The Dark Blade: Return Of The General.

Chapter 22: The Old Bridge

Jacob arrived at the abandoned Millbrook Bridge at exactly 11:50 PM, the family amulet burning like a coal against his chest beneath his shirt. The structure had been condemned for five years, its rusted steel frame sagging over a river that had dried to a polluted trickle decades ago.

He parked his car at the entrance and stepped out into darkness so complete it felt like walking into a void. Behind him, he could sense Leo and Carl positioned in the treeline with their team, ready to move on his signal. They had agreed to stay back unless Jacob's life was in immediate danger, but their presence was a comfort he clung to in the suffocating night.

Fog began rolling in from the river valley, thick and unnatural. Within minutes, visibility dropped to near zero. Jacob could barely see his own hands in front of his face. Every combat instinct he possessed screamed that this was wrong, that he was walking into a carefully prepared kill zone.

But Anna was here. His wife. Possibly his child. He had no choice.

Jacob moved forward onto the bridge, his footsteps echoing on rusted metal grating. The fog pressed against him like something alive, cold and wet and wrong. He counted his steps, maintaining spatial awareness even when his eyes were useless.

Twenty steps. Thirty. Forty.

His enhanced hearing picked up sounds in the fog—multiple presences surrounding him at various distances. At least ten people, possibly more. This was not a simple hostage exchange. This was an ambush designed to leave no survivors.

Jacob's hand moved toward the concealed knife at his back, but he stopped himself. If Elijah saw weapons, Anna would die. He had to play this out, at least until he understood the full situation.

The church bell in distant Seron struck midnight, its twelve chimes carrying across the fog like a funeral dirge.

Immediately, floodlights blazed to life from multiple angles, turning the bridge into a stage surrounded by impenetrable darkness. Jacob shielded his eyes against the sudden glare, his pupils struggling to adjust.

When his vision cleared, his heart stopped.

Anna sat tied to a metal chair in the exact center of the bridge, her head slumped forward and her body completely still. She wore the same hospital gown from earlier, but it was torn and stained with something dark. Her hands were bound behind the chair with heavy chains, and her bare feet were scraped and bleeding.

"Anna!" Jacob started forward, but a voice stopped him cold.

"Not another step, brother." Elijah's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, amplified by speakers hidden throughout the bridge structure. "Unless you want to see her die right now."

Jacob froze, every muscle locked in place. "I came like you demanded. I brought the amulet. Let her go, Elijah. Your fight is with me, not her."

Laughter rolled through the speakers—dark and twisted, like something fundamental had broken in Elijah's mind during his years of isolation. "Oh, Jacob. Still thinking like a hero. Still believing you can save everyone if you just make the right noble sacrifice."

Elijah stepped from the shadows at the far end of the bridge, his dark armor absorbing the floodlights until he seemed like a living shadow. He wore his mask, but even through the metal, Jacob could feel his brother's eyes boring into him with fifteen years of accumulated hatred.

"It is not that simple, brother," Elijah continued, moving closer with predatory grace. "I do not just want the artifacts. I do not just want revenge. I want your life, Jacob. Everything you are, everything you have become—I want to take it all and prove that I was always the stronger twin."

Jacob kept his attention split between Elijah and Anna, desperately trying to see if she was breathing. "What does that mean? You want to kill me? Fine. Let Anna go first, and you can have your fight."

"Kill you?" Elijah laughed again. "No, brother. Killing you would be too quick, too merciful. I want to break you. I have studied you for fifteen years, Jacob. Watched you become the legendary Dark Blade, the hero who saves everyone. I watched you build a reputation as the most dangerous man on the continent."

He stopped ten feet away, close enough for Jacob to see details. "That should have been me. I was the stronger one, the more ruthless one. But they chose you, protected you, and threw me away like garbage. Now I am going to take everything that should have been mine."

Jacob edged slowly toward Anna, trying to close the distance without triggering whatever trap Elijah had prepared. "What happened to you was wrong. Our parents should have helped you instead of hiding you away. But murdering our entire family was not the answer."

"Our family was weak!" Elijah snarled, his composure cracking. "They chose peace over power, mercy over strength. They would have led the Krigg bloodline to ruin. I saved our legacy by eliminating the weak and embracing what we really are—predators, not protectors."

Jacob took another small step toward Anna. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. She was alive but unconscious or drugged. Just another ten feet and he could—

"One more step and I detonate the collar," Elijah said calmly, raising a small remote detonator.

Jacob's eyes snapped to Anna's neck. Hidden beneath her hair was a metal collar wrapped with what looked like plastic explosive and detonation wire. Enough to decapitate her instantly if triggered.

His blood turned to ice. "You would kill an innocent woman and your own nephew or niece just to hurt me?"

"Nephew or niece?" Elijah tilted his head. "You mean the baby you think she is carrying? How touching that you believe that lie."

Jacob felt the ground shift beneath him. "What are you talking about?"

"Fight me," Elijah demanded, ignoring the question. "No weapons. No tricks. Just you and me, brother against brother, the way it should have been settled fifteen years ago. Winner takes everything—the artifacts, the Krigg legacy, the right to lead the Crimson Dawn."

"And Anna goes free?" Jacob pressed.

"If you win, yes. She lives. But when I win, she becomes part of my collection." Elijah gestured to the darkness beyond the lights. "I have been gathering people you care about, Jacob. Creating insurance policies to ensure your cooperation when the time comes."

Jacob had no choice. He could try to rush Elijah, but the detonator was already in his brother's hand. He could call for Carl and Leo, but they were too far away to stop the explosion. His only option was to agree and hope he was fast enough to disarm the collar before Elijah could trigger it.

"Fine," Jacob said, removing his jacket and the concealed weapons beneath. He pulled the amulet from around his neck and set it carefully on the bridge grating. "I accept your challenge."

Elijah lowered the detonator slightly, surprised by Jacob's easy agreement. "Just like that? No arguing, no trying to negotiate better terms?"

"You want to know who the better fighter is," Jacob said, rolling his shoulders and loosening his muscles. "Let us settle it. But when I win, Anna goes free and you surrender yourself to answer for our family's murder."

"When I win," Elijah countered, "you die, and I claim everything the Krigg name represents."

They began circling each other, two identical men separated by choices and circumstances. Jacob watched for opening moves, for patterns in Elijah's stance that might reveal his training.

But something caught his attention. Anna's eyes were fluttering open, fighting through whatever drug Elijah had used. She was regaining consciousness.

Elijah noticed it too and smiled beneath his mask. "Ah, she is waking up. How perfect. She can watch you die."

But Anna was not looking at Elijah. Her eyes locked onto Jacob's, and her lips moved silently, forming words only he could see from this angle.

"Trap."

Jacob's heart began to race.

"Not pregnant."

The world tilted.

"False memory implant."

Jacob staggered as reality crashed down around him. The hospital. The doctor. The contractions. All of it had been an illusion fed directly into his brain, probably during the explosion at the Tate mansion when he had been knocked unconscious.

Which meant the past several hours—the emotional goodbye, the planning session, the drive to this bridge—might all be false too.

Jacob looked at the woman in the chair more carefully. The hair was right. The body type matched. But something about her face was subtly wrong, like a mask made by someone who had never actually met Anna.

This was not his wife.

Jacob's eyes snapped back to Elijah, and terrible understanding dawned. "Where is she? Where is the real Anna?"

Elijah's laughter was genuinely delighted. "Oh, this is wonderful! You finally figured it out! Yes, brother, everything since the mansion explosion has been a carefully crafted illusion. The pregnancy, the hospital, even this dramatic bridge confrontation—all designed to keep you distracted and emotional."

He spread his arms wide, gesturing to the scene around them. "While you have been chasing shadows and playing hero, I have had your real wife for hours. And the ritual you were so worried about? It is not tomorrow at dawn, Jacob."

Elijah checked his watch with theatrical flourish.

"It is happening right now. And Anna's blood is the key."