Sterling Tower never truly slept, but that night it felt wounded.Emergency lights pulsed softly along the corridors, casting long shadows that bent unnaturally across the marble floors. Protective wards hummed as they rebooted, layer by layer, like a heart struggling to find its rhythm again after stopping. The building had survived countless threats—corporate, divine, and otherwise—but this was the first time it had been breached so intimately.Diana sat on the edge of the medical chamber bed, her hands resting loosely in her lap. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and ozone, the aftermath of magic colliding with modern systems. A thin band of light traced slowly around her wrist, scanning for residual corruption.Marcus stood a few steps away, arms crossed, silent.He had barely moved since they arrived.The healer—a woman with silver-threaded robes and eyes that glowed faintly with runic insight—finished her examination and straightened. “The Weaver didn’t bind her fully,” she

The attack did not begin with fire it all began with so much silence.At exactly 06:14, Sterling’s eastern data corridor went dark.No alarms and no surge, no breach signature, just a big absence.Within thirty seconds, trading algorithms across three continents froze mid-cycle. Logistics satellites slipped into passive mode. Two maritime routes rerouted themselves without explanation, colliding traffic in neutral waters.Sterling did not lose power, it lost coordination.Diana was already awake. She stood barefoot in the private operations room of the upper residence, hair tied back, tablet in hand, eyes scanning cascading alerts that refused to name the enemy.Marcus entered moments later, fully dressed, expression sharp.“This isn’t random,” he said immediately.“No,” Diana replied. “It’s surgical.”She flicked her wrist, expanding the data feed across the wall.“They didn’t crash us,” she continued. “They isolated us. Each system is intact—but they can’t talk to each other.”Marcu

The summons did not come with thunder that was how Marcus knew it was real.There was no tremor in the sky, no distortion of air, no flare of divine force that usually accompanied a call from the higher planes. Instead, the bond between him and Diana tightened—once, sharply—then stilled permission,.Marcus closed his eyes.“They’re calling me,” he said, Diana looked up from the table of fractured projections, her expression sharpening instantly. “Who?”He didn’t need to answer.The lights in the room dimmed, not failing but withdrawing, as if reality itself was stepping back. The air thickened—not hostile, but heavy with expectation.“The old covenant,” Marcus said quietly. “What’s left of it.”Diana rose slowly. “You don’t have to go.”“I do,” he replied. “Because this time, they didn’t summon the god of war.”He met her eyes.“They summoned the liability.”The threshold appeared without spectacle—a narrow fracture in space, barely wide enough for one man to step through. Beyond it wa

The room they gave them was not a throne room.That alone felt deliberate.It sat high within the Sterling Citadel, carved from pale stone that caught the late evening light and softened it, turning the walls warm instead of cold. Tall windows overlooked the city far below, where people moved through their lives unaware that the shape of tomorrow was being negotiated above their heads.Diana stood by the window, barefoot, her jacket draped over the back of a chair she hadn’t sat in yet. Her hair was loose for once, falling down her back without pins or armor to restrain it. For the first time in days, she wasn’t wearing a blade.Marcus watched her from the doorway. He hadn’t moved since they entered.The quiet pressed in around them—not empty, not awkward. Heavy. Meaningful.“You don’t have to pretend you’re calm,” he said finally.She smiled faintly, eyes still on the city. “I’m not pretending.”He frowned. “That worries me more.”She turned then, resting her hip against the stone l

The separation did not begin with distance itbegan with resistance.The Null Corridor shifted around them as they moved, its fractured architecture drifting closer, then farther, as if unsure where to place them. Diana felt it first—a subtle tightening beneath her skin, the seal pulsing with a rhythm that was no longer synchronized.Marcus felt it a heartbeat later he stopped abruptly, his grip tightening around her hand. “Wait.”She turned toward him. “You feel it too." the space between them vibrated faintly, like stretched wire humming under pressure. The Corridor was changing—not collapsing, not attacking—but correcting.Diana’s breath slowed. “It’s trying to separate us.”Marcus’s jaw clenched. “It can try.” he took another step forward.The seal flared violently.Pain lanced through Diana’s chest, sharp enough to steal her breath. She cried out despite herself, fingers digging into Marcus’s armor as the world tilted.“Marcus—stop!” he froze instantly, panic flashing across his f