Chapter 15 | Act 1: War | Taking Krytis Pt 3 | Glimmer
Morning settled over the war room in muted gray light.
The lanterns still burned despite the hour, their glow weak beneath the pale daylight filtering through the tall windows. Someone had opened one of the upper arches during the night, and cool air drifted through the room, carrying the distant scent of smoke with it.
Krytis was still burning.
Adora stood at the center table, staring down at the reports spread out beneath her.
There were too many of them now.
Loose parchment covered nearly the entire table. Maps had disappeared beneath troop movements, casualty estimates, recovered sketches, copied notes from the bases under Krytis, and pages written in hurried handwriting by soldiers trying to record what they’d found before entire sections of the city were swallowed by fire.
The first reports had come before dawn. Then another.
Every time the war room fell silent, another runner arrived with soot on their armor and another piece of Krytis carried in their hands.
Across from her, Glimmer leaned against the edge of the table, looking as exhausted as Adora felt. One hand rubbed tiredly against her temple while the other held a report she’d already read twice. Her eyes moved over the same lines again, slower now, like sheer will was the only thing keeping her focused.
Neither of them had slept. Not really.
Adora didn’t know if closing her eyes for a few minutes at the table counted as sleep. She only knew every time her body started to drift, the door opened again.
Another runner. Another report. Another discovery. Another reminder that Prime had been preparing for this war long before any of them understood how deeply he’d rooted himself into Etheria.
Adora forced herself to look down at the parchment in front of her again.
The ooze. Even the word made her stomach tighten now.
Recovered notes described exposure symptoms in disturbing detail. Stages of corruption, behavioral changes, loss of emotional resistance and eventual submission to Prime’s control. Some of the writing was so cold and clinical it made Adora shiver in horror. Hosts retained consciousness initially. That line had stayed with Adora since she first read it.
Retained consciousness. Meaning people could still be inside themselves while Prime hollowed them out piece by piece. Her jaw tightened.
Beside another pile sat recovered sketches from the lower chambers beneath Krytis. Bow had organized most of them sometime before sunrise, when he was still awake enough to make sense of the scattered pages. The drawings showed heating systems, containment chambers, sealed vats, and production notes marked with symbols none of them fully understood yet.
The ooze wasn’t random corruption. It was engineered, weaponized.
Glimmer flipped another page over sharply beside her. “God.” Adora looked up.
Glimmer pushed one of the reports across the table with visible disgust. “Read this.”
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