Chapter 29: The blood moon

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Blood Moon Rises**

Golden light and white light glowed from towers so tall they seemed to float. Bridges of pure glass connected tower to tower, their surfaces reflecting the city below like mirrors. Floating green parks stretched across the district, lush and alive — a stark contrast to the neon-drenched sprawl beneath them. This was the Upper Spires, the heaven everyone dreamed of reaching and so few ever touched.

The air here was unprocessed. Real. Rain fell without passing through atmospheric filters first. It was a place built for the elite to forget the world beneath their feet even existed.

Percy sat on a curved seat, legs crossed, a glass of red wine loose in her hand. Across from her sat the same dark-haired woman she'd played chess with before — face still lost to shadow, her presence heavier than anything she actually said.

Percy broke the silence with a sigh.

"Still no word on Prince Dorian. The Survey Corps, probably. They'll try anything to shake Valdrex's grip."

The woman laughed, low and smooth. Her dark hair spilled past her shoulders, black nails catching the golden light. Only her lips were visible in the shadow — red, and gleaming like something wet.

"Who told you he's missing?" she said. "He's hiding. Cosmic Class, at his age. A one-in-a-million talent, and he knows it."

Percy's mouth curved. "His abilities are... distracting."

"Trace him. Win his heart. He's yours." A pause. "Fair warning — he won't make it easy."

"I will. Later." Percy turned toward the golden sprawl below. "I've got unfinished business first."

They drank in silence for a while, the clean air moving over them. Percy rose, walking to the railing.

"Sometimes I wish I were Cosmic," she said, quieter than before. "Five thousand years. Wipe out a planet in an afternoon if you felt like it. You're all practically gods."

"Elemental's not bad either."

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Percy huffed. "City-to-continental. That's our ceiling. Nothing compared to yours."

"It's more useful, though. You get to use it carefully." The woman's voice dropped. "We don't. Cosmic's full-force or nothing — ask the Nabians. Two of us clashed once and there wasn't a Nabian race left to argue about it after. Even among Cosmics, only a handful — God Class — can actually control it instead of just unleashing it."

She paused.

"You heard the news?"

Percy's eyes sharpened. "The faceless thing."

"Mm. It's sitting in the Mid-Spires right now. Hunting for a host." A small, private smile. "Good timing for us, actually."

Percy's expression darkened. "If it kills the host outright — burns through the consciousness completely — that's a real problem for the district."

"So we wait. Let it finish taking over. Then we bring it in." The woman stretched, unhurried. "Hand the Empire proof of what Vex Industry can deliver."

"That's a dangerous way to make a point."

"I'm exhausted just thinking about it." The woman rose, drifting toward her room, her gown catching the light as she went. "And that — that was the name of my favorite game, once. Faceless."

Percy stayed at the railing, staring down at the Mid-Spires — a smear of scattered light, miles below, like stars fallen the wrong way.

She let out a breath.

"I hope everyone down there is okay."

---

**Mid-Spires — Kley's District**

Rain fell in sheets. The streets shone slick and black, neon bleeding across the wet pavement in long streaks of color. High-tech cars hissed past on the EL roads, tires glowing faint blue.

Keith walked the alley slow, green raincoat soaked through, headset hanging around his neck, hands buried in his pockets. Water splashed with every step.

His mind kept circling back to Calvin.

*Why didn't I stay? Why couldn't I just forgive him?*

He shook the thought loose. Kept walking.

People passed him in the rain. Neon signs buzzed overhead. The district had that particular feeling of somewhere caught between what it used to be and whatever it was turning into.

He sat down at a bus shelter, rain drumming steady on the roof above him.

Midnight came and went. The crowds thinned to nothing. Only the signboards stayed lit, glowing over empty streets.

Keith stared at the ground for a long time.

Then he pulled the headset over his ears and hit play.

Funk pumped straight into his skull, electronic, pulsing. His breathing slowed to match it. He nodded along.

*Thump. Thump. Thump.*

The rain kept falling.

Then —

The wind stopped.

The music cut out mid-beat.

A single raindrop hung frozen in the air, inches from the ground.

Keith's head came up slow, his eyes darting, confused. Everything had stopped. Not just the rain — everything.

"What—"

He didn't get to finish.

Color drained out of the world. The EL roads went dark. The neon washed to gray, then to nothing. Monochrome crept across the district like spilled paint, swallowing the buildings, the street, his own raincoat, his own skin.

Keith tried to scream. Nothing came out.

A pool of red spread across the ground beneath him, moving like it was alive. Above the towers, a moon rose — enormous, burning red, trailing smoke.

Keith stared at it. Couldn't blink. Couldn't move.

The red climbed his legs. His chest. His throat.

*No. No. No—*

His veins swelled dark beneath his skin. His hair bled from red to something closer to blood itself.

Then, silence.

Color flooded back all at once. The rain resumed mid-fall. The music kept playing like it had never stopped.

Keith sat there, head low, the headset still thrumming against his ears.

A man approached under an umbrella.

"Hey, kid. You planning on going home sometime tonight?"

No answer.

The man frowned, stepped closer, touched his shoulder.

"Kid. You listening?"

He noticed the headset, sighed, and pulled it off Keith's ears himself.

"I'm talking to you. Look at me."

Nothing.

"Look at me," he said again, firmer.

A thin curl of fog drifted from Keith's nose.

Slowly, Keith lifted his head.

The man's expression didn't just fall.

It stopped. Entirely. Forever.