Chapter 88: The Queen’s Final Move
The chamber reeked of blood and burnt stone.
Cambria stared at the creature kneeling before her Subject Zero, its black-veined arms pressed reverently to the ground, its eyes aglow with something unnatural. Not rage. Not madness. Worship.
"My Queen," it rasped again, the voice cracked like glass scraping over stone.
Cambria’s heart thundered. Her breath hitched.
This thing, this monstrosity, this failed creation should have killed her. It had torn through Valen Drex like paper, his blood still steaming on the fractured floor. But instead, it knelt. Not to Lucien. Not to Knox. Not to the empire.
To her.
"You... recognize me," Cambria said, her voice barely audible.
"Yes," Subject Zero replied. "I was made to."
Behind her, the broken injector still pulsed with faint light, a useless shell now. Whatever activation Lucien had planned was gone. Yet here the original weapon stood awakened without it. Recognizing her. Choosing her.
Cambria’s mind spun. If Zero acknowledged her as a queen without the activation code, what else had been encoded into her into them? What bond connected them?
"What are you?" she demanded, stepping closer. "What did they do to you?"