transmission this time, but a burst of corrupted data resolving into a single image:
A Titan.
Not the half-built prototype they'd crippled, but a completed war machine, its armored plates gleaming like polished obsidian. And there, embedded in its chest—
The Luo phoenix.
Yuchen's blood turned to ice.
"They're framing us," Lucien breathed.
Song Lihua's silver eyes overflowed with light.
"Worse," she said. "They're coming."
The first missiles hit at dawn.
Yuchen was on the battlements when the alarms sounded, the seaward defenses lighting up as the Wei-Xing fleet emerged from the morning fog. Their ships were sleek, predatory things—black hulls slashed with crimson, their decks bristling with artillery.
Xing barked a warning as the lead cruiser's guns swiveled toward them.
Vera's voice crackled over the comms: "All non-combatants to the bunkers! Defensive positions, now!"
Yuchen didn't move. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, where something massive was taking shape in the clouds.
The Titan.
It moved with impossible grace for something so large, its footfalls sending tremors through the water as it waded ashore. The markings on its chest—the stolen Luo insignia—glowed hellish red.
Jiang appeared at his side, his plasma rifle already charging. "Kid. We need to go."
Yuchen shook his head. "They'll keep coming. Unless we stop them here."
"That thing?" Jiang spat over the railing. "We don't have the firepower."
"No." Yuchen turned. "But she does."
Song Lihua stood at the center of the courtyard, the other awakened children forming a silent circle around her. Their silver eyes were all fixed on the approaching Titan, their small hands linked.
The air hummed with gathering power.
Vera's retainer—a grizzled old tactician—crossed himself. "Gods help us all."
The Titan roared.
Song Lihua answered.
The air above the Sutherland stronghold crackled with energy as Song Lihua raised her hands. The other awakened children mirrored her movement, their linked arms forming a living circuit. Silver light pulsed from their markings, coalescing into a shimmering dome just as the Titan's first plasma volley struck.
The impact sent shockwaves rippling across the barrier. The fortress trembled, its ancient stones groaning under the strain.
Yuchen's teeth rattled in his skull. "How long can they hold that?"
Jiang didn't answer. His eyes were locked on the Titan as it waded through the shallows, its massive frame parting the waves like a god of war. The stolen Luo phoenix on its chest glowed brighter with each step.
Vera's voice cut through the chaos over comms: "All artillery—focus fire on its joints! Go for the—"
The Titan's arm cannon whined as it charged.
"DOWN!"
The blast sheared through the eastern turret in a shower of molten stone. Yuchen hit the deck, shielding Xing with his body as debris rained around them. When he looked up, half the battlements were gone.
Jiang hauled him upright. "We need to get to the kids!"
They sprinted across the ravaged courtyard, dodging falling embers and panicked soldiers. The children's barrier still held, but cracks were beginning to spiderweb across its surface. Song Lihua's nose bled freely, her small frame shaking with effort.
Yuchen skidded to his knees beside her. "Lihua! There has to be another way!"
Her silver eyes flickered to his. "There is."
Behind them, Lucien emerged from the smoke, Versailles clutched protectively against his chest. The peacock's feathers were scorched, but its eyes gleamed with unnatural awareness.
"The Titan's core," Lucien gasped. "It's a copy of your family's design—which means it has the same flaw."
Jiang's head snapped up. "The neural feedback loop."
"Precisely." Lucien stroked Versailles' head. The bird let out a piercing cry. "But someone would need to get inside."
A terrible understanding settled over Yuchen.
Xing's growl vibrated against his leg.
The Sutherland's last remaining skimmer was a battered reconnaissance model, its armor plating already half-destroyed. Vera manned the controls, her knuckles white on the yoke.
"This is suicide," she snarled as they banked hard to avoid another plasma burst.
Yuchen adjusted the harness of his borrowed flight suit. "Got a better idea?"
Below them, the Titan had reached the shore, its massive foot crushing the docks to splinters. Up close, the scale of it was incomprehensible—each of its fingers was the size of a tank, its glowing optics scanning the fortress like a predator sizing up prey.
Jiang handed Yuchen a cylindrical charge. "Plant this directly in the core housing. It'll trigger a cascade failure."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then we're all vapor." Jiang clapped him on the shoulder. "No pressure."
The skimmer shuddered as Vera took them into a steep dive. "Dropping you on its back! Don't die!"
Yuchen barely had time to grab Xing before the hatch blew open. Wind screamed around them as they rappelled around them as they rappelled down onto the Titan's armored plating. The metal was hot enough to burn through his gloves, vibrating with the machine's monstrous heartbeat.
Xing's claws found purchase in the gaps between plates. "Go!" Yuchen shouted over the din. "Find the access point!"
The pup lunged forward, his silver-marked fur standing on end as he led the way across the Titan's shuddering frame.
The access hatch was hidden beneath a shoulder plate, its biometric scanner long since shattered. Yuchen wedged his knife into the mechanism and pried. Metal groaned, then gave way with a shriek.
Inside, the Titan's innards pulsed with sickly light. The passages were tight, the walls slick with coolant and something darker—organic residue from the neural interface. The stench made Yuchen's eyes water.
I
Xing's nose led them deeper, past throbbing conduits and sparking relays. The deeper they went, the louder the whispering became—not through his ears, but directly into his skull. Fragments of thought, of pain, all tangled together in a chorus of screaming children.
Then they found it.
The core chamber was a grotesque mockery of the one they'd destroyed. At its center floated a massive orb of liquid metal, its surface rippling with phantom faces. Dozens of cables fed into it, each pulsing with stolen life force.
Yuchen's stomach turned. "They're still connected."
The awakened children—hundreds of them, their minds trapped in this monstrous network.
Xing whined, pawing at the base of the core. The charge's timer blinked ready.
Yuchen hesitated.
Detonating it would kill the Titan.
But it might kill the children too.
The Titan lurched violently as another Sutherland volley struck its leg. Yuchen slammed into the core housing, his vision swimming. The whispers became screams.
"—hurts make it stop—"
"—can't wake up can't—"
"—big sister where are you—"
Song Lihua's voice cut through the noise, clear as a bell,
"Do it."
Her presence unfolded in his mind—not just hers, but all of them, the trapped children lending their will to his. The core's surface calmed, the faces resolving into something determined.
Together.
Yuchen activated the charge.
"Xing! Go!"
They ran as the countdown flashed red behind them. Five seconds. Four. The Titan's systems wailed in alarm. Three.
A conduit exploded, showering them with sparks. Two.
Yuchen grabbed Xing and leaped just as the skimmer swooped in, Vera's outstretched hand catching his wrist. One.
The world turned white.
The explosion tore the Titan apart from within. Its armored plates blew outward like shrapnel, its massive frame collapsing into the boiling sea. The shockwave sent the skimmer spiraling—Vera swore, fighting the controls as they careened toward the waves.
They hit hard.
Yuchen came to with saltwater in his lungs, Xing dragging him toward the surface by his collar. The sky was on fire, the remains of the Titan sinking beneath the waves.
And there, standing knee-deep in the shallows—Song Lihua.
The other awakened children stood with her, their silver eyes glowing in unison. The ocean itself seemed to bow around them, the waves parting to reveal the Titan's shattered core.
In the distance, the Wei-Xing fleet retreated.
Silence fell.
Then, from the depths, something answered.
A light, deep below the waves—brighter than the sun, colder than the void.
Song Lihua went very still.
"Oh," she whispered. "You woke it up."