2025-12-09 23:24:26
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Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety-One
Night settled over the estate with an uneasy calm, the kind that came before something broke. The rain had thinned to a mist, clinging to the air and softening every sound, but Elias knew better than to mistake quiet for peace. Quiet was when enemies listened.He stood in the operations room alone, lights dimmed, screens glowing with live feeds from the perimeter. The forest line pulsed faintly on thermal, heat signatures blinking in and out like restrained breaths. Legacy’s observers were still there. They had not retreated. They were studying.Good.Elias straightened his jacket and tapped the comm at his ear. “Status check.”Mara’s voice came first. “Security rotation completed. We left the gaps exactly where you wanted them. If anyone’s watching, they’ll think we’re stretched thin.”“Any signs they’re biting?”“Not yet,” she said. “But they’re closer than before.”Elias glanced at the screen showing the south perimeter. “They will.”Ethan cut in, voice calm but alert. “I’ve seeded
Chapter Two Hundred and Ninety
The rain didn’t let up the next morning. Thick sheets of it fell over the estate, drumming against the rooftops and blurring the tree line into a shifting smear of gray. Elias stepped out onto the veranda anyway, ignoring the cold splash of water against his boots as he surveyed the grounds.Everything was motion.Guards rotated faster. Spotters checked the ridges. Communication relays buzzed with short, clipped updates. It looked like a fortress preparing for siege, but Elias didn’t feel intimidated by the tension anymore. If anything, it sharpened him.This wasn’t fear.This was focus.Footsteps approached behind him. Mara arrived first, her jacket soaked from a patrol sweep, hair tied back tightly, eyes sharper than the wind biting across the yard.“You’re up early,” she said.Elias didn’t look away from the distance. “Couldn’t sleep.”“Because of the plan?”“Because of everything.”Mara tilted her head. “You want to go over it again?”“Not yet.” He turned, finally meeting her eyes
Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Nine
The storm broke just before dawn.A low growl of thunder rolled across the estate grounds as Elias pushed open the front doors. Cold air rushed in, carrying the metallic smell of rain and damp earth. The morning sky was still dark, clouds layered thick like bruises. He stepped onto the stone steps, pulled his hood tighter, and scanned the perimeter.Guards were already moving—quiet, alert, unsettled.Good. They felt it too.Behind him, footsteps echoed lightly. Mara slid her hands into the pockets of her jacket and joined him under the overhang.“You didn’t sleep,” she said.“Did you?” Elias shot back.She snorted. “Barely. I kept hearing things.”Elias glanced sideways. “Things, or your paranoia?”“Both,” she admitted. “The weather makes the forest louder. And after everything that’s happened… yeah, I’m jumpy.”Elias didn’t tease her for it. He couldn’t. He understood too well.Mara looked at him fully now. “What’s our next move?”Elias exhaled, breath fogging in the air. “We gather
Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Eight
The night pressed down on the manor like a held breath.Elias stayed awake long after the others slept. He sat in the armchair by the window, shoulders tense, jaw locked, staring at the dark line of trees beyond the estate wall. A storm was gathering out there—he could feel it in his bones. Every instinct told him something was moving closer.He rubbed his palms against his knees, grounding himself. Focus. Think.But his mind kept drifting to the same place: the way his mother had grabbed his face tonight, eyes wet, voice trembling as she whispered that she believed in him. That she trusted him to finish this fight.He wasn’t used to being someone people relied on. Not like this.A soft knock pulled him out of his thoughts.“Come in,” he said quietly.The door opened a crack and Ethan stepped in, hoodie half-zipped, hair sticking in every direction like he’d been dragging his hands through it for an hour.“You’re still awake,” he said, though it wasn’t a question. “I figured.”Elias r
Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Seven
Elias woke before the alarms sounded.He didn’t remember falling asleep. One moment he’d been sitting on the edge of the cot in Lira’s underground safehouse, leaning forward to catch his breath, and the next his eyes had snapped open to the faint thrum of relic energy pulsing in the air like a warning. The room was dim—steel walls, low ceiling, maps scattered across a nearby desk—but something felt different. Sharper. More alert.He pushed himself upright, stretching the stiffness from his shoulders. The seal on his chest gave a slow, steady pulse, warm but not invasive. Nothing like the violent surge he fought the night before.Rhea was already awake, sitting across the room with her back against the wall. She had her knees drawn up and her arms draped loosely over them. Her eyes were half-open, studying him even before she spoke.“You didn’t sleep long,” she murmured.Elias ran a hand through his hair. “Didn’t feel like I needed to.”“Or couldn’t,” she said, reading him too easily.
Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Six
Elias barely made it down the factory steps before the weight of everything he had just done pressed against his ribs. The morning light leaking over the horizon only made the exhaustion sharper, as if the city itself expected him to keep moving when all he wanted was a moment to breathe. But he didn’t get that luxury—he never did. Not with the Heir stirring. Not with Mara regrouping. Not with the relic still humming through his bloodstream like a second heartbeat.Cassian jogged up beside him, pushing damp hair out of his eyes. “Your pulse readings are all over the place,” he muttered, checking the device on his wrist. “The seal is reacting to something. Or someone.”Elias didn’t slow. “It’s the Heir. He’s trying to reestablish the link. The relic inside that room wasn’t the main focus—it was bait.”Cassian blinked. “Bait? For who? Us?”“For me,” Elias said quietly.They moved toward the abandoned loading dock where Rhea was kneeling beside one of the patrollers she had neutralized.
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