CHAPTER 52: CHAPTER 52 — ATHEON’S FURY

Atheon had not slept.

Not for thirty hours.

Not since the alarms began shrieking through the cracked corridors of Grim Hollow. Not since the food storage chamber vomited smoke and the stench of chemical accelerants. Not since the bodies, the wounded, the terrified civilians, and the swearing soldiers filled the walkways like a single organism made of panic.

But it wasn’t exhaustion twisting his jaw as he strode into the command chamber.

It was disgust.

The moment he pushed open the reinforced door; metal screeching off its rusted hinges—the room went silent. Half a dozen administrative officers sat around the long table. They hadn’t earned their posts; neither through strength nor wit. They were propped up by noble bloodlines, paraded into authority as if the military were nothing more than a stage for aristocratic pageantry.

Pencil pushers, they truly were at least most of them.

People who believed the shield of procedure made them safe from reality.

People who, over the days gone by, had disregarded every warning, every logistical anomaly, every discrepancy squads of men reported.

People who thought danger came with a form attached.

They couldn’t grasp that this war existed to keep their shoes clean. Central schooled them, their families bought them crawlers to pad their records, and every kill nudged them toward another undeserved promotion. But the real prodigies, the actual cream, would never see a place like Grim Hollow. Only the grit that sifted to the bottom ended up here—and Grim Hollow welcomed them still.

Atheon slammed a stack of audit sheets onto the table.

The noise echoed like a gunshot.

"Stand," Atheon said.

None of them moved.

His voice did not rise. It didn’t need to. "All of you. Stand."

Chairs scraped against stone floors.

The back room operators stood.

A few gulped. One adjusted his glasses. Another tucked her ledger against her chest as though it would protect her.

Rhys and the others didn’t fear the captain’s aura being unleashed. But they couldn’t deny he remained one of the most potent adepts in the Northern Army. Their so-called parents; hands steeped in corruption though they were; would never risk tainting their legacy over a dissenting heir. Rank in the Republic could be granted. Wealth could be stripped away. But personal power was eternal, and too many standing here lacked that final, irreplaceable currency.

Their deaths; or even a crippling; would spark outrage, certainly, but these were war times. In a war without end, their parents could only wound with words and polished rhetoric. The truly powerful among them might have crushed Atheon under normal circumstances. But war demands bodies, and none of them could afford to abandon their posts for a single heir among many

Atheon placed both hands on the table, leaning forward. The veins in his forearms bulged like cables.

He began gently, the way a storm begins with the soft shifting of wind.

"Which one of you," Atheon said," sent a report to the Senate claiming everything here was stable; even as the cult was already crawling through our walls.

I know most of you don’t think that far ahead, but surely even you can see what that report implies. It paints one of you as being in league with the cult, a very stupid act to commit."

"Which one of you signed the denial request for an increase in perimeter patrol rations?"

Silence.

The question wasn’t rhetorical.

He scanned the faces, and each one tried to shrink beneath his gaze.

"It was the Operations Sub-Manager, sir," one mumbled.

"Rhys!!"

"Sir." Rhys declared as he saluted.

Atheon nodded once. "Rhys."

Atheon straightened. "Rhys, do you know what your denial caused?"

The man swallowed. "We... we had to keep rations stable across projected months, and the northern campaign—"

"It caused," Atheon interrupted, "three patrol groups to shorten their rotation path. Leaving a blind spot. A blind spot which the Umbral Covenant exploited to bring in operatives."

He took one step closer.

Rhys’ knees wobbled.

"It caused," Atheon continued, "the deaths of four enlisted operatives keeping those back up generators running in last night’s explosion."

"Do you know how difficult it is to be a scientist in the state of the world were in, your safety at the palm of a stranger hands, trusting he wouldn’t neglect its importance.

Those men made sure the artificial light sources here were run smoothly."

Another step.

"And it caused our food supply—our only strategic advantage in this ice-bitten wasteland—to be reduced to this."

He grabbed the audit sheets and thrust them upward.

Pages flapped like dying birds.

"Twelve percent remaining," Atheon said. "Less than a month’s supply at reduced rations. Two weeks at standard rations. Less than ten days if we continue housing refugees in Grim Hollow while supporting the northern front."

The members of the logistical high committee stared at the floor.

"Look at me," Atheon commanded.

They did.

"You did this."

A long silence stretched, taut as a drawn bowstring.

Finally, Atheon exhaled through his nose, long and slow, burning off the worst edges of his rage.

There was a time and place for fury.

Now was the time for leadership.

He placed the documents down, as gently as one sets aside a knife after carving flesh.

"Sit," he said.

They did, quietly, as though afraid the chairs might scream.

Atheon moved to the head of the table. Not the ceremonial center seat—he always ignored that one—but the corner seat with the best view of every face.

He sat heavily.

"We’re going to conduct a full audit," he said. "Right now."

One officer raised a tentative hand. "Captain, we—"

"Sir is fine," he said flatly. "But if you start your sentence with ’protocol recommends,’ I will personally throw you out of this room."

The hand lowered.

"Now," Atheon continued, pulling open the first ledger. "Before the sabotage, the outpost held enough emergency protein reserves to last forty days. The saboteur; Larkin, confirmed by the recruits—used a thermal accelerant that burned hotter than standard firebomb compounds. The vault was damaged beyond easy repair."

The room listened, rigid.

"We have inspected what remains. The damage was... purposeful. Surgical. This was not destruction for chaos."

He looked up.

"This was destruction with strategy."

One of the younger clerks paled. "Starvation as a weapon."

"Yes." Atheon did not sugarcoat. "Against us. Against the republic’s war timetable. Against the northern campaign which depends on our output."

He pressed both hands together, fingers interlocking. His knuckles cracked like stones ground together.

"The Umbral Covenant is not just a cult. They are a shadow network with doctrine, discipline, and infiltration pathways across the Republic. Our internal screening clearly failed. And your paperwork"—he gestured toward the officers—"helped it fail."

No one argued.

"Therefore," Atheon continued, "effective immediately, all logistical authority reverts to wartime structure. Central command in the capital has already been informed. But we are not waiting for them to decide the fate of Grim Hollow."

He rose again.

His shadow stretched across the table.

"We are preparing for evacuation."

A gasp broke the room’s silence.

One of the older officers said, "Abandon Grim Hollow? But sir, the outpost is a historical bulwark! It’s the choke point between the northern frontier and the—"

"At ease," Atheon snapped. "History does not outrank survival."

He circled the table slowly, eyes tracing their faces like a judge walking the gallows.

"Listen carefully. Grim Hollow’s defenses are intact. Its walls stand. Its barracks remain. But without the ability to feed our soldiers, we cannot hold this outpost. Starving soldiers do not fight. Starving workers riot."

He paused.

"And starving outposts become graves."

No one dared reply.

Atheon continued, "We cannot support the northern campaign while feeding Grim Hollow. Central command has already delayed the next troop deployment. The Covenant achieved exactly what they wanted. They have stalled the Republic’s advance."

He rested a hand against the table. "And they did it through us."

The words landed like blows.

"Now for the plan." Atheon’s voice became steel. "We begin emergency redistribution of supplies. We stabilize the wounded. We escort non-essential civilians south. All Initiates and above remain on-site until further order."

A clerk hesitantly asked, "And the food stores, sir? What remains?"

Atheon opened another folder.

A crude sketch of the blast site lay inside.

His voice darkened. "We salvage what we can. Dry grains that didn’t ignite. Containers on the outer racks. Herbs and medicinal roots in the adjacent chamber."

He tapped the map.

"But most are gone. Permanently."

The room wilted.

"We were lucky," Atheon said, though his tone made luck sound like a curse. "If not for the intervention of some brave recruits, the entire vault would be ash."

One of the officers frowned. "Private Morgan... the young Initiate? The one who—"

"Yes," Atheon cut in. "The same one who nearly died stopping a Covenant infiltrator your paperwork allowed to operate unnoticed."

The officer shut up immediately.

Atheon breathed deeply, shoulders rising like a mountain shifting under pressure.

He turned toward the window. Outside, Grim Hollow lay under a sunless pall. Smoke still curled from the cracked stone of the food vault. Civilians moved like ghosts through the narrow walkways, clutching blankets against the cold.

The outpost felt smaller now.

Darker.

As though a great hand had reached into its heart and squeezed.

But Atheon was not a man who bowed to despair.

He straightened.

His voice lowered—but became more dangerous because of it.

"We will not allow the Umbral Covenant another victory here. We will not let Grim Hollow fall in disgrace. We will not leave these people to starve."

He turned to face the administrative officers.

"You will do your jobs. You will do them correctly. And you will not hide behind forms or procedures."

He swept the scattered papers back into order with one drag of his hand.

The officers watched him like chastened children.

"We will relocate to Outpost Vesper or Hunter’s Ridge. They have storage capacity. They have incoming caravans. Grim Hollow will function as a skeleton post until reinforcement cycles resume."

"But that means—" the older woman whispered.

"Yes," Atheon said, meeting her eyes. "It means we give the Covenant exactly what they hoped for. It means we lose strategic ground. It means the northern front stalls. It means the Republic bleeds time."

His voice became a low growl.

"But we will not lose lives unnecessarily to pride."

He stepped to the door.

"Finish the audit," he said. "Every crate. Every grain. Every barrel. I want numbers by dusk."

The officers scrambled into action.

Atheon paused with his hand on the doorframe.

"And one more thing."

They all froze.

"You will treat this attack not as embarrassment, but as a warning. The Covenant is inside our walls. Inside our systems. Inside our assumptions. If you wish to defend the Republic, start by defending your own competence."

He left the room without waiting for replies.

The hallway outside felt strangely colder.

Atheon stretched his shoulders, rolling tension off the bone. He had always known the outpost’s bureaucratic layer was sluggish, but he had underestimated just how deeply complacency had sunk into its marrow.

They were lucky—disgustingly lucky.

Lucky that the Covenant operative had underestimated them.

Lucky that the vault didn’t completely collapse.

But luck was a fool’s foundation.

Atheon preferred certainty.

He walked toward the lowered platform overlooking the outer courtyard. The air tasted faintly of smoke. Soldiers were clearing rubble. Carriers hauled damaged crates. The triage tent, still flooded with wounded, had a line extending out the flap.

And beyond it...

The cracked entrance to the food storage vault. The ground surrounding it still charred.

Atheon clenched his jaw.

If the Covenant intended to fracture Grim Hollow, they had succeeded.

Now he had to solve the aftermath.

A junior officer jogged toward him, saluting quickly. "Sir! The repair teams say the vault hinge can be welded shut in two hours. A temporary seal."

Atheon nodded. "Good. Do it. And tell them no one enters except myself."

"Yes, sir!"

The young man sprinted back.

Atheon exhaled.

He leaned against the railing, watching the weary outpost moving like an injured beast.

And for the first time in days, he slouched reminiscing of his youth were responsibilities rolled of his shoulder.