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The Vakras were fighting like cornered animals, not a conquering horde. There were no heavy siege beasts. There were no secondary lines. A war-band of this size should have been pushing deeper into the lower nurseries, exploiting the breach to slaughter the young. Instead, they were holding their ground at the gate, throwing themselves onto our spears as if...

As if they were trying to keep us here.

A diversion.

The realisation hit me, freezing the blood in my veins.

The attack on the wall was loud, bloody, and entirely meant to draw the Huntmaster and the elite vanguard as far away from the upper terraces as possible. I checked the meridian moons through the smoke-choked canopy. They hadn't crossed the apex yet, but the bond in my chest suddenly went dead silent—not broken, but muffled, as if a massive, leaden vault had been slammed shut over her mind.

"Lyra," I whispered into the empty link, but my own voice only bounced back into my skull.

A terrifying, suffocating panic erupted in my chest. I slammed my heels into my beast's flanks, forcing the creature into a vertical leap back onto the cliff-face. "Toren! Jarek! Hold the gate! The vanguard stays with you!"

I pushed the shadow-beast to its absolute, suicidal limit, ascending the sheer cliffs back toward the Nest. We were blazing through the mid-tier canopy when a sudden, blinding flash of percussive light exploded from the thick brush to my left.

A heavy, mechanised kinetic bolt—stolen sky-technology—slammed directly into my shadow-beast’s shoulder. The creature shrieked, its footing failing on the slick vertical rock, and we plummeted down into the dense upper terrace foliage.

I threw myself from the saddle just before the beast crushed me against a massive root. I hit the dirt hard, rolling through the briars, my skin scraping against the stone before I dug my bone-blade into the earth to arrest my momentum.

"Kaelen!"

A heavy boot slammed into my ribs before I could fully stand, throwing me onto my back. I snarled, parrying a descending iron sword with my bare forearm bracer, sparks illuminating the face of my attacker.

Vahn.

My rival’s face was twisted in a mask of pure, adrenaline-fueled malice. He wasn't at the southern wall defending our people. He was heading back up toward the high terraces, flanked by a few of his remaining inner circle.

"You absolute fucking parasite," I roared, the feral alpha beast completely taking over. I kicked Vahn squarely in the chest, throwing him back, and vaulted to my feet. The white-hot gold of my markings flared with such volatile intensity that the leaves around us withered from the heat.

"Why attack me now?!" I demanded, my voice bouncing off the high stone canopy as I balanced my weight and tracked his movements. "Your people are bleeding at the gates, and you ambush me in the brush like a common coward?!"

Vahn bared his teeth, spitting blood onto the dark soil. He raised his heavy iron sword, his eyes burning with years of festering resentment. "Because I want the crown, Kaelen! I have always wanted the crown! You are soft, blinded by a fragile star-woman. Right now, the Nest is fractured, the vanguard is distracted, and you are running like a dog back to your mate. This is your most vulnerable moment. There will never be a better time to take what is mine!"

He lunged, driven by years of bitter jealousy, but his technique was sloppy, corrupted by his rush for power. I parried his next strike, shattered his wrist with a brutal downward blow of my pommel, and drove my knee into his sternum. He collapsed into the dirt, coughing up dark blood, but I didn't let him breathe. I descended on him like a collapsing mountain, my massive hand wrapping around his throat, pinning him to the earth as I raised my bone-blade above his heart.

"You traded our defensive codes to the Vakras," I growled, the pressure of my grip crushing his windpipe as my dual-colored eyes burned into his. "You brought the scavengers to our gates to orchestrate this coup?! Why do this to your own brothers and sisters, Vahn?! For a crown you have no right to wear?!"

Vahn choked, clawing frantically at my wrist, his face turning a dark violet. "I... I did... not..." he wheezed, his eyes wide with a sudden, genuine terror that made me pause.

I loosened my grip just enough to let him speak, though the tip of my blade remained pressed against his throat. "Speak, coward, before I carve your lungs out."

"This has nothing to do with me!" Vahn gasped, sucking in cold air, his teeth stained with blood. "As much as I hate that star-woman... as much as I want to rip the crown from your head... I would never put my own clan in danger! I am a warrior of the Oru-ka! I would never let Vakra filth slaughter our young!"

I stared down at him, my mind spiralling into a violent spiral of confusion. The absolute sincerity in his rage was unmistakable. An Oru-ka warrior might kill his brother for leadership, but he would never trade his tribe to the outside scavengers. It was against the very marrow of our laws.

"If it wasn't you," I rasped, my voice tight with a sickening dread, "then who opened the gates? Who used the sky-metal dampener to shroud my mate?"

Vahn shook his head, his chest heaving. "I don't know... some of my followers... they have been hoarding the old machines. The fallen sky-technology from the wrecks. But none of them... none of them had the balls to do something like this. They are loud, but they are not traitors."

The truth of his words hit me like ice water. Vahn’s faction was aggressive, but they lacked the strategic intelligence to execute a dual-front diversion of this magnitude. Someone else was pulling the strings. Someone closer. Someone who knew exactly how to blind a soul-bind.

And I had just wasted precious minutes fighting the wrong male.

"Get up," I hissed, a cold, lethal calm settling over my fury.

I didn't plunge my blade into his heart. Instead, I dragged the razor-sharp edge of my bone-blade down the left side of his face, slicing a deep track from his temple to his jawline—a permanent mark of his failure and a reminder of who ruled this mountain.

Vahn screamed, clutching his face as dark blood erupted through his fingers.