I turned to the group. To all of them.
“The Order of the Silver Dawn is my legacy. I am going to dismantle it. Brick by brick from the inside. Not because I’m their mate or Veyndral’s queen or anyone’s novelty. Because it’smyblood.Myname.Mywar.”
The words echoed over the clearing.
“So you can argue about whether I deserve to stand here. Or you can get out of my way and let me prove it.”
Nobody spoke.
“When this ends, it won’t be Veyndral that destroys the Order. Not even the alphas here.”
I let the vow echo at this moment.
“It will beme.”
56
— • —
Lucian
The raven arrived at dawn.
It wasn’t the stupidly annoying usual surveillance birds. This one was larger, darker, and carried the seal of the Long Watch pressed into the wax of its scroll.
Fuck.
My blood ran cold before I’d even broken the seal.
Solomon noticed. He was beside me in two strides, his silence shifting from resting to operational.
I unrolled the scroll. Read it once and again. The words didn’t change.
“The council has authorized deployment of the Long Watch to the human realm,” I said. My voice held steady despite the catastrophic information. “Forty soldiers. Commander Voss leading. They’ve been given a fourteen-day window to assess and neutralize what the council is calling‘the hunter threat.’“
“Neutralize,” Solomon repeated. The word sat between us with the weight it deserved.
“There’s a list.” I turned the scroll so he could read the section I wished didn’t exist. “Targets for elimination. Thiago Maxwell. His officers. Known hunter operatives.” A pause. “And any humans with confirmed ties to the Order’s bloodline.”
Solomon’s jaw tightened. He didn’t need me to spell it out.
Mira was Thiago’s daughter. Her bloodline was the Order’s bloodline.
The council’s carefully worded directive had placed my pregnant mate on an extermination list, and every soldier in the Long Watch would follow that directive without question because that was what the Long Watch did. They didn’t interpret but executed. Especially as they are created for all threats connected to the Burning Years.
Percy was awake now, drawn from his bedroll by the kind of tension that wolves feel before a storm. “What happened?”
“The council is sending soldiers.” I kept my voice low. Annora’s tent was thirty feet away and the woman had ears tuned to political opportunity. “The Long Watch. Fourteen days.”
Percy’s expression shifted from sleepy to lethal in the space of a breath. “Mira’s on the list.”
“The council doesn’t know she’s pregnant. They don’t know about the bond restoration. Or her intelligence operations that have given us more information on the Order in weeks than Veyndral’s gathered in centuries.” The frustration leaked through my composure. “They know she’s a hunter’s daughter. That’s enough.”
“Then we intercept the envoy before they cross the portal.”
“We can’t stop a deployment authorized by the full council. Not without being in Veyndral to challenge it personally.”
“So go.”
