In the square before the tower, I tried to gather the captains.
Before, opening my palm had been enough. Now Styx sent them an image of the city: white chains, wounded beasts, trapped people and the roof where Kane was building up another pulse.
Twelve broods answered.
Five refused. They had survived the fire at the border and the captain's cage; they wanted nothing more to do with human seals. Several others chose the Wildlands and headed north.
I felt a flare of irritation.
Styx reminded me of her own "no".
One of the captains who refused had grown out of a brood I had almost completely lost at the border. What he showed me was not fear of the tower, but my own earlier decision: I had driven the swarm onwards while the System promised a new evolution.
To him, Kane was not the only danger.
I wanted to explain that I had changed. Styx did not pass on the excuse. The captain had already seen my actions and still chosen to leave.
We marked the area that would have no swarm support on the map. Cole redirected people with mechanical cutters there. It was slower and more dangerous, but one brood's refusal was no reason to abandon a district. A plan that worked only when the answer suited you was no different from an order.
We divided the city into sectors. Styx asked each brood to choose terrain it knew. The swamp blast ticks went to the industrial pipelines. The fast scouts took the high-rise districts. The soldiers raised in the dye works headed for the northern slums.
They knew the smell of those streets.
Lily broadcast instructions over the open channel. Not "restrain the beast", but "remove the collar and step back". Not "order it to calm down", but "show it there is no threat nearby".
Many did not believe her. People were used to solving a problem with a stronger command.
Then Leon appeared on the screen.
He stood beside the freed Void Dragon.
"My beast nearly killed me because of my family's seal. If there is a white line glowing on the collar, the command isn't coming from you."
In his own words, the heir to the Li family was dismantling his father's central argument.
Kane declared his son infected.
Leon tore the family insignia from his uniform and threw it down into the square.
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