"This is insane," Kira muttered, checking the charge on her sidearm for the third time. "We're not soldiers breaking protocol. We're about to break a federal detainee out of a secured facility.""He's innocent," Elias said. "That's the only protocol that matters right now."Mira pulled up the schematic on her tablet, blueprint lines glowing faint blue in the dim maintenance corridor. "Holding block is two levels down from here, east wing. Six guards on rotation, biometric locks on every checkpoint. I can get us past the cameras — I can't get us past the locks without tripping something.""Then we don't sneak," Elias said. "We move fast enough that it doesn't matter."They hit the first checkpoint at a dead sprint.Two guards turned at the sound of boots on steel, weapons half-raised, and Kira was already past their guard before either could shout a warning — one dropped from a strike to the throat, the other disarmed and slammed into the wall hard enough to crumple. Elias caught the a

The fortress rose out of the northern ridgeline like a wound — crimson stone weathered by centuries, half-collapsed towers still standing sentinel over a courtyard choked with dead vegetation. Smoke curled faintly from somewhere deep within its walls."Thermal readings show heat signatures on three levels," Mira said, crouched beside Kira at the treeline, tablet angled low to avoid catching light. "Not human. Not lesser demons either — these signatures are bigger.""Elite guard," Romeo said grimly, checking his blade. "Whatever they're protecting in there, they're not leaving it lightly defended.""The artifact convoy hit was three days ago," Kira added. "If the blade's still moving through demon hands, this is our best shot at intercepting it before it reaches wherever it's actually going."Elias said nothing, eyes fixed on the fortress gates. The pendant at his throat had gone warm the moment they'd crossed into the ridgeline's shadow — warm in a way that felt less like heat and mor

Neither side hesitated.The demons surged first, armored bodies crashing into the entrance hall in a wave of claws and snarling hunger. Romeo met the charge head-on, blade catching the lead demon's strike and driving it back into the two behind it, buying half a second that Kira used to put three rounds into the gap in its throat guard."Inside!" Mira shouted, already cutting a path deeper into the temple. "The chamber's got to be central — we hold them off, we lose the race regardless!"Elias followed, blade up, the pendant's heat now a constant, insistent burn against his chest.The hall floor shifted beneath his boot.He barely registered the click before the wall beside him erupted in a spray of stone darts, ancient mechanism triggered by his weight on a pressure plate centuries old and apparently still functional. He threw himself sideways, feeling two darts graze his shoulder, and rolled clear as a demon charging behind him took the rest of the volley full in the chest.It dropp

SDS Headquarters, forty miles from the ruined temple.Vice President Hale stood over the war table, reviewing the fragmented reports from the temple collapse, when Captain Vale entered the command room flanked by two of his own hand-picked security detail."Ma'am." Vale's voice was steady, professional, exactly as it had been for years. "I need five minutes. It's about the seal recovery.""Make it quick," Hale said, not looking up from the casualty reports. "I've got four fugitives who just leveled an ancient temple and a board demanding answers I don't have.""It won't take long."Vale drew his sidearm and shot the nearest commander through the chest before anyone in the room registered what was happening.Chaos erupted instantly. General Okafor reached for his own weapon and took two rounds before he'd cleared the holster, crumpling against the war table hard enough to send maps and data pads scattering across the floor. Vale's own security detail turned their weapons on the remaini

Romeo and Mira were waiting at the rendezvous point when Kira brought Elias in, both of them rising the instant they saw his expression."You found something," Mira said. It wasn't a question."I found the traitor," Elias said. "And I found out why none of this has ever made sense."He told them everything — Vale's kneeling confession, Azrath's account of the poisoned summit, the stolen pendant, six seals forged not from conquest but from betrayal. He watched their faces shift through the telling, disbelief giving way to something heavier as the details lined up against everything they'd already witnessed with their own eyes."The mural," Mira said quietly, when he'd finished. "The vision at the temple. It all fits together too well to be coincidence.""Or it's exactly the story a demon lord *wants* us to believe," Romeo countered, though there was less conviction in it than there might have been a week ago. "Azrath doesn't tell the truth out of kindness. If he handed Vale that histor