The war room of the Nightbound's hidden lair buzzed with activity. Monitors flashed with surveillance feeds, maps spread across tables, and digital markers tracked motion along tunnels beneath Silver City. Helena herself stood in the middle of it, scanning a holographic map of the Temple's collapse site.
She had not received word from Zara in over two hours.
"Still no word?" she demanded of her tech lead, Myles.
Myles shook his head. "Nothing. Her comms dropped after she went into the lower sector. Whatever's down there. it's jamming everything."
Helena's jaw was set. Zara was a tough cookie, but that place had reeked of something old. Something nasty.
"She shouldn't have gone in by herself," she said.
"Missed me," Myles reminded her. \"And let's be honest—when has Zara Kane ever listened to somebody say no when she gets an idea in her head?\"
Helena allowed a brief smirk, then pounded the comms. "Alright. I want a recon squad ready in ten. We're going down there—jamming or not."
Before she could speak the rest of the command, a pulse swept through the room—a rapid vibration that rattled the walls and caused tremors in all the screens. Lights flashed. Power wavered.
Then Zara's voice, faint but firm, rode across the air.
"Helena. I'm here."
The room hung suspended.
"Zara?" Helena strained forward against the console. "Are you all right?"
A moment of pause, then: "I'm alive. I've incarcerated the tainted Shard. But I discovered something more. There were others—well over six. Solan hadn't lied to me. Thirteen Shards. Thirteen wardens."
Helena cut a look toward Myles. "Thirteen?"
"I need to be extricated," Zara said. "And we need to have a conversation—today. It's much greater than the Order."
Helena nodded. "On my way.".
Twenty minutes on, the recon team encountered Zara just short of the temple ruins. Dust covered her black fatigues, her hair was pulled back in a tangled braid, and her shadows danced uncertainly around her like smoke from a smoldering fire.
But eyes—her eyes—they glowed.
Helena stepped forward first. "You look like you went ten rounds with the apocalypse."
Zara smiled faintly. "Close enough."
Helena helped her to her feet. "What did you do down there?"
Zara's gaze wandered to the ruined entrance behind her. "The Order was seeking power. But Solan—he was keeping something from us. The Shard I closed was corrupted, and there are others like it. They're waking, Helena."
"And the Wound?"
"It's real. It's a rift beneath the city. The source of the Aether itself." Zara paused. "If it opens again… the previous war will be deemed a battle."
In the base, Zara was taken to the medical center for scanning, though nothing of her physiology was natural anymore. The Shard had merged with her at a molecular level—every test they conducted confirmed that. She was half human, half Aetherborne now.
Helena returned to the war room and summoned the central Nightbound council. They needed to prepare.
As Zara arrived, she looked around the room at the team who had risked everything for Silver City.
"There are others like me out there," she said. "Some will want to defend. Others will want to conquer. But they're all coming."
Helena folded her arms. "So what do we do?"
Zara stepped into the center of the room, her tone decisive.
"We find the rest of the Shards first. We find the other wardens. And make sure no one else is opening the Wound."
There was silence in the room—then Myles raised an eyebrow. "You're discussing a global manhunt. Shard by Shard."
Zara nodded. "Exactly."
Helena sat back, a wicked grin spreading. "Well, I guess we'd better upgrade our gear."
The Nightbound would no longer just defend Silver City.
They were going to war—for the world.
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