"Casualties?"
"Hundred and twelve." Aldric's voice was raw. "Sixty-four from the stairwell."
Hundred and twelve souls. His to carry.
Updates pulsed from the other fronts:
Seraphina: "Six hundred dead. Whatever you're doing, do it faster."
Vex: "He's rebuilding. Move, brother."
Thessa: "So many we can't save. Hurry."
Everyone buying time with blood.
"Move out. Double-time."
They ran. Ward-stones flickered to life as Brynn passed, emergency lighting greeting her bloodline. Down through levels, they would have had to fight through, past chambers full of shells they'd never face.
The passage opened into a massive space.
The ward-core chamber.
Dante stopped breathing.
It should have been beautiful. Patterns carved by masters. Ward-stones positioned with perfection. Channels guiding power with elegant efficiency.
His partner’s birthright. The legacy her ancestors had built to last forever.
Caelum had butchered it.
Ward-stones pulsed sickly gold instead of blue-white. The channels meant to distribute power across five courts had been reshaped. Violated. All flowing toward the center now.
Toward the gateway.
It hung above the chamber's heart, pouring golden light that hurt to look at. Soul-energy from every realm. Every death across five courts. Being harvested. Processed. Erased.
Brynn stepped forward. Her grief struck him like a blade between the ribs.
"He destroyed it." Barely a whisper. "Everything they built."
He wanted to pull her close. To shield her from seeing her heritage desecrated. But there wasn't time. There was never enough time.
"Death-knights, perimeter. Shadow-guards, entrances. Ward-keepers, on Brynn."
His people moved. What remained of them.
He sent one final message: "Ward-core reached. Beginning closure. Hold."
Seraphina: "Until we can't. Then longer."
Vex: "About damn time."
Thessa: "The spirits are with you."
Brynn approached the gateway. Every ward-stone pulsed inresponse. Recognition. Authority. A daughter of architects come home to sacred ground that had been violated in her absence.
She placed her hands on the corrupted ward-stone at the gateway's base.
