I didn’t give a fuck.
No time to pack, either.
I considered asking Aelindor to have someone tell Bryn. Then I dropped the idea. Soldiers deployed at a moment’s notice. Any of us could die on a mission. Bryn would figure it out.
As I hurried after the Fae prince, a whisper carried from near the wall—one of Caspian’s fangirls. “I don’tsee why she’s so special. She sticks out like a scarecrow, just like Delia said.”
My heart swelled. Not at the insult but at what it confirmed: Aelindor didn’t want to leave me behind. He’d come to take me with him.
Whatever danger waited at the eastern border, I’d face it beside him.
I wouldn’t be dead weight. I’d be an asset.
32
MAX
The train ran on magic and Stormglass. It sped along the border of Colorado and New Mexico, heading for the eastern fringe of the Zodiac Covenant.
Caspian, Aelindor, Drakken, their aides, two commanders, and senior war advisors packed the VIP carriage. The Spartans filled the other four cabins—battalions of the elite, with a dozen war mages embedded in the ranks. Enough power on this train to level a fortress.
The VIP cabin was built for function, not comfort. Bolted-down leather seats. A long center table. Armored windows letting in slats of gray daylight. Warded steel walls.
The heirs and their high-ranking officers huddled around the table. They studied a three-dimensional magical hologram floating above its surface—the continent rendered in light. Every strategic position marked. Every border drawn in sharp detail.
A dark-skinned woman in a plain shirt and trousers—the only person aboard not in uniform—swept her fingers along the eastern edge. There, a jagged column of black, smoky void cut through the terrain like a wound that refused to close.
I knew what that column represented. The DarkVeil. A massive, uncrossable chasm cloaked in impenetrable shadow. On the other side lay the rest of the old United States or its ruin. For eighty-one years, east and west had been severed. We didn’t know if the East Coast states still stood. If they did, they wouldn’t know about us either.
“They came out of the DarkVeil.” The woman’s voice was tight. “First a couple. Then a squad. We suspect a horde behind them.” She paused. “The squad slaughtered two villages on approach.”
“Captain Jessa Holt,” Frost whispered beside me in the corner of the cabin. “One of the three remaining eagle shifters. They handle long-range reconnaissance and intelligence extraction. We had five. Two were compromised and killed by the White Witch’s mages. Of the three still alive, Captain Holt is the one here with us. The other two are deep undercover: one in the Pallid Court, the other in the Haven.”
I nodded. I needed to absorb the war’s shape as fast as possible. A decade underground had left me blind to everything above.
Aelindor let me sit in on this brief. A privilege I hadn’t earned by any measure even from the sidelines. Neither he nor Caspian introduced me. But Frost was assigned to me.Drakken hadn’t objected to my presence, or if he had, the argument had happened before I arrived. Other than one glare when our gazes met by accident (or misfortune), the dragon prince ignored me. Nikolai had stayed behind at the fortress. Word was, he wasn’t pleased about it.
I should have felt like an imposter. A first-year cadet in academy fatigues, wedged into a corner while generals plotted war. But the feeling didn’t stick. Three heirs projected enough combined alpha power in this enclosed space to flatten most cadets. The general and commanders added their own weight. Yet I shrugged it off easily. Their power pressed against me the way storm pressed against a mountain, present, acknowledged, and the mountain remained.
I felt at home with the heirs. Natural as breathing.
“Nothing has come out of the DarkVeil ever since it first appeared,” Drakken said. “Just eternal darkness over the chasms. People went in. Didn’t come out. We stopped sending scouts after we lost dozens.”
“Are you saying these creatures aren’t mutants, Captain Holt?” Commander Lee asked. She had deep brown skin and dark eyes that ran calculations behind every question. Part mage, mixed heritage: East Asian and African. Black fatigues with dark charcoal accents, silver rank insignia at the collar, the Leo crest in gold over her left breast. Drakken’s house.
“No, Commander Lee.” Captain Holt drew a sharp breath. “They’re demons. Not low caste either. The moment I sighted an archdemon among them, I flew straight to the fortress. I didn’t stay tohelp.”
She looked wrung out. She’d beaten the train to the heirs on wings alone.
“Right call, Jessa.” Caspian nodded. His hair was unkempt, stubble darkening his jaw. The disheveled look should have undermined his authority. Instead, it made him look like what he was: a man running on combat instinct since the alert dropped. “You followed protocol. Reconnaissance assets don’t sacrifice themselves to defend a village. You got the intel to us. That’s the mission.”
“Are you sure, Captain Holt?” Commander Lee leaned forward. “Their kind hasn’t walked this earth in living memory. Only the White Witch’s inner circle has ever pulled off a summoning.”
“Positive identification, Commander.” Captain Holt’s voice was firm. “I’ve studied the archives on supernatural species since I was fourteen. Training protocols covered every branch. These match every illustration, every behavioral marker. I know what I saw.”
“Why now?” Caspian murmured, rubbing his jaw. “What changed?”
My heart hammered. Were the demons drawn to the one inside me? If I carried a demon, did that make me one? The thought hit like a stone dropped into cold water.
