“The primary transfer was completed before the signal collapsed.”
Dread seized my chest.
I looked at the four Umbrakynn. Their faces were blank, slack. But their eyes…
Unlike the augmented guards, their eyes burned with a sharp, ancient clarity. They surveyed the ruined lobby with cold assurance.
The Vessels.
He had done it. He had dragged something through the Veil.
One of the Umbrakynn—a male, no older than twenty—stepped forward. His gait was wrong. He moved with the anchored weight of centuries. The sensation arrived without warning—a deep, unnatural resonance that collided with my chest and pressed against the scar over my heart. It mimicked the pull of the Light Spark, yet it wastwisted and far heavier, like staring into a black mirror. This frequency was alien, a magic that had no business existing in this world.
The Umbrakynn stopped, holding my gaze with an unbroken, terrifying focus. He offered a small smile. It was an expression that completely defied his youthful face—chillingly intimate. His lips never parted, yet a voice resonated directly inside my skull, heavy and ancient.
Hello, my son.
The world stopped.
I stared at him. The words made no sense. I wasn’t a child born of blood and bone. I was a primordial force kept safe until the world needed balance. I didn’t have a father. I had a purpose.
And yet, the aura radiating from this stranger… it sang to the darkness in my own blood. It recognised me.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
The stranger opened his mouth to speak?—
BOOM.
The main revolving doors of the lobby blew inward.
“POLICE! ARMED POLICE!”
Flashbangs detonated, filling the room with blinding white light and deafening noise. Smoke canisters hissed, spewing thick grey clouds into the air.
“DOWN! GET ON THE GROUND!”
The spell broke. Chaos erupted.
Korenth snarled, his composure cracking. He couldn’t be found here. Not with the Vessels. Not with the proof of what he had done standing barefoot in the lobby.
“Get them out!” Korenth shouted to his guards, pointing at the Vessels. “The secure garage! Move!”
The augmented guards opened fire on the police, buyingtime. The Vessels turned, moving with that same eerie calm, and vanished back into the executive corridor.
The man who called me his son cast a final look over his shoulder as he moved away. He radiated a patient, crushing dominance, his stride carrying the unquestionable authority of a man who had already won.
“Riven!” Dane grabbed my shoulder, shaking me hard. “We have to go!”
I blinked, the shock receding just enough to let survival instincts kick back in.
The lobby was a war zone of shouting voices and gunfire. If Vance’s team found us, they would arrest us. They would take Selene.
And if they took her, they would separate us.
“Move,” I rasped.
I tightened my grip on Selene, hoisting her higher against my chest. Goran kicked the service door open, and we scrambled through, leaving the light and the noise behind.
