The interior of the interrogation tent was quiet, save for the rhythmic, heavy patter of rain hammering against the thick canvas overhead. It was a cold, clinical space, smelling of damp earth, iron rust, and the metallic tang of chemical-gold fuel leaking from a small heater in the corner. With a sharp, pressurized hiss, Georgia unlatched her collar. She lifted the heavy silver helmet of the weeping saint from her head and set it down on a wooden crate. Her pale, lavender-white hair tumbled loose. She took a deep, ragged breath of the cold, unfiltered air, her violet eyes stark and bright against the soot and grime smeared across her forehead. "Georgia," Corin whispered, his hands still loosely bound by the hemp rope as he sat on a low wooden bench. "They know. The Inquisitor... he knows you’re alive. They’re actively hunting you." "It’s worse than that," Georgia said, her voice dropping to a low, chilling register. She stepped closer to him, the heavy plates of her stolen armor clicking in the dim light. "I stood outside the command tent. I heard the transmission from the Oracle." She knelt in front of him, her gloved hands gently but firmly resting on his shoulders. "They don't want me for a trial, Corin. They want to turn me into a living anchor. The Mavis bloodline... our voices hold the gravity-well frequencies of the Eastern skies. They plan to sever my tongue, bind my nerves directly into the cathedral’s central core, and use my heartbeat to lock the entire Eastern reach under their control. I will be a prisoner in the stone forever." Corin’s breath hitched. A sickening dread washed over him, turning his skin ash-pale. The sheer, monstrous cruelty of the Coalition's design was beyond anything he had imagined. "A living anchor... Georgia, that's... we have to get out of here. We have to run, right now." "We can't run on foot," Georgia said, her gaze shifting toward the heavy canvas flap. "The perimeter is sealed. The drones are thick in the gorge. If we try to slip into the woods, we’ll be hunted down by morning." She looked back at him, her violet eyes burning with a sudden, desperate fire. "We are going to take their flagship." Corin stared at her, his jaw dropping. "Take The Iron Saint? Georgia, she’s a behemoth! She's got a crew of fifty, and she’s tethered to the ground towers by magnetic locks. If we try to lift off, the tension will tear her keel apart." "Not if we bypass the core," Corin muttered, his own words from the cell suddenly catching up to him. He looked down at his bound hands, his mind racing. "The old mechanic in the holding cell... he was a fleet engineer. He told me how to do it." Georgia’s eyes narrowed. "What did he say?" "There's a manual pressure wheel in the lower engine room—the emergency core-vent," Corin explained, his voice shaking with a mix of terror and adrenaline. "Three full rotations to the right. It dumps raw, unrefined gravity-well fuel directly into the thrusters. The stabilizers will blow, and we'll shoot up like a stone from a catapult, but the upward draft... it’ll shear those magnetic cables clean off the pylons." Georgia’s pale lips curved into a small, cold, and triumphant smile. It was the smile of a princess who had finally decided to burn her own palace to the ground. "Then we have our flight plan," she whispered. "But how do we even get on board?" Corin asked, looking toward the tent entrance. "The gantry is heavily guarded. The Inquisitor will be coming for us any second." Before Georgia could answer, the low, heavy rustle of the tent's entrance flap parted. The shadows of the two vanguard sentinels outside shifted, and the pristine, white-robed silhouette of the Inquisitor stepped into the dim, gold-lit room.

Chapter 26: The Crucible of Air