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The lift shot upward into the storm layer. The doors opened onto the transport bay, wind tearing through the launch gates as gunships lifted into the night.

Beyond the launch platform, the outer ring curved around Helion like a massive steel horizon, its segmented towers cutting through the storm clouds while lightning crawled across the structure. Far below, the city lights burned through the rain.

Movement rippled along the ring’s perimeter. Figures rushed across the distant platforms, white lab coats flashing in the lightning as they ran through the corridors. None of them wore Luminary armor.

Helianth pointed toward the nearest door while already moving. “Over there.”

They moved as one, breaking into a tight run across the platform. Moargan stayed at the front without slowing, while Ryneth kept pace as lightning split the sky above Helion.

Here, somewhere inside the storm, the real danger of the Breaking Storm waited.

28

DAVEN

The stolen hovercraft drifted beneath the shadow of the storm platform. Lightning flashed through the clouds, turning the metal structures above Helion into jagged silhouettes.

Daven cut the engine, letting the craft settle against a maintenance rail with a dull scrape as the wind pushed hard against the hull. “It never fucking storms like this on Helion.”

And none of them had seen it coming.

Vandor opened the hatch first, cold air rushing inside.

Daven climbed out after him, his boots hitting wet metal. The platform stretched outward in long industrial corridors around them, all pipes and processing vats and narrow walkways disappearing into the mist. “What the fuck has happened here?”

Lightning flickered through the structure, throwing the entire platform into brief flashes of silver and black.

The storm churned around them, metal groaning under the wind.

Vandor moved past him, checking the nearest corridor with quick, efficient movements. “During times of peace, this place is supposed to be empty.”

Daven kept staring down the stretch of wet metal and shadow. “Does this look empty to you?”

Vandor glanced toward the vats, the sealed containers, the rails vanishing into mist. “I guess not.”

Daven frowned. No one was supposed to come here. These platforms hung above Helion, empty in peacetime and left to rust in the storm.

And yet...

A sharp chemical stink cut through the cold air.

He turned toward a stack of cracked containers near the wall and shoved one with his boot. Something dark and half-frozen had leaked across the metal beneath it. “What the fuck is that?”

Vandor crouched, looking at it without touching. “Hasn’t been here long.”

If the place was supposed to be empty, why the hell had she sent them here?

Daven looked at him. “You saw her, right? You saw her in the window. Tell me you saw her.”

Vandor straightened and gave a short nod. “I saw her.”

Daven looked back down the corridor. “Then this is where she wanted us.”

But why?

Lightning flashed again, silvering the pipes, the vats, the endless wet railings.

Daven swallowed and started forward. “Fine,” he muttered. “Then show us what the fuck we’re looking for.”