Page 130 of Twist of Fate

“He has stopped.”

Asterius’s expression sharpened. “Is he wounded?”

“I cannot tell.”

The limitation burned, but Connal refused to let it slow him.

He pushed faster.

The corridor forked. Connal turned left without slowing.

“Wait,” Tyson said. “How did you⁠—”

“Bond,” Asterius answered.

Avaneel emerged from Zer’s hair and flew ahead, keeping close to the pipes along the ceiling. Her tiny form disappeared around the next bend before Zer could call her back.

They found the second access door hanging from one hinge. The intruders had destroyed the locking mechanism and forced the reinforced metal inward, leaving barely enough room to pass through.

Connal turned sideways and crossed the threshold.

The third door waited farther down the corridor. Its keycard reader had been ripped from the wall, exposing a nest of wires, while the numbered keypad hung beneath it by a single cord. A dark smear of blood marked the frame.

Avaneel darted back through the opening and landed on Zer’s shoulder.

“Ten ahead at a door. At least eight more are moving toward them through the adjoining corridors.” A shudder moved through her tiny body, setting her wings trembling. “There’s magic wrapped around all of them. It feels wrong.”

“That must be the server room,” Tyson said.

Connal was already moving.

A voice carried from beyond the next turn.

“Door nearly compromised.”

Everyone stopped.

Another voice answered, muffled by distance. “Keep pressure on it. He’s inside.”

Connal’s vision narrowed.

Luke was behind that door.

The bond gave him no fear, pain, or thoughts—only Luke’s living presence, close and fixed in place. The rest required no magic to understand.

Luke was alive.

And he was trapped.

Connal took the corner at speed. The corridor opened into a wider junction where blue-white light spilled from a side passage. The mechanical hum deepened into the roar of cooling fans behind steel.

Ten men crowded the passage outside a reinforced door.

Two worked directly against the entrance. One controlled a device clamped over the access panel, while the other drove a compact ram into the warped locking seam. Seven more stood behind them with weapons drawn, protecting the breach.

The tenth guarded the corridor. Avaneel slipped from Zer’s shoulder and disappeared into his hair as the sentry turned.

“Contact!”