The debate about whether to fortify or push was not finished within the strategy hall
it simply ended when the lattice screamed
Lucian's emergency channel opened over the palace before dawn, sharp enough to pierce all private doors and recovery wards. Mobile node detected. Information: not a supply relay, not a hunter cell. Something larger than either tore a path near the spirit border and locked onto two new progenitor signatures. Those signatures belonged to Temmy and one unsettled candidate from the outer courts. Should the node complete the pass, both would be lost.
Lucifer was already en route when Damaris found him in the corridor outside the recovery halls. His father's body should have been failing by all known measures of medical viability, but the gold in his authority had taken root and was no longer left to linger behind sealed doors.
"You are not cleared," Lucifer intoned.
