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Chapter 18
"No," Kael said.The word came out sharper than he meant it to. He took a breath and said it again, more evenly."No. She does not cross the ridge. Pull the whole team back, slowly, the same way they came. Tell her to leave the circles and the lane exactly as they are.""Understood," Bastian said. "May I tell her why?""Tell her six people are not enough to say hello to something that already knows what I feel like." Kael closed the book on the table. "And tell her she did well."There was a short pause on the line. Then Bastian's voice came back, lower. "Are you all right?""I need the Collapse record." He said."The Council's history?" Bastian repeated."The public one. The official one. Send it to my slate." Kael stood and walked to the window. The garden outside was bright and ordinary. A gardener was clipping a hedge. "I want to read what everyone else was taught.""It will be there in a minute." Bastian said.It was there in less. Kael sat back down with the slate in his hands a
Chapter 17
Commander Reyes led her team out of the eastern gate at first light.Six people. No vehicles. No drones, because the drones kept dying near the ridge. Nothing on any of them that shone or rattled. They walked in a loose line, ten paces apart, boots quiet on the cracked ground.Nobody talked. Reyes had been in the Wasteland for six years, and she knew it was never really silent out here. There were always birds, or insects, or the scrape of something small moving under a rock. Today there was nothing at all."Too quiet," Okafor muttered behind her."Keep it down." She shushed instantly.Okafor shut his mouth. He was the youngest on the team, and he carried the energy reader strapped to his forearm, a flat gray box with a small screen. It hadn't made a sound all morning.The ridge rose out of the haze a little before noon. It was a long wall of broken stone, the color of old bone, running north to south as far as she could see. From a distance, it looked like any other ridge but Reyes d
Chapter 16
Lyanna did not sleep that night. Or the next.Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the alley. Five men on the wet stone. Kael standing over them, breathing like he had just climbed a flight of stairs. 'You saw a man defend himself.' She told herself, as if that explained anything.She had walked away from him at her family's gate and told herself it was over. She was good at telling herself things. She had been doing it for years. It didn't work this time.Darius called twice the next day. She let both calls ring out and told her mother she had a headache. It was easier than hearing his voice and wondering what he knew.By the third night, she gave up on sleep. She sat down at her desk, switched on her slate, and typed Kael's name.She told herself she was only checking. Just to settle it. Just to prove to herself that she had imagined more than she had seen.Part of her wanted to find nothing. If there was nothing, then she hadn't thrown away something she didn't understand.Her o
Chapter 15
Kael slipped back into the Vale estate a little before dawn.He did it the same way he always did. Along the hedge line. Past the side door nobody bothered to lock until sunrise. Up the service stairs instead of the main ones. By the time he reached his room, the house was still asleep.He lay down and closed his eyes for two hours of brief sleep.When he came down for breakfast, the morning light was already spilling across the long table in the east room. Xena sat at the far end with a data slate leaning against the teapot. She was reading, but she wasn't really reading. Kael could tell by how still she was."You're up early," he said, and took the chair across from her."So are you." She didn't look up right away. "Sleep well?""Well enough." He answered as he poured himself tea."There's a report on my slate," Xena said. "Five men were found in an alley two streets from here last night. All of them hurt badly. The city watch says it was a robbery that went wrong."Kael took a sip.
Chapter 14
Kael walked back to the Vale estate through the rain. He waited in the garden until the last lamp in the east wing went dark. Then he stepped onto the transport that was already waiting between the hedges.By two in the morning, he was standing in Heavenly City's hangar.Bastian was waiting in the corridor outside the command tower, a data slate under his arm and his face as blank as ever. He fell into step beside Kael without a greeting."You're later than I expected," Bastian said."Five men were in my way.""I saw. The feed from your collar came through." Bastian glanced at him, quick and careful. "All of it.""Then you know what happened." Kael said."I know you walked out without a scratch. I'm not sure that means you're fine." Bastian corrected."I'm fine." Kael replied."You say that a lot." Bastian told him.Kael didn't answer. They walked the rest of the way in silence, past long windows that showed the city's pale blue lights hanging in the dark.The command chamber was almo
Chapter 13
"Well it didn't," Corwin said. "And now five men who know your name are lying in a hospital bed somewhere in this city, and I have no way of knowing which one of them is going to talk first."Darius sat frozen in the chair across from him, the words landing one after another like separate blows."They don't know my name," he said finally. "The contact handled everything. I never met the men directly.""You met the lead contractor." Corvin said."Once. Briefly." Darius answered, trying to downplay the seriousness of the situation."Once is enough, if he decides talking to the city watch is worth more to him than whatever loyalty you think you've bought." Corwin's voice stayed level, but something underneath it had gone hard and cold. "Tell me exactly what you said to him. Word for word."Darius tried to remember. The meeting had felt simple at the time, almost businesslike. Now, trying to repeat it back to his father, every sentence he'd said felt like a loaded weapon pointed at his ow
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