CHAPTER 113: TO THE THORNE ESTATE

The war room settled into a low glow as the map hollowed into view—seven Oblivion Gates pulsing like open wounds over the continents, red rings thudding in time with distant alarms. No one spoke. Lucian stood at the edge of the table, hands loose at his sides, eyes on the biggest ring drifting over the western badlands.

"We’re done playing defense," he said. "I’m taking a strike team through. Before that, we set this world up to live without me."

That last line landed. Evelyn’s mouth tightened. Silas looked away. Reia tapped her pen once, then stilled it.

Vyn broke the quiet. "Without you?"

Lucian nodded. "If I’m gone a day, a month, or forever, everything we’ve built keeps moving. You four will run it."

Silas folded his arms. "Run what, exactly?"

"Three pillars," Lucian said. "Shield, signal, sword."

He pointed to the northern coast. "Shield: Reia, you’re command-and-control. Build a net with the Association branches willing to listen and the independent guilds who actually fight. You’ll get the feeds from Nova Sanctum—gates, signatures, any movement on the rifts. You’ll call evacuations, forward units, deny zones. If a gate tilts unstable, you lock down a hundred kilometers without asking."

Reia nodded once, already writing, already building the spine of it in her head.

"Signal," Lucian went on, turning to Evelyn. "You become our face and our ghost. Multiply where you need reach. Sit a copy in every city with a gate within three hundred miles. Speak for us. Calm crowds. Kick commanders who freeze. If a mayor argues, replace him with someone who doesn’t."

Evelyn’s brow arched. "Replace?"

"Legally if you can," Lucian said. "Fast if you can’t."

Her smile was all teeth. "Understood."

"And the sword," Lucian said, eyes settling on Vyn and Silas. "Silas, you move. You’ll be where the fire is hottest. Hunter brigades listen to strength—show them strength. Vyn, you anchor our arcane. Your arrays, your barriers, your traps—we pull our casualty curve down or we don’t make it a year. You’ll have full access to Sanctum’s libraries."

Vyn’s gaze flicked up. "My uncle won’t sit still while we reorganize his board."

"I know," Lucian said. "That’s the other thing."

The map dimmed. The room felt smaller. He looked at each of them in turn.

"Your biggest enemy here isn’t a gate," he said. "It’s Eron. He’s jealous, he’s petty, and he’s used to being the sky everyone else prays to. I’m about to do something that puts his eyes on you. All of you."

Silas frowned. "What’re you planning?"

Vyn’s voice came flat, steady. "What can you do that would make my uncle hate us more than he already does?"

Lucian’s answer was clean and without heat. "Kill his son."

No one moved. Even the ship seemed to quiet.

Evelyn’s arms uncrossed. "You’re serious."

"Very," Lucian said.

"Why?" Reia asked. Not a challenge—just the single line she needed to draw on the page.

"Personal," Lucian said. "You won’t understand it. You don’t have to. Garrick’s breath still sits in my lungs when I sleep. He took something that mattered and made a game of it. That game ends."

Silas’s jaw worked. "You could do it quiet."

"I won’t," Lucian said. "He’ll know. Eron will know. The world will know who broke the Thorne line."

Vyn’s eyes held on his. "You realize what that sets off."

"Yes," he said. "That’s the point. Let him look at me while you build. Let him rage at the sky and miss the ground shifting under his feet."

Reia’s pen started again, a neat, quick rhythm. "If you take Nova Sanctum to the other side, we lose the backbone. Our feeds, our med, our lift."

"You won’t," Lucian said. "I’ll leave a base you can grow from."

Silas glanced around, as if searching for walls that weren’t there. "Where? You can’t build a fortress in a week."

"I can," Lucian said.

Evelyn blinked. "Since when?"

He let the hint of a smile touch his mouth. "Since before you met me. Construction’s part of my kit. This ship. The armories. The med bays. You thought they appeared because I asked nicely?"

The realization rippled through them like a light turning on. Reia’s pen halted. Vyn’s chin dipped a fraction. Silas gave a short, disbelieving breath.

"So you’ll... what," Evelyn said, "drop a city somewhere?"

"A citadel," Lucian said. "Hidden. Self-sustaining. Transit spires to reach any gate within minutes. Vaults, clinics, training floors, fabrication lines, farms under glass. You’ll have a place no government can seize and no family can burn."

Vyn’s voice softened, just enough to be heard. "You should’ve told us."

He shook his head. "I didn’t have time."

They looked at him like they were seeing the outline of a larger shape behind him, something they’d been walking beside without naming. It didn’t make the room any warmer.

Reia tore a page free, slid it across the table. "Then I want a chain of command signed. If you vanish, no one argues about who calls what. We can’t afford a six-hour power struggle."

Lucian took the page, scanned it, signed. "Done. You three—Evelyn, Vyn, Silas—carry equal weight in the field. Reia outranks you for strategic calls and withdrawals. If you disagree, you argue for thirty seconds, then obey the call. If you split two-two, default to fall back."

Evelyn whistled low. "He really expects us to fight nice."

"Fight smart," Lucian said. "There’s a difference."

The lights in the ceiling dimmed, then brightened again as if the ship had taken a breath. It was a small thing, but they all felt it—like a living thing in the steel.

Vyn broke the quiet. "What about the dragon?"

"Karl stays," Lucian said. "Sealed and fed. If he talks more, Reia logs it. If he tries anything clever, he sleeps."

Silas’s fingers drummed once on the table. "And the raid team? Who goes with you?"

"Lucy," Lucian said. "No one else."

That sparked three protests at once. Evelyn’s hands came up. "Absolutely not." Silas shook his head. "You want two people to breach a world those things own?" Even Reia, who rarely raised her voice, said, "Tactically unsound."

Lucian didn’t flinch. "The more of us there, the harder it is to move. Two can vanish in ways an army can’t. If we fail, you’re not trapped on the other side with me."

Vyn’s gaze narrowed. "And the pit stop you mentioned?"

He looked past them, toward the dark hull beyond the glass, where the stars waited like patient teeth.

"Thorne Estate."

That drew the room tighter than any alarm.

Evelyn leaned in. "You’re going now?"

"Before the raid," Lucian said. "I won’t carry Garrick in the back of my head through another war. This ends first."

"How public?" Silas asked.

Lucian’s answer was a blade. "Very."

Vyn swallowed, then set her shoulders. "He’s family," she said. "And he made his choices. I won’t stand in your way."

Reia slid the chain-of-command copy back to her with a small nod. "We’ll be busy. Eron’s response won’t be small."

"Good," Lucian said. "Busy men have less time to be cruel."

The door hissed.

Lucy stepped in like a spark with legs—hair tied back, new coat already singed at the hem, gauntlets banded and black. The air around her ran hot in quiet waves, the kind that whisper across metal before it glows.

"Lucian," she said, jaw set. "I’m ready."

He looked at her for a breath. For the first time in an hour, the iron in his eyes eased a fraction.

"Good," he said. "We have a pit stop."

She raised an eyebrow. "Where?"

"Thorne Estate," he said.

Her answer was a slow, mean smile. "Finally."

Evelyn stood. "If we’re doing this—if you’re doing this—at least let us move a screen. A net of eyes around the estate. If Eron mobilizes, I want to see the first twitch."

Reia was already drawing routes. "I’ll pull down the estate’s public layouts, cross them with old permits, power lines, maintenance tunnels. Vyn—give me a way to blind their wards without tipping them."

Vyn’s fingers traced a short pattern in the air. Symbols flared and sank. "I can haze the estate’s perimeter for ninety seconds at full saturation. No longer. They’ll feel the itch."

"More than enough," Lucian said.

Silas hit his chest once with a closed fist. "If it turns into a siege—"

"It won’t," Lucian said.

He turned to the ceiling, voice flat. "Set course: Thorne Estate, capital district."

The deck hummed. The stars outside tilted. Somewhere deep in the ship, engines that had never been built in this world sang without sound.

Lucy rolled her shoulder. "You sure you don’t want me to set the place on fire the second we arrive?"

"Not the second," Lucian said. "I want Garrick to look me in the eyes before the heat takes his voice."

Evelyn grimaced. "You’re not making friends today."

"I’m not here for friends," he said.

Reia tore another page, tucked it into her jacket. "We’ll start moving our pieces as soon as you drop. If Eron calls in favors, we clog every road with inspections, every runway with ’maintenance,’ every comm line with ’updates.’ Paperwork is a weapon too."

Silas smirked. "Reia’s war is the pettiest one."

"Effective," she corrected.

"Let’s move."