Chapter 90 Chapter 90: A New Island
Kalev’s POV
I stood in the architect’s room.
It had been four days since Senna left. I hadn’t heard a word from her. I tried to contact her. she wouldn’t take my calls. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I wouldn’t have taken my calls either.
Everyone in the estate was still shooting me daggers with their eyes.
And, to make matters worse, Orrin was gone.
He’d disappeared. He’d pulled away from me and went somewhere I couldn’t reach him. He’d been so mad at me before he left. He’d tried to push out. He threatened to rip me apart from the inside. He wanted Verity back.
But that was the one thing I couldn’t give him.
His absence had settled into me the way bone sets after a fracture. It wasn’t sharp anymore. It just felt…permanent.
I closed the door behind me and didn’t lock it. No one came here unless they were invited. That was the only reason I still had access. My authority was inherited, not earned.
I walked to the central table.
The surface lit up at my approach. For a moment, I just stood there. Then I placed my hand flat on the table. And I began.
My goal was to rebuild the island.
At first it was simple restructuring. I removed constraints from prior designs and stripping out things from the old model. I stopped reinforcing things that had always been reinforced.
Instead, I started building outward.
I re-shaped the terrain. Then I began layering life into it. Not ‘metaphorically’. Literally. Structurally.
I was building a completely Flora-responsive system. Somewhere that a flora wolf would thrive.
If the purpose of the games was to identify flora wolves, then fine. I would build the entire island around them.
It was my act of rebellion. I was building an island that flora wolves could use to their advantage. It was my way of being a thorn in the capital’s side. The next time a flora wolf step foot on that island, watch out. The entire island was now designed to work with flora wolves. They would have a massive advantage in the games.
It was my way of honoring Senna. I knew it wasn’t much. But it was all I could do.
The games were all I had left. So I figured I might as well do what I did best. And that was tamper with games.
Senna’s presence in my mind spurred me on. I knew she was at Viktor’s house. I knew that she hated me. But I loved her. I would always love her. And I know it didn’t matter much in the whole scope of things, but I felt like if I could build this island for her and Verity, that somehow, I was doing something right.
If I couldn’t stand beside her, then I would build something that understood her better than anything else ever could. And if another flora wolf ever came onto the island, then everyone would see what I’d done.
The room began to fill with layered projections. Hours passed. I kept working.
Eventually, I paused. Because the next layer required something more dangerous than design. It required rewriting consequences.
The Games had always functioned on imbalance. They had never been fair. One side watched. One side survived. One side died to preserve the illusion of order for the other. It was the nobles against the sectors.
I was going to change that. By restructuring the games from the inside.
I formed a new clause in the system architecture. It was buried deep enough that it would not surface in standard Council review cycles. It was a charter amendment disguised as optimization. No one would find it until it was too late too change it.
It was my brain child, and I was giving birth to it right then and there.
If the Games were to continue, then participation would no longer belong exclusively to the Sectors. The nobility would enter the same space. They would bleed under the same rules.
Not as spectators. As participants.
The system resisted at first. It flagged inconsistencies and generating warnings in the margins of the interface. I overrode them one by one. Not with force, but with authorization.
The room grew brighter as it accepted the change.
Eventually, the island took shape in layers that no longer resembled anything that had existed before. Living terrain became the baseline. Forest systems were no longer planted, they were grown.
When they called for participants for next year’s games, the system would demand that nobles enter as well. It would be too late to override it. Nothing would function on the island unless there was noble blood on it.
And if nothing functioned, there would be no games.
Finishing, I stepped back and admired what I’d done. In just twelve hours, I’d completely transformed the fate of the games.
The council would probably kill me for this. But I didn’t care. It was my tribute to Senna. And as such, it was well worth whatever happened to me when everyone found out what I’d done.
There was just one last thing to do.
And that was to disable the siphon.
So, with a press of a button, I shut down the spire. It would be purely decorative from this point forward. If they wanted to keep sucking the energy out of wolves, they’d have to find a different way to do it.
With a final locking of the system, I turned and left the room. That was done. Now I only had two more things left to do.
I had to rescue Thor from the facility. And I had to find a way to prove that there was something wrong with Viktor’s wolf. That would force him to step down.
It wouldn’t bring Senna back to me. I had signed a contract. But it would be revenge on Viktor for all that he’d done.
With a click of a switch, I turned off the lights in the architect room. Then I set my mind to finding out a way to expose Viktor once and for all.