"Get up, Alarion. The wind is shifting, and I don’t like the smell of it." Eldric didn’t turn around, his gaze fixed on the ridge above them, where the wind whipped the snow into a stinging, white veil.Alarion groaned, pushing himself up from the frozen slush. His fingers were stiff, blue-tinged, and trembling—not from the cold, but from the lack of a familiar, warm hum beneath his skin. "My legs are fine, Eldric. Save your breath for the climb.""My breath is better spent scouting than hovering," Eldric shot back, his voice brittle.Lysandra stepped between them, her eyes scanning the jagged tree line ahead. "Quiet. Both of you. The ridge isn't empty."She pointed toward a cluster of frost-bitten pines. A thin ribbon of gray smoke spiraled upward, struggling against the howling gale. It wasn't the thick, oily smoke of a Board encampment; it was the faint, desperate plume of a hidden hearth."A scout?" Alarion whispered, his hand drifting to the hilt of the rusted blade at his belt.

"It’s not just a thrumming," Alarion hissed, his fingers digging into his own temples as if trying to keep his skull from splitting open. "It’s a tether. Something is anchored to the bedrock nearby, pulling on the weave—or what’s left of it. It feels exactly like the Academy’s extraction chambers. The Board is here. They’re already digging."Lysandra didn’t waste time questioning his phantom senses. She grabbed his shoulder, grounding him. "If they’re using extraction tech, they’ll have motion sensors and thermal sweeps. We can't cross the ridge on foot. We need to skirt the eastern ravine.""The ravine is a death trap," Eldric countered, his voice low and jagged as he pulled his heavy, fur-lined cloak tighter. "If we go down there, we lose the high ground. If they have snipers, we’re shooting ducks in a barrel.""And if we stay up here, we’re silhouettes against the skyline," Lysandra snapped back, her patience thinning like the air around them. "Choose your method of dying, Eldric.

"Don't move, you fool!" Lysandra lunged, catching Alarion by the collar of his coat and jerking him back just as a second slug whistled through the air, pulverizing the frost-covered moss where he had been standing. "They have a clear line of sight. If you step out, you’re dead." Eldric sat slumped against the granite shelf, his breath coming in ragged, steaming gasps. His hand was clamped over his shoulder, the blood already turning into a thick, sticky slush against the frigid stone. He looked up at Lysandra, his teeth bared in a grimace that might have been a smile if there was a hint of mirth behind it. "Told you," he hissed, his voice rattling in his chest. "High ground. Always the high ground." "Save your breath for climbing, not lecturing," Lysandra snapped, though her eyes softened for a fraction of a second as she checked the wound. The slug hadn't gone deep, but it had carved a nasty furrow through the muscle. She pulled a st

"The truth is a commodity, Lysandra," Merovin rasped, his knuckles white as he gripped the leather spine of the ledger. "I looked at the logistics. This isn't just a record of their crimes. It’s a road map of their dependencies. If we leak these documents, we don't just hurt the Board. We cripple the entire Northern supply chain. We’d be burning down the only infrastructure keeping these mountain villages from starving through the winter." Lysandra froze, her fingers still tangled in the fabric of Eldric’s makeshift bandage. "So? The Board built that infrastructure on the backs of forced labor and stolen kinetic energy. They keep these people fed only so they can keep them quiet." "And if we silence the Board tonight," Alarion interjected, his voice uncharacteristically steady as he scanned the ridgeline for the sniper’s muzzle flash, "we bring the whole architecture of the North down on top of us. We aren't just figh

"Stop staring at the vents, Alarion," Lysandra hissed, pressing her back against the frost-slicked rock of the mountain pass. She kept her eyes on the flickering red light of a perimeter sensor scanning the main gate. "If the resonance is as loud as you say, pull yourself together. We aren’t here to audition for the afterlife; we’re here to shut them down." Alarion winced, his hand reflexively clutching his chest. "It’s not just noise, Lysandra. It’s hunger. The energy in that chamber—the refined kinetic residue they’re harvesting—it isn't stable. It’s screaming to be released. If we breach that door without a plan, we aren’t going to sabotage the facility. We’re going to be the fuse that detonates it." Eldric leaned heavily against the basalt wall, his breath coming in shallow, ragged puffs. He ignored the blood soaking through his wool tunic and turned his gaze toward the heavy, r