Chapter 20 · Untitled Chapter

"They’re not coming through that gate, Reina."

Marcus said it softly. Almost gently.

That made it worse.

Reina kept her palm pressed to the carved sigil. It hummed under her skin while pale blue light leaked through the cracks in the north wall. Her mother’s voice had stopped thirty seconds ago.

The last thing she’d said was kill him.

Reina hadn’t moved.

"You don’t know that."

"I do."

"You don’t know my family. You don’t know what they’d do for me."

Marcus took one step closer. His boot scraped stone. "I know what the Veil does to assets. They don’t extract them. They spend them."

Her fingers tightened against the sigil. "Shut up."

"They used your family as bait."

"I said shut up."

"Reina—"

She spun and brought up her blade.

Marcus didn’t reach for his weapon. He didn’t even flinch. He stood two meters away, watching her like he’d already measured the distance, the angle, and the damage she could do before he stopped her.

"Go on," he said. "But look at the gate first."

"I’m not playing your—"

"Look at it."

She wanted to finish the sequence. Open the gate. Step through.