Chapter 97 - The Deep Descent
"Lily!" I screamed, disregarding Harris’s grip entirely. I twisted free of his arm, diving directly across the boundary line.
The moment my skin crossed the threshold of the emerald light, an immense wave of physical force hit me, lifting me off my feet. I didn't fall into the pit. The magnetic field caught my body, pulling me into the swirling column of ionized air alongside my daughter. The air tasted of sweet cream, sugar, and ozone—an impossible olfactory ghost of the cake that had started this entire war.
"Mommy!" Lily reached out, her little fingers brushing against mine.
The obsidian slab in my pocket suddenly tore free of the fabric, flying into the space between us. It didn't float aimlessly; it aligned itself directly beneath the rose-gold sphere, snapping into place with an authoritative, metallic *CLANG* that sent a shockwave rippling through the entire room.
Above us, Harris and his men opened fire, but the rounds dissolved into glowing copper sparks the moment they struck the outer boundary of the emerald dome. Sterling stood calmly outside the field, watching our ascent—or descent—with an expression of cold triumph.
"Let the array balance itself, child!" Sterling shouted over the rising din. "Reach out your hand and grasp the core! Inherit what your father abandoned!"
"Don't do it, Lily!" I yelled, pulling my body through the resistance of the heavy air, fighting the crushing g-force until I wrapped both arms securely around my daughter’s waist. Her small body was trembling, but her gaze was fixed on the spinning sphere.
"Mommy, it’s playing music," she whispered, her eyes wide. "It’s the song Daddy used to hum when he fixed the grandfather clock in the study."
Down in the depths of the shaft, hundreds of feet below the elementary school, a colossal set of iron gates began to swing open. The light radiating from the pit shifted from harsh emerald to a warm, blinding gold. The air pressure suddenly reversed. Instead of pushing us up, the gravity field collapsed entirely.
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We were falling.
***
