It didn’t matter.
The Glint strike team moved like a blade through water. Sorrell barked orders, two of his soldiers laying down suppressing fire while another flanked. Thane surged forward, a living weapon, pistol flaring twice before he closed the distance and turned brutal. He took one in the chest, slammed another to the floor and crushed his windpipe under his boot. A Hollow Hand woman charged with a blade; Thane disarmed her with a twist and buried her own knife in her stomach.
Sorrell shot a man through the eye, then ducked behind a column, breathing hard.
Next to him, Riven fired, hands steady now despite the thudding in his chest. He dropped a man aiming for one of the Glint soldiers, then narrowly avoided a curse-flare that scorched the wall beside him.
The last two Hollow Hand agents tried to run.
Thane caught one by the collar and yanked him backward with inhuman force. There was a horrible crack as he twisted the man’s head around, the body dropping like meat. He didn’t even glance down as it fell.
Sorrell emerged from cover, wiping a fleck of blood off his cheek. He glanced at Riven and said, voice dry, “Allow me to introduce the Beast.”
Thane didn’t react to the comment. He stepped over the last body and scanned the foyer as if seeing something invisible.
“I know where they would take any survivors,” he said flatly.
Riven fell into step beside him. “The Matriarch?”
Thane’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not certain. But if she’s not there, someone will know where she is.”
Riven nodded, gun still tight in his grip. His pulse hadn’t slowed since they’d seen the first body. And now, with Thane at the head and blood on the floor behind them, they moved forward again.
The deeper they pushed into the estate, the more brutal the resistance became. Hollow Hand agents emerged in scattered waves—some drugged into near-madness, others trained and precise. But the Glint strike team carved a path through them, methodical and ruthless. Riven lost count of the number they brought down. The air stank of gunpowder and scorched magic, thick with the iron tang of blood. His arms ached from the recoil of the pistol, but he didn’t dare loosen his grip.
Thane led them like a hound with the scent of something personal. He moved without hesitation, without fear, slaughtering anyone who got in his way. When one Hollow Hand brute grabbed a Glint soldier by the vest and threw him into a wall, Thane charged, driving his blade clean through the man’s chest and dragging it free with a flick that sent blood in a wide arc across the floor.
They fought through the last cluster of enemy forces—seven of them this time, guarding a corridor that led deeper into the estate’s western wing. One shouted as they spotted Thane, but he was already moving, and it didn’t matter. They fell fast,overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity of the strike team, and then silence settled in like smoke.
Thane stood at the corridor’s end, breathing hard.
The hallway beyond was intact, untouched by the fighting. At the far end loomed a heavy, reinforced door—a blast door, its steel surface gleaming dully under the emergency lighting. Riven blinked at it. He’d never seen it in use before. The door looked utterly out of place in the otherwise elegant architecture of the estate, a sudden intrusion of wartime practicality.
“What is this?” he asked.
Thane didn’t take his eyes off it. “The infirmary. It doubles as a safe room during attacks.” He stepped closer. “Layered enchantments. The only way in is if someone on the inside lets you, or if you know how to dismantle the wards.”
He pressed his palm to a spot just left of the handle, murmured a string of words under his breath, low and guttural, vibrating faintly in the air. There was a pause. Then a quiet hum of released magic, and the door hissed open.
Two guns greeted them instantly, held steady in the hands of Luca and Cassian. Both looked disheveled, splattered with blood and ash, their hair stuck to their foreheads with sweat. They stared down the barrel at Thane, eyes sharp and wide, tension wired into their limbs.
For one horrible second, no one moved.
Then Luca’s arms began to lower, gun trembling slightly.
“Thane?” he asked, voice raw.
Cassian’s weapon didn’t drop as fast, but the shock in his face said everything.
Riven stepped forward, heart still racing. “Is everyone okay?”
Luca shook himself, like the question snapped him out of it. “We lost a lot of people,” he said quietly. “But we managed to get a good number into the panic rooms before they breached the main floors. The Hollow Hand didn’t get them.”
Riven noticed that Luca still hadn’t taken his eyes off Thane. He looked like he was staring at a ghost.
“What?” Riven asked, finally, looking between them. “What’s with the look?”
It was Cassian who answered, his voice low.
