Chapter 5 The Ambush
POV: Zinovia
The kinetic shockwave hit a microsecond before the sound.
It punched the breath from Zinovia’s lungs, a concussive wall of superheated air that lifted her entirely off her feet.
She slammed backward onto the unyielding obsidian slab of the altar, her teeth rattling hard enough to chip.
Then came the noise—an apocalyptic roar that tore through the ancient acoustics of the cathedral.
High above, the massive, vaulted skylight imploded.
A torrential rain of jagged, multicolored glass showered down upon the nave.
Crimson, sapphire, and emerald shards sliced through the heavy velvet tapestries and embedded themselves into the mahogany pews, accompanied by the immediate, horrific symphony of screaming.
Zinovia’s eardrums emitted a high-pitched, agonizing whine. Thick, acrid smoke smelling of oxidized sulfur, pulverized stone, and burning oak rolled over the dais like a suffocating tidal wave. She gasped for air, but the only thing that filled her lungs was plaster dust.
Beneath the immediate, blinding chaos, her body was registering a secondary, far more insidious threat.
The Requiem Toxin. It was no longer a dormant liquid; it felt as though she had swallowed a handful of dry ice.
A glacial, radiating ache blossomed in the pit of her stomach, sending an involuntary, violent tremor down her limbs.
Her toxicologist’s mind immediately began categorizing the symptoms: Stage one.
Cellular mapping. Temperature dysregulation. Nervous system shock.
Survival first. Chemistry later.
She forced herself up onto her elbows. Through the billowing gray clouds, figures emerged from the shattered entrance.
They were not wearing the tailored wool of the Vargos syndicate, nor the sleek silk suits of her family.
They were clad in matte-black tactical gear, their faces entirely obscured by ballistic masks with reflective, compound-eye visors.
They moved with terrifying, disciplined silence.
Mercenaries. Highly funded, off-grid professionals.
The cathedral devolved into an absolute slaughterhouse.
Zinovia watched in horror as her father’s elegant capos drew their concealed weapons and instinctively turned their fire on the Vargos men, blindly assuming a double-cross.
Nicander’s soldiers returned the favor with lethal efficiency.
The two syndicates, blinded by generational hatred, were decimating one another, entirely ignoring the tactical squad that was systematically flanking them with suppressed assault rifles.
"The vials!" Zinovia choked out, her voice raw.
She scrambled over the polished obsidian, the heavy silk of her wedding gown catching and tearing on the sharp edges of the altar. The two velvet-lined mahogany boxes rested exactly where the High Arbiter had left them, though the Arbiter himself was gone, swallowed by the panicked stampede.
Zinovia’s fingers grazed the wood of her box.
A localized spray of high-caliber suppressive fire chewed through the dais. Sparks and razor-sharp chips of obsidian erupted directly in her face. Zinovia recoiled, throwing her arms over her head as a round tore cleanly through the velvet box meant for her.
The pale, pearlescent liquid exploded outward in a pathetic, glittering mist.
Time seemed to fracture. Zinovia stared as the synthesized cure—her only guarantee of seeing next month—hissed against the hot, bullet-scarred stone. It evaporated into the smoke, leaving nothing but the scent of ozone and broken glass.
Before she could process the sheer magnitude of the loss, a masked mercenary vaulted onto the dais. He didn't aim his weapon at her. With a heavily armored gauntlet, he snatched the second velvet box—Nicander's cure—and shoved it into a secure tactical pouch on his chest rig.
"No," Zinovia snarled. Pure, unadulterated survival instinct overrode her logic. She reached into the slit of her ruined gown, her fingers closing around the cold, titanium grip of the surgical scalpel she kept strapped to her thigh. She lunged at the mercenary.
Before the blade could find the exposed joint in the man’s armor, a massive hand locked around Zinovia’s waist.
The grip was an industrial vice, crushing the Kevlar corset against her ribs. She was violently yanked backward, her feet leaving the ground just as the mercenary discharged a three-round burst into the space she had occupied a microsecond prior.
Nicander dragged her behind a collapsed marble pillar, tossing her to the floor with bone-rattling force.
He dropped beside her, sliding in the blood and dust. With terrifying, mechanical fluidity, he ejected a spent magazine from his pistol and slammed a fresh one home.
His pristine charcoal suit was ruined, covered in plaster and soot, and his glacial eyes were completely black with dilated adrenaline.
"Are you entirely insane?" Nicander roared over the deafening cacophony of automatic fire, his chest heaving. "You brought a scalpel to a tactical breach?"
"He has your antidote!" Zinovia screamed back, pointing a trembling finger toward the smoke where the mercenary had disappeared. "And mine is currently evaporating on the altar!"
Nicander froze. The lethal momentum of his body halted for one agonizing, suspended second.
He looked over her shoulder, his eyes locking onto the shattered velvet box and the sparkling dust of the destroyed vial.
When his gaze snapped back to hers, the mask of the untouchable Vargos enforcer fractured.
Beneath it was the chilling, absolute understanding of a man calculating his own expiration date.
Another tremor wracked Zinovia’s frame, this one violent enough to make her teeth click together. A drop of blood trickled down her temple from a superficial scratch, stark against her pale skin.
Nicander grabbed her jaw. His leather-clad fingers pressed bruisingly tight against her cheekbones, forcing her to look only at him. The heat radiating from his palm was a stark, agonizing contrast to the freezing venom circulating in her bloodstream.
"My men think your father ordered this," Nicander said, his voice dropping to a low, resonant vibration that cut clearly through the roar of the gunfire.
"Your men think I ordered it. In approximately two minutes, whoever is left alive in this room is going to unite for exactly ten seconds to execute us both. "
"We have thirty-five days," Zinovia whispered, the reality of the necrotic poison suffocating her faster than the smoke.
"Not if we bleed out on this floor today," Nicander replied brutally, his thumb briefly brushing over the blood on her temple in an uncharacteristically gentle motion.
He pulled her upright by the shoulders, keeping her pinned tightly against his side behind the crumbling stone.
"We leave now. Or we die right here. Do you understand? "
Zinovia looked up at the man she had been raised to slaughter, the man whose blood was now laced with the exact same death sentence as her own. She gripped the fabric of his ruined suit, realizing with horrific clarity that her greatest enemy was now the only thing keeping her alive.