Then the machine stopped asking.
Deep inside the cylindrical cavern beneath Old Hill, the three concentric rings of the Crown Furnace locked into a sudden, synchronized chord—a bass vibration so heavy and physical that it shook loose mortar dust from the vaulted roof of the aqueduct gallery and made the teeth clack in Jon’s jaws.
On the inner face of the smoked-quartz lens, the gold letters of PURGE FOREIGN CLAIM flared from yellow to blinding white.
A second bolt of golden current—thicker than a man’s thumb—snapped across the bronze housing rim and struck Cael Ardent square in the hollow of his throat.
The tall knight was jerked upright from his knees as if hauled by a butcher’s winch. His head snapped back, his eyes rolled white beneath his helmet brow, and the muscles of his right arm contracted with violent, involuntary force as the sovereign override bypassed his conscious will and seized the motor nerves wired into the Returner Seal.
Before Jon could grab his wrist, Cael’s gauntleted right hand whipped across his hip and ripped his ancestral four-foot greatsword clear of its scabbard with a ringing shriek of steel.
“Back in the passage!” Jon roared, shoving Lady Signe and Alden Bram hard behind his left shoulder as the broad steel blade swept upward in a rigid, mechanical curve that sheared an inch of granite off the low corbelled arch overhead.
