Chapter 50 The Blood In The Gears

• The scream of the Spire wasn't a sound; it was a physical assault. It felt as though the very air was being shredded into razor-wire, vibrating through my teeth and echoing in the hollows of my skull. It was the sound of a world being unmade, the protest of ancient systems being forced to acknowledge a new, bloody authority.
• Kael groaned, his face draining of color until he looked like one of the marble statues that used to line the upper archives. His hand was fused to the obsidian lock of the Black Ledger, his red, human blood being siphoned into the ancient parchment. The book didn't just drink; it hungered. The deep crimson spread across the black pages like a blurred sunset, turning the ink of the old laws into a wet, glistening sludge.
• "Kael!" Kaden shouted. He lunged forward to brace the falling man, but a crackle of black lightning hissed from the pedestal, throwing him back.