“They’re gone,” Feirn said, his scope tracking the devastation.“Sophie, they’re all gone!”
This was not an attack; it was an erasure.
Sophie sank to her knees on the platform, unable to look away as the entire complex below was annihilated.Secondary explosions tossed debris into the air as ammunition stores and fuel depots exploded from beneath, turning the stronghold into a scene from one of Dante’s rings of inferno.
“They knew,” she whispered.“The CIA knew about the challenge.They waited until everyone was gathered to send in the drones and strike.Take out all the terrorists at once.”
“Of course.”Feirn’s voice was bitter.“They were probably tracking us this whole time.”
“I led them here,” she said, voice hollow.“I killed him.”
“The CIA killed him.And everyone else.”Kamon was already packing their equipment, his movements efficient despite the horror.“Now we move, or the Master’s death means nothing.”
But Sophie couldn’t move.
Couldn’t think beyond the last image of Connor through the binoculars—turning, searching for her, even in that final moment.
The drones screamed overhead, circling to return for another pass.The valley that had hidden the Yam Khûmk?n for centuries was lit up like the cauldron of a volcano, smoke rising in a column that would be visible all the way to the coast.
By dawn, there would be nothing left but rubble, ash, and the scattered bones of warriors who’d believed in honor and died in a world ruled by drone strikes and plausible deniability.
“Your mother might still be alive,” Feirn said, tugging Sophie to her feet.“We never saw her down there.Connor would want?—”
“Connor’s dead.”Sophie’s dry mouth tasted foul.“They’re all dead.The CIA must have used me as a targeting beacon.”
She’d come to strengthen Connor.To honor their history and the complicated love they’d had by giving him the gift of witnessing him defeat his enemies.
Instead, she’d brought a worse enemy to his door.
As the group abandoned the tower, moving quickly through the dark jungle and away from the systematic extermination of the Yam Khûmk?n and its fortress, Sophie felt something fundamental crumble inside her.
Not her heart—that had been torn apart and knit together too many times.
Something deeper died this time:the part that had believed, despite everything, that good would always prevail in the end.
27
SOPHIE
Sophie’s auntMalee had a house on a street lined with orchid trees, across from the Ping River on the outskirts of Bangkok.Her home was a place where Sophie had always felt safe; Sophie told her companions that’s where she wanted to go as they fled the site of the drone attack.
Even so, she barely registered their arrival in the neighborhood through the fog of shock.The last eighteen hours were blurred together in a haze of dark jungle paths, wet hidden boats, and Feirn and Kamon’s grim and creative efficiency at avoiding checkpoints.
Now that they’d arrived, Bangkok’s humidity pressed against her like wet wool.Moving robotlike through the motions of travel, Sophie felt nothing.Could feel nothing.
When she closed her eyes, all she saw was Connor, turning toward her, searching—and then that blinding first explosion.
So she didn’t close her eyes—but exhaustion threatened to win and take her to a hell of flaming destruction.
Once the group reached the city Kamon and his men scattered, but Feirn stayed with her.
He paid for an hourly-rate room where they were able to clean up and change their appearance by dressing in clothing bought at a bazaar.He hired a motorcycle taxi to take them close to Sophie’s aunt’s address, then paid the driver extra to forget their faces.
He guided Sophie through a narrow alley that smelled of fish sauce toward her aunt’s house.Invisible from the main road, the narrow two-story wooden house stood like a dignified folded fan, its teak facade dark with age and monsoon stains.The entrance was hidden, a small gate inset in the tall wooden fence behind a tangle of bougainvillea.
“Are you okay?”Feirn asked as they approached, his first words to her in hours.
Sophie nodded, dimly aware that she was deep in shock.Unable to do anything about the muffled quality of everything around her except to keep moving.
