The silence in the room deepened. It was the simple truth.
“Be safe,” Orin whispered. “Please.”
“You too,” I said. “Keep your heads down. We’ll contact you when it’s safe.”
I reached out and tapped the screen. The connection died and the tablet went black.
Quiet rushed back into the Cistern.
Dane let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair.
“Well,” he said, his voice rough. “That’s it, then. Most Wanted.”
He reached into the pocket of his borrowed tactical jacket and pulled out his own police shield. He tossed it onto the stone table, the heavy metal clattering as it came to rest right beside mine.
“I always thought I’d get fired for insubordination,” he muttered, staring at the discarded silver crests. “Not for saving the world.”
“We didn’t save it,” Riven said.
He sheathed his dagger with a click. He finally looked up, his pale blue eyes locking onto mine.
“We stopped the machine,” Riven murmured. “But we didn’t stop the transfer. They are already here.”
Dane pushed off the pillar. He took a step towards the table, his expression hard.
“The one in the middle,” Dane said, his voice cutting through the quiet. “The one who singled you out in the lobby.”
I looked at Dane, then at Riven. I had been fading in and out, the memory of those final moments a blur of noise and light. I hadn’t seen a face.
“He locked right onto you,” Dane pressed. “He never opened his mouth. Still, something shifted between you two. I heard your heart rate spike. Your scent changed to pure panic.” Dane tilted his head, his amber eyes never leaving Riven’s face. “And the stranger… his scent was completely alien, yet strangely familiar. Like an echo of your own. Who was he?”
Riven’s jaw tightened. He kept his gaze fixed on the table, his posture rigid. “I don’t know.”
I studied them both. Dane maintained a casual stance, though his calculating stare made it obvious he suspected a lie. Riven was guarding the memory as if it were a physical wound, deliberately withholding the truth. I knew him well enough by now to trust he had a reason for the deception.
He stepped into the light of the glow-stones.
“The city belongs to them now,” he said, his voice completely hollowed out.
He didn't say anything else. He just stared at the darkened screen of the tablet, his jaw locked tight enough to crack bone. It wasn't surrender in his posture—it was a man using every ounce of his willpower to keep from shattering.
I kept my silence, trusting that the rest would come later. The war was waiting for us above, but looking at the haunted exhaustionanchoring his eyes, I knew we couldn't fight it until I figured out what was breaking him apart from the inside.
The underground riverflowed through a natural cavern half a mile from the main atrium.
It was a dark, silent place, the water black and glassy as it cut through the rock on its way to the sea. The air here was cold, smelling of wet stone and salt.
We stood on the bank. The whole team was there.
Dane stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the water. Goran loomed like a standing stone in the background. Aelira stood beside him, her hands clasped in her grey robes, watching the current with the solemnity of a woman who had recorded every step that led to this moment.
The twins, Torvin and Karys, stood quietly by the tunnel entrance. Una was with them. She had her arms linked through theirs, a grounding presence. She had known him—the man who had shouldered the weight of a broken sky for thousands of years. She stood witness.
I held the book in my hands.The Little Sun and the Little Moon.
It was battered, the spine cracked, the pages worn soft by years of bedtime stories. It was the map they had left me.
I opened it to the very back.
