Chapter 20: The Memory War
Ning Que awoke to suffocating silence.
The medical bay was dim, its white lights flickering overhead. Tubes were still connected to his veins, monitors hummed, and the faint scent of antiseptic was in the air. But it wasn’t the room that bothered him — it was the heaviness he felt in his chest.
Something pulsed beneath his skin, slow and steady, like a second heartbeat fueled by Riftlight.
His fingers twitched.
He sat up, breath hitching.
Across from him, Lyra sat in a metal chair, her knees drawn up, her coat draped across her shoulders like a shield. She looked pale, her golden hair tousled, and there were dark rings under her eyes.
"You’re awake," she said, barely above a whisper. Her voice cracked at the edges.
He nodded once, swallowing hard. "How long?"
"Three hours." She looked at him like he was a bomb she wasn’t sure had stopped ticking. "You were shaking, then glowing. I didn’t know if you were coming back." She was worried.
Ning said nothing. His eyes drifted to the reinforced window above the bed. Outside, clouds gathered unnaturally over the mountainside. Lightning crawled through the sky in crooked lines, but there was no thunder. Just the low hum of energy. Riftlight shimmered faintly along the ridges.
He could still feel the aftershock of the Sovereign Gate.