The Tyrel estate slept like a beast pretending to be harmless. From the outside, it looked like nothing more than a grand old mansion, the kind of place where bored nobles hosted charity dinners and bragged about their wine collections. But in the dead of night, with the moon crouched low behind a bank of clouds, the place radiated quiet menace. Every shadow seemed alive. Every breath of wind whispered a warning.Seth crouched behind a cluster of trimmed hedges, visor dimmed, heartbeat steady. The Ghost Unit, a handpicked team of elite operatives waited silently behind him, their matte black armor absorbing what little light bled through the mist. Lucas knelt at his side, holding a sleek scanning pad that pulsed with a soft green glow.“She’s still moving,” Lucas murmured. “Tracker shows intermittent spikes. Ventilation tunnels. She’s heading... down.”Seth’s eyes narrowed. Of course she is. Vin wasn’t the type to skulk through kitchens or hide in linen closets. She always went for th

Vin’s POVThe blast roared through the mine like a starving beast, a concussive wave that rattled the earth and clawed at Vin’s eardrums. The air became a living thing... hot, sharp, vibrating with the sound of tearing stone. Dust whirled in a storm around her as fragments of glowing astrasite rained like blue comets. She ducked behind a jagged pillar, teeth grinding as the pressure wave hammered her ribs.And then… silence.Not the silence of safety, this was the taut, ringing void after a killing blow, when the world pauses just long enough to decide whether it will collapse.The mine still stood.Vin opened her eyes to a haze of shimmering blue. Her pulse slammed against her throat. It survived. The tunnels hadn’t caved in. The astrasite veins along the walls pulsed with an otherworldly glow, cracks running like neon lightning through the rock. She had expected the explosion to bury everyone, Seth, his soldiers, herself if necessary. Instead, the mine stood tall and strong, even un

Seth POVThe deeper they went, the more the mine felt like the belly of something alive. The tunnels sweated with damp heat, beads of condensation sliding down the black steel reinforcements like veins carrying poison. Seth’s visor readouts pulsed in low amber, nanotech filters scraping metallic dust from the air with every breath. Seth stopped at the next junction, boots sinking slightly into wet grit. The echo of the earlier explosion still trembled in the walls, a slow heartbeat of distant collapses. He tightened his grip on the pulse rifle. “We’re securing the chamber first.”Lucas stepped up beside him, helmet light flashing across jagged rock. “If General Cane’s down here... ”“Exactly why we have to secure it,” Seth cut in. “If the astrasite is the real target, that chamber is leverage. We can't leave it exposed.”The Ghost unit exchanged uneasy glances but obeyed. They had followed Seth through worse, frozen border conflicts, black market eradication sweeps and they trusted h

Rose POV.The first tremor had snapped Rose awake long before dawn.It wasn’t thunder, thunder didn’t carry that deep, teeth-rattling boom that rolled through the Tyrel estate like an angry god kicking the earth. Her chandelier had swayed, the crystal pendants clinking together like a nervous choir. For one long, breathless minute she’d sat upright in bed, heart pounding against her ribs, waiting for the walls to split or the ceiling to fall.But nothing followed. No invasion, no alarms. Only silence so thick she could hear the frantic drum of her own pulse. Somewhere far off, dogs barked once and then went quiet again.By morning, the estate looked deceptively calm but the air told a different story.Servants hurried down the marble halls in tight clusters, their whispers darting like moths. Two guards now stood outside every major doorway, rifles slung casually but with fingers too close to their triggers. Even the gardeners, usually humming as they clipped roses, worked with stiff

Seth’s POVThe night air was cold when Seth and Lucas left the Tyrel estate.The clinking of glasses, the polite laughter, the smell of wine and roasted meat... all of it still clung to Seth’s mind like a sickness. He had played his part at the table well; smiling at Mason’s jokes, offering the right pleasantries, even pretending to toast Rennard’s sudden elevation. But beneath it all, his jaw had been tight, his hands coiled fists in his lap.Rose had not looked at him once. Not once.He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. She was frightened, cornered, maybe even angry at him. She had every reason to distance herself, but it didn’t change the way her silence had cut deeper than any blade.By the time he and Lucas reached their secure safehouse, a windowless concrete bunker buried beneath an abandoned grain warehouse. Seth’s patience had evaporated entirely. He pulled off his coat and flung it over the table. The faint smell of smoke still lingered on the fabric from the mines. It