Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
We're through the gate, and the night closes around us, and I'm counting.
Three teams. Three farms. Four hundred humans, maybe more, behind doors I promised to open.
Julian is already south, running the southern strike from elevation with comms live across all three sites.
Marcellus has six fighters at his back, and the western farm coordinates on his tablet.
Erik's wolves are fanning out across three counties, faster than anything on four legs has a right to be.
Maximus walks beside me. His hand brushes mine once. I let it.
Focus.
Simone is geared and silent at my left. She hasn't said a word since "Lira told me to go." Alexei is behind her, every layout Konstantin ever built filed in a memory that doesn't lose anything. Seraphina and Mira are at the gate, waiting for us to clear the perimeter before they follow.
I check comms. "Julian, you read me?"
"Three channels live. All teams reporting." His accent has that nighttime weight.
"Marcellus?"
"Western team staged and ready. Waiting on your go."
I open my mouth to give it.
Seraphina stops walking.
I know because Mira stops too, half a step later, and both of them turn toward the tree line at the compound's eastern edge. Seraphina's hands open at her sides. Mira's hand comes out of her pocket.
The ground shifts.
It hits my boots. A vibration that starts deep and rises. The oaks at the perimeter lean. All of them. Same direction. Same angle. Branches reaching toward something I can't see.
Maximus goes still beside me. His shadows pool at his feet, spreading toward the tree line.
The air at the tree line splits.
There's no sound for it. One second the dark is solid and the next it isn't. A vertical line of light opens between two oaks, pale gold, widening. The colors that bleed through aren't colors I have names for. My teeth ache the same as they did the first time.
The light widens until it's tall enough for a man to walk through. Then taller.
Lanthar steps out of the Veil and onto Georgia clay.
He looks the same. That's what hits first. The same stillness.
The same height. The same face that made an entire amphitheater carved from a mountain go quiet just by turning toward it.
He's wearing armor I've never seen, dark stone plates that move like they're grown rather than forged, and his eyes find Maximus before his second foot touches the ground.
Behind him, soldiers.
They come through the Veil in formation.
Stone court. I recognize them by how their boots hit the ground, solid and certain.
Armor grown from dark stone, weapons I don't recognize, faces that look like they've been fighting wars longer than I can count.
Dozens of them. Then more. They fill the tree line and keep coming.
Veyran steps through at Lanthar's right shoulder. His expression hasn't changed since the Lithenmere. He surveys the compound, the vampires, the wolves, and his mouth stays shut.
The Stone court. On schedule.
Then the Veil shifts. The gold light turns blue-white, cooler, and a second group steps through. Different armor. Lighter. The stone plates replaced by something fluid that catches the moonlight and moves.
I didn't plan for this.
Tides. Maeven's court. They weren't part of the arrangement.
Maeven himself is last. He walks through the Veil with the same unhurried stride he used at the convening.
Watchful. He takes in the compound, the staging area, the wolves bristling at shapes they've never encountered.
His gaze catalogs every detail with the stillness of someone filing every piece of it.
The Veil closes behind him. The oaks straighten. The ground settles.
Marcellus's fighters have their hands on weapons. None of them are drawing. Erik's wolves are low, ears flat, hackles up at shapes that don't fit anything in their experience. Simone hasn't moved. She's watching with the same measured look she had at the safehouse.
Mira is looking at Lanthar. Her hand is back in her pocket.
Seraphina stands between her daughter and her father.
Not my family reunion to manage. I have a war to run.
Lanthar crosses the yard toward Maximus. His boots on the gravel make no sound. The Stone court warriors hold position at the tree line, motionless. The Tides contingent spreads to the flanks, liquid and quiet.
"Lord Maximus." Lanthar's voice carries without volume. "Stone moves with you." He pauses. "Maeven insisted. The Tides committed their healers and a fighter contingent at the last crossing. Syrenne sends her regrets."
Lanthar's gaze moves past Maximus. Finds Mira. She meets his eyes. Her jaw is tight, and she doesn't look away.
He inclines his head to her. She doesn't return it. She doesn't look away either.
Lanthar turns back to Maximus. "Where do you need us?"
"Compound security first," Maximus says. "Fae detail with Ava, Tristan, and the wolf perimeter. Carson's prototype is behind those walls."
Lanthar nods to Veyran. The steward peels off twelve of his fighters without a word. They move toward the compound entrance, and the wolves on the perimeter flatten lower and let them pass.
"Stone court with Celeste and me on the eastern farm," Maximus says. "Tides with Marcellus on the western target. Your healers across all three sites. Every farm has humans in medical distress."
Maeven inclines his head.
"Seraphina and Mira break the wards on the eastern farm," Maximus says. "Whatever Adrienne didn't build, your people help bring down."
Seraphina looks at Lanthar. Lanthar looks at Seraphina. A long look. She nods once.
"Simone and Alexei are with the eastern team," he says. "Simone on the interior. Alexei on the layout."
"All teams. We move," I say through comms.
Lanthar turns to his forces. A single word in the Fae tongue.
The Veil splits again at the tree line. Three openings, three pale gold lines widening in the dark.
Stone court warriors and their healers move toward the eastern portal.
The Tides contingent toward the western.
A third group of healers toward the southern, where Julian is waiting.
They step through and the portals close behind them. The tree line is empty.
They'll be at the farms before we are.
We run.
Through the Georgia dark. Vampires at speed, wolves in formation. Maximus runs beside me. His shadows trail behind us, black on black. His focus reaches me, sharp and steady, and underneath it something he hasn't named.
"Julian, status on the southern approach?"
"Clean. No patrols. Either he's confident or he pulled them to reinforce after the safehouse."
"Or both," Marcellus says.
Simone runs at my left. Her face is empty. Her stride is long.
Every locked door, Simone. Tonight we open them.
Kael's ears flatten and rotate, tracking something ahead. The wolves run low and fast through the trees.
"Fifteen minutes to the perimeter," Alexei says.
The eastern farm. A warehouse complex at the end of a gravel road. No signs. No lights visible from the perimeter. Chain-link fence with razor wire. Three outbuildings flanking a central structure that's larger than the first farm we hit.
The Stone court is already in position. Silent shapes at the tree line, dark armor blending with the Georgia pines.
We stop at the tree line. Guards on the gate. Two on the roof. Three more visible through the windows of the nearest outbuilding.
"Alexei."
He studies the central structure. Takes his time.
"Modified industrial. Konstantin's standard template scaled up.
Main building has two levels above ground.
Loading dock on the east side, vehicle access for blood transport.
Interior layout will mirror the facility I came from.
" He pauses. "Holding rooms on the second floor.
Processing on the first. If there's a basement, that's where the long-term captives are. "
"How many hostiles?"
"Based on a facility this size, fifteen to twenty guards. Rotating shifts. More if he reinforced after the safehouse."
Through the comms, Julian's voice. "Southern team is in position. Awaiting your go."
"Western team in position," Marcellus says. "Tides are deployed. Ready."
"The wards."
She steps forward. Mira beside her. Seraphina raises her hands and closes her eyes. Mira mirrors the position.
Seraphina's fingers move. The air between her hands thickens, goes white, goes bright. Mira's hands tremble. Then her fingers lock and her expression goes flat and focused, and the trembling stops.
The wards are invisible. I can't see them. But I can feel something resisting, a pressure against my skin that has nothing to do with wind.
Seraphina pushes. The pressure pushes back. Her jaw clenches. Her arms shake. Mira steps closer, matching the frequency, her hands moving in the same pattern as her mother's. The wards hold.
"These aren't Adrienne's work," Seraphina says through gritted teeth. "Layered. Older. Konstantin had other witches build these."
"Can you break them?"
"Not alone."
Two of Lanthar's Fae step forward without being asked. They set their hands flat against the earth. The ground beneath the fence line cracks. Fine fractures spreading outward from their palms, threads of gold light running through the soil, undermining the ward's foundation.
Seraphina pushes again. Mira pushes. The Stone warriors push. The pressure against my skin spikes, hard enough that my teeth ache, and then it snaps. A release I feel in my chest.
"Wards are down," Seraphina says. She opens her eyes. Wipes blood from her upper lip. "All of them."
"All teams, go," I say. "Now."
"Southern team breaching," Julian says.
"Western team breaching," Marcellus says.
We breach.
Maximus and I hit the fence together. His shadows surge forward, pouring through the chain-link. I reach with the telekinesis and rip the gate off its hinges. The metal screams across the gravel.