Your judgment is compromised,the Matriarch’s thoughts continue, each one a final, damning verdict.The mission is therefore terminated. Your authority in this matter is revoked.
The coldness of her dismissal is absolute. But it is her next thought that stops the breath in my lungs.
I have dispatched the Crimson Wing. Their directive is simple: retrieve the specimen and cleanse the human contamination. All of it. The fortress will be sterilized with fire.
The Crimson Wing. The Matriarch’s personal guard. A dozen of the most ruthless, fanatical warriors our race has ever produced. They are not soldiers. They are butchers, loyal only to her.Cleanse the contamination.The words are a death sentence. For Haven. For Elza’s people. For Elza herself.
Your life is forfeit should you choose to interfere,the message concludes, a final, chilling threat.Do not mistake my resolve, Eoin. The cure is paramount. The Vrakken will survive. No cost is too high.
The psychic link severs, leaving behind a profound, chilling silence in my mind.
And in that silence, the full, elegant cruelty of her plan crystallizes.
She knew. Before she even sent me, she must have suspected I was compromised by my first encounter with The Anomaly. This was not a simple mission; it was a test. A gambit. If I succeeded and brought her the cure, my weakness would be overlooked. But if I failed, if the sentimentality she suspected took root… then I became a liability. A loose end.
She played me. She used my own failure, my own weakness, against me. She now has the perfect justification to eliminate a dangerously sentimental Enforcer and seize the cure for herself, all in one clean, efficient stroke. My life, Elza’s life, the lives of everyone in this fortress—they are all acceptable costs in her cold, brutal calculation.
For ten thousand years, I have cultivated a perfect, impenetrable apathy. It has been my shield, my armor, my religion. It is the core of my being, a wall that has protected me from the chaos of feeling, from the creeping decay of The Fading.
Now, that wall shatters.
It is not a hot, chaotic rage like the one born from Elza’s blood. It is something far colder, far older, and infinitely more dangerous. It is the absolute, possessive fury of a god whose sanctum has been violated. It is the rage of a predator whose territory, whoseproperty, is threatened.
They are coming. They are coming to put their hands on Lyren. They are coming to put their hands onher.
My hand, still clutching the spy stone, clenches into a fist. The obsidian, a relic of ancient magic capable of withstanding immense pressure, groans under the strain. It cracks. Then, with a soft, finalpop, it disintegrates into a fine, black dust that trickles through my fingers.
The calm, apathetic mask of Eoin the Enforcer, the Matriarch’s perfect, emotionless weapon, finally breaks apart. And in its place opens a cold, biblical rage.
They are coming. Let them come.
17
ELZA
The air is wrong.
I feel it the moment I start down the steps to the lower cells, the daily provisions heavy in my hands. The usual damp, cold silence of the dungeon is gone, now replaced by a tense, crackling energy. The psychic link, a constant, miserable hum in my mind, is now a raging, chaotic storm. It is not the hot, needy chaos I felt when he took me, but something colder, sharper, and infinitely more dangerous. It is the sound of a glacier calving. The fury of a god.
I round the final corner and stop dead. Tarek and the dungeon guards are pressed back against the corridor walls, their spears leveled, their faces pale with terror. They are not forming a shield wall. They are cowering.
Before them, the iron door to his cell hangs open. And in the middle of the cell, he stands.
Free.
The magical restraints, the heavy iron chains—all of it lies in shattered, smoking ruins at his feet. He is not attacking. He is not even looking at the guards. He is staring at his own hand, at a fine black dust that trickles from his clenched fist. His stillnessis absolute, but the power rolling off him in waves is suffocating. It is a cold, controlled rage that promises annihilation.
My heart beats furiously against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. I set the food and water down with a clatter, my hands suddenly trembling. My fingers find the familiar hilt of my dagger, and the worn leather is a small, solid comfort in a world that is rapidly coming apart.
“What is this?” I demand, my voice sharp, cutting through the terrified silence.
His head snaps up. His abyss-black eyes find mine, and the sheer, undiluted fury in them makes me take an involuntary step back. But the fury is not directed at me. It is a vast, impersonal rage, the anger of a king who has just been betrayed.
He ignores my question. His voice, when he speaks, is the strained, guttural sound of his control stretched to its absolute limit. “The Matriarch has grown impatient.”
The name sends a chill down my spine. The ruler of the Vrakken.
He takes a step out of the cell, and my guards flinch, but I hold up a hand to stop them. He is not advancing on us. He is simply… un-caged. “She perceives my delay in retrieving what is mine as a sign of corruption. She believes I have been compromised by sentiment.”
