INICIAR SESIÓNSage.I didn't remember phasing away from Thorne's claws so much as simply finding myself somewhere else, the world stretched thin around me the way it had during the Bone-Singer attack, every second of the fight arriving a fraction slower than it should have.Thorne recovered fast, faster than his size suggested he should, and turned his cluster of eyes toward Dominic instead, who'd already closed the distance with his sabers drawn."Alpha," Thorne said, voice still layered wrong, almost amused. "I did wonder if you'd bring your blades to this particular fight.""I bring them to every fight," Dominic said, and struck.
Sage.The report came in three days after the Arena, delivered by one of Dominic's contacts with a face gone pale beneath his usual composure."You need to see this," he said, setting a tablet on the desk between us, hands unsteady. "Surveillance footage. Thorne's private compound, the one we've been trying to locate for weeks."I pulled the tablet closer, and the image on screen made my stomach turn, a sterile lab, similar in architecture to the photographs Dominic had shown me weeks ago, except this time the subject on the table wasn't a captured, unwilling victim.It was Thorne himself."He's injecting something," I said, watching the grainy footage with growing dread. "Into his own arm.""Void-Alpha parasite," the contact said grimly. "We intercepted enough of his research to identify the compound before we lost the feed. He's been developing it for months, theoretically, as something to weaponize against Source-wielders like you. We never anticipated he'd test it on himself.""Wh
Sage.The order came down two days after Aurora's departure, delivered by a Council courier who wouldn't meet my eyes when he handed me the summons."Emergency execution order," Nessa read over my shoulder, disbelief cracking her voice. "Twenty-three feral Omegas, scheduled for termination in the Arena. Tomorrow at dawn.""On what grounds.""Public safety. Same language they used for the triplets' hearing." She looked up at me, horror dawning. "Sage, these are patients. Some of them are still under active treatment here."My blood went cold. "How many of th
Sage.The heat started three hours after the bond network collapse, once the terminal had gone quiet and Nessa had finally convinced me to lie down on the workshop cot instead of standing back up.At first I told myself it was fever. Ordinary exhaustion, the kind that came after absorbing three hundred and twelve strangers' worth of grief into a body that had never been built to hold that much.Then my skin started to glow."Sage." Dominic's voice, sharp with alarm, from somewhere near the door. "Your arms."I looked down and understood immediately why he s
Sage.Kieran left an hour after the chains stopped visibly reacting, quiet in a way I'd never seen from him, like a man walking out of surgery he hadn't consented to. I watched him go from the window, still turning the shape of it over in my own mind, an entire species of grief I'd never questioned, rearranging itself in real time.I didn't have the luxury of sitting with it. Not with everything else waiting."You should eat something," Nessa said, finding me still standing at the window twenty minutes later. "You've been running on adrenaline and revelation for three days straight.""I will. After I finish something I started before Ki
Sage.I hadn't planned to look at Kieran that way. It happened by accident, mid-argument, three days after the Sovereign of One confrontation with Dominic, while Kieran was in my office trying to explain again why he'd once let the Council pressure him into signing away visitation rights during my darkest year with Noah."I didn't have a choice," he said, pacing in front of my desk. "The Ancient Covenant gave the Council direct authority over custody disputes involving anchor children. I fought it as hard as the law allowed.""As hard as the law allowed," I repeated, skeptical."Yes.""That's always been your line, Kieran. As hard as the law allowed. As hard as tradition allowed. As hard as the Covenant allowed. Have you ever once stopped to ask yourself why you never seem able to push past that particular wall?""Because it's the law," he said, frustration bleeding into his voice. "Because breaking Covenant law isn't a small thing, Sage, it's…"Something in the phrase snagged at me,







