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“…Breaking Storm,” he breathed.

“It’s what she said,” Cyprian whispered through the silence that had spread through the kitchen. His yellow eyes had gone distant.

“Lover?” Moargan rushed to soothe him, but Cyprian’s charcoal slate wouldn’t stop scraping against the canvas, the sound cutting through the stillness. “What did you draw?”

Cyprian looked up, but his stare was vacant. Still, the drawing matched the display perfectly, the same structure suspended inside the cloud wall.

“Good Light,” Helianth whispered. “Look at that. Look⁠—”

Cyprian had drawn something else in the corner of the sketch.

A woman behind a tall window, hands resting against the window while the storm gathered beyond the city.

Ryneth’s breath caught. His hand lifted instinctively to his chest as if something deep inside him had answered.

“Mama,” Helianth whispered. He stepped closer, staring at the sketch like he was afraid to blink and lose it.

His gaze lifted to Ryneth next, sharp and almost disbelieving. Not because Ryneth mattered more, but because by now they had all seen it happen too many times. The sleeping queen never reached for all of them. When she stirred, it was always around Ryneth somehow. Through the bond. Through whatever in him answered her.

“Did you hear her?” Helianth pressed.

“I heard her, yes.”

Nereth Solan.

Ryneth squeezed his eyes shut as the words tumbled down, voiced in a soft female voice.

“You are not alone,” Ryneth whispered, the words falling out of him in her voice. “You never will be. I love you so much, my beautiful boys.”

Ryneth’s head buzzed from the intensity, his shoulders sagging when she finally released his mind.

Cyprian caught his wrist before he could sway any harder. “Strange the first time, isn’t it?” he murmured, voice low enough that only Ryneth could hear. “You get used to it.”

Moargan and Helianth simply stood there, staring at him with a strange intensity in their amethyst eyes.

Ryneth hoped they wouldn’t ask questions. He wouldn’t be able to answer them.

Still holding his wrist, Cyprian turned back to the drawing and the storm map spread across the white paper. “If she’s been showing us this,” he said softly, pulling the room’s attention with him, “then this is what she wanted us to see.”

The storm radar had shifted above Helion, as if the rotation had tightened as the hidden structure inside the cloud wall had become clearer on the display.

Moargan stared at the drawing, then moved to lean forward over the island, one hand braced against the marble while he studied the pattern spreading across Yure’s screens.

“All this time, they’ve distracted Kylix and the Luminary while the real operation runs above the city.”

Helianth exhaled through his teeth and rubbed a hand across his mouth, staring at the storm ring circling Helion. “So they stall us on the ground…”

Cyprian’s gaze lifted from the drawing to the storm map again. “…while Attica hides in the clouds.”

At that exact moment, Ryneth’s multi-slate vibrated sharply against his wrist. Yure’s console chimed at the same time.

Every screen in the room flickered.

Then a new window forced itself across the display.

“What the fuck’s that?” Moargan barked.

“It’s an encrypted text.” Yure rushed to click it open. “They’re coordinates. And… Good Light—there’s a note.”