Kael didn’t sleep well.He drifted between half-states: his eyes shut, his mind alert, and his breath shallow. Every creak of wood or shifting wind across the eaves felt deliberate. The whisper had marked something or opened it.He had moved slowly towards the door albeit cautiously to get a grasp of what was happening to him at that moment. Where the whisper came from, the memories, everything that followed suit.But, his curiosity was far from satisfied. He had found nothing.He hadn’t told anyone. Not Reyna, Kyna, and certainly not Darius. When Jared returned to the room late that night, boots scuffed and gaze unreadable, Kael didn’t ask. The silence between them had become its own kind of code.At first light, Kael dressed and left before the bell. The halls were still dim. A few early risers muttered to each other in passing, but no one stopped him. He found himself walking without direction, feet drawing him past the archive corridor again.The sigil-lock was quiet. Dull. The ru

The hill sloped shallow, dust-covered and choked with dry thistle. Kael crouched behind a broken fence post, scanning the cottage below.“Movement inside. Curtains twitched. Probably watching us already.”Reyna squinted past the scope. “Two heat signatures. One’s pacing.”“Defectors?”“Maybe. Doesn’t change the task.”Kael didn’t reply. They waited in silence, listening to the wind press through the distant pines.A quiet click from Kyna’s comms: ready.Reyna adjusted her grip. “Six-minute breach. We go when you say.”Kael breathed out. “Now.”The breach was clean.Two hostiles. One compliant, the other tried to bolt. Reyna dropped him fast—knee to the ribs, elbow to the neck. Kael secured the target: a small obsidian case, locked by biometrics.“Looks intact,” he murmured, weighing the box.Reyna wiped a speck of blood off her glove. “Vault-marked. They weren’t just collectors.”Kyna radioed in. “All clear.”Jared’s voice crackled behind her. “Convenient. I miss all the fun.”Kael tu