That night, the Nest was silent, but it was a predatory silence. Kaelen and Lyra were confined to their barracks. The other acolytes looked at them with suspicion. Some had already accepted the "Gifts" from Silas—small brass plates grafted onto their forearms to boost their Aetheria output.
"They're selling our souls for a battery," Lyra hissed, pacing the small cell. "We have to do something, Kaelen."
"We can't fight them all," Kaelen said, staring at the stone ceiling. "Vane has compromised. He thinks he's protecting us by collaborating, but he's just feeding us to the furnace."
He looked at Lyra. The romance they had fostered in the dark of the Gut felt fragile here. In this new world of iron and logic, love was an inefficiency.
"If we leave," Lyra whispered, sitting beside him, "we leave as traitors. They will hunt us to the ends of the earth."
"Let them," Kaelen said, his eyes flashing. "I've died once. Being hunted is better than being a slave."