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Delia shook her head at him. “But Mastyr—”

He turned to her. “This is my call. Don’t worry. All we’re go

ing to do right now is gather more information. I promise, I won’t jeopardize any part of the war effort. Okay?”

She put a hand to her chest, her soft blue eyes stricken. “I couldn’t live with the guilt if you did.”

“Understood.” One more reason he valued Delia. She knew the meaning of sacrifice.

Harris levitated swiftly to Stone’s station. He was a full six-five and muscled and had long blond hair that he wore pulled tight into the woven Guardsman clip so that his cheekbones stood out like blades. He wasn’t a mastyr yet, but damn near close.

When Harris reached Delia’s workstation, Stone told him the gist then added. “We need more information.”

Harris frowned slightly and glanced at Delia. “You and your husband live on a farm, out by Rutland, right?”

“We do. But Elias left there day before yesterday. He and a friend heard about this old gold mine southwest of Charborne. He’d gone there to see if the claim was worth re-opening.”

The mention of Charborne set Stone back on his heels. Though it had been a long time since he’d lived in the area, the memories rushed forward as though having a life of their own. His chest tightened painfully. His parents had died near the village in one of the worst Invictus attacks of the Nine Realms during which half the villagers had perished.

He still owned his family’s property on the outskirts of Charborne, some three-hundred acres, in the southwest quadrant. But for a long time now, he’d leased it out to a fae-troll couple who had lived on the land for the past two hundred years. He should have sold it to them long ago, but every time he got the process started, something stopped him. The past would always rise up to haunt him, tearing his peace down bit by bit, until he had to let the sale go.

Delia’s strong voice brought him back sharply. “Stone? You okay?”

“It’s Charborne.”

“Oh, right. I forgot,” she said. “Sorry.”

He ground his teeth. “Can’t be helped.” He turned toward the monitors and called to the man in charge. “Alex, I need the current feed from Charborne. We may have a problem out there.”

“Got it,” Alex called back.

Stone crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze glued to the monitor directly above Alex. He’d built the center that now linked to thousands of cameras around his realm. Every main thoroughfare of every village had three cameras, more if the lane curved. The cities had hundreds and his crew checked the feeds constantly.

Behind him, he could hear operators talking softly to realm-folk who called the Invictus-sighting hotline he’d set up. Sure, they got more crank calls than he’d like, but his people had become one of his best weapons in alerting the Tannisford Vampire Guard and the Shifter Brigade to Invictus activity across the realm.

He waited as Alex’s keyboard clacked softly. More than once the feed of Charborne came up then flickered away. “What’s the problem, Alex?”

“Not sure. Could be the cameras.”

Stone didn’t like it. He had a missing troll and a wonky feed.

He turned slightly in Harris’s direction. “Let’s get a team out there to see if anything’s going on.” He could feel Delia’s sudden tension beside him.

“Will do,” Harris said. “But there’s something else. I got a call from Merhaine that the Vampire Guard hasn’t been able to locate Mastyr Gerrod for the past couple of hours. It’s probably nothing, but about five minutes ago, I got a similar call from one of Mastyr Ethan’s lieutenants.”

“And you tried reaching them both?”

“I tried my cell and telepathy. Couldn’t make contact with either of them. Of course, there could be lots of reasons, but it seemed odd.”

“It does seem odd. Stay on that situation, would you? And if in the next hour or so, you still can’t firm up a connection, let me know.”

Harris nodded. “Also, did you see the latest analysis sheet on several of the western villages? Charborne was one of them.”

“It was next on my list.” For the past several months, the ruling mastyrs had hired several data analysts to compile numbers from as far back as each realm had written information on hand. Some of the realms had records from eight centuries ago.

Harris added, “In Tannisford, Charborne is one of the places that’s had higher-than-usual Invictus sightings century after century.”

Delia set her hands on her keyboard. “Let me pull it up.” She tapped on her computer and quickly scrolled through her files. It wasn’t lost on Stone that her fingers trembled. Yet, she kept on working.

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