The storm had rolled in during the night. Praise's mansion stood like an island of pale stone in a sea of dark trees, its windows glimmering faintly with protective runes. Inside, everything was too quiet. Not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the heavy silence of a house holding its breath.
Prince lay awake on the sofa in one of the guest rooms, staring at the ceiling. Sleep wouldn't come. His mind kept replaying the image of the Revenant scout dissolving into shadows, and the glyph it left behind pulsing like a heartbeat. He could feel it even now, a faint echo somewhere at the edge of his thoughts. He rolled over and caught sight of Praise walking past the open doorway, a candle in her hand, hair loose around her shoulders.
He pushed himself up. "You can't sleep either?"
She stopped, the candlelight turning her eyes gold. "No. The wards keep… flickering. I've never seen them strain like this."
Prince joined her in the hallway. "Is it dangerous?"
Praise's gaze slid to the windows where faint sigils glowed and faded like dying stars. "They're testing us. Something's pushing against the mansion, looking for a crack." She hesitated, then said quietly, "It feels the same as the night my parents died."
Prince's heart clenched. He wanted to say something comforting, but words stuck in his throat. Instead he said, "We won't let it through. Not while I'm here." The moment hung between them, a promise and something more.
Down the corridor, Lammy emerged from a room, rubbing his temples. "You two feel it too?" His normally teasing voice was taut. "The air's wrong. Cold… full of whispers."
Jed padded up behind him in a loose shirt, eyes already glowing faintly. "I smell something on the edges. Like wet ash."
They moved together to the grand hall. The glyph from two nights ago had spread into thin veins across the marble floor, glowing like black ice. Praise knelt, tracing a pattern with her fingers. "It's feeding on our defenses."
Lammy muttered a chant and flicked powder over the veins. Sparks hissed but the veins kept growing. "That's not a normal Revenant mark. It's a beacon."
Prince closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind the way he'd done against the scout. For a second he saw beyond the mansion: shadows circling the forest, moving without bodies. Phantoms, dozens of them, each carrying a shard of malice from the Hive. They weren't just testing; they were synchronising.
"They're here," he whispered. "All around us."
The temperature dropped. Frost laced the windows from the outside in. The wards flared white and then dimmed. A low, otherworldly wail seeped through the walls like a chorus of the dead. Praise rose, staff in hand, and blue fire gathered at its tip. "Positions!" she snapped. "If they breach, hold the central chamber. Lammy, reinforce the inner sigils. Jed, perimeter. Prince—stay with me. You can see them coming."
He nodded, pulse hammering. This was no training run; this was war.
The first impact hit like a drumbeat. Invisible claws scraped the wards, sending showers of blue sparks across the ceiling. In the courtyard beyond the glass doors, shapes flickered—half-formed creatures with hollow eyes and twisting claws. Their howls weren't sound but pressure, pushing against the mind. Prince staggered but steadied himself, focusing until their outlines became clearer.
"They're trying to find weak spots," he said. "Three to the west wing, five to the east, more coming."
Lammy slammed his palms onto the floor, chanting in a language older than the city. Lines of silver fire shot through the hall, reinforcing the sigils. "Buy me a minute!" he shouted.
Jed sprinted down a side corridor, shifting mid-stride. Fur rippled over his arms, claws sprouted from his fingers. He slammed into a window just as a phantom tried to squeeze through a hairline crack, his transformed body blocking it long enough for the ward to flare and reseal.
Praise raised her staff. "Prince, guide me."
He grabbed her wrist without thinking, letting his mind flow outward. The phantoms burned bright in his vision like embers in smoke. "There!" he pointed. "Above the chandelier. Two more by the staircase."
She whispered an incantation and the staff blazed. Light spears shot into the ceiling, striking invisible shapes. The phantoms shrieked and scattered, shadows peeling from their claws. A blast of cold wind knocked the candle from her hand but Prince caught her before she stumbled.
For a heartbeat their eyes locked. The chaos around them blurred, but he saw her clearly—fierce, afraid, and beautiful. Something inside him hardened into resolve. I won't let them take her.
Another crash tore him back. The eastern wing door bulged inward, wards cracking like ice under too much weight. Lammy shouted from the floor, sweat pouring down his face. "They're using a resonator! If they break the east door the whole barrier will fall!"
Prince closed his eyes, searching for the resonator through the haze. He found it—a knot of black energy pulsing behind the phantoms, hidden in the treeline. He pushed his mind harder, sending an illusion of fire and lightning into their ranks. For a moment the phantoms reeled, claws slashing at false flames.
"Now!" he yelled.
Praise drew on the mansion's heartstone, a crystal embedded in the wall behind the fireplace. Blue light surged from it into her staff. She swung it like a blade and a wave of energy swept the hall, shattering three phantoms at once and sealing the east door. Jed howled in triumph from the corridor.
The wards steadied, flickering but holding. For now.
Silence descended, broken only by Lammy's ragged breathing. "That… was just the first wave," he said.
Praise lowered her staff, hands trembling. "They were only testing us. The real strike is still coming."
Prince stared at the black veins on the floor. They weren't fading. They pulsed faster now, like a countdown. He felt the Hive watching through them—the Architect, the lieutenant with the missing hand—eyes fixed on him across the distance.
Jed reappeared, blood on his knuckles. "We can't sit here waiting. They'll hit us again and harder."
Praise looked at each of them. "Then we prepare. This mansion was my family's sanctuary. It can become our fortress if we unlock everything it holds. But it will take all of us."
Prince exhaled, trying to steady the rush of adrenaline. "Whatever they send next," he said quietly, "I'll be ready."
Outside, in the forest, shadows shifted. Beyond the wards the phantoms regrouped, circling like wolves. And far away in the Hive, a silver-eyed man watched through the lieutenant's feed and smiled.
The countdown had begun.