Chapter 31 · Frontier Lord - Chapter 31: The Heart Under Stone

The tunnel door swings open and Klaus is already inside.

Ava doesn't stop. She's running, boots hammering stone, and the air down here tastes like metal and old earth. The walls are carved, not dug—smooth curves that her ancestors cut when the bloodline was still new. When they still knew what they were doing.

Klaus has a torch. He's twenty paces ahead, moving fast, and he's not alone. Three men. Maybe four. She can hear their boots echoing back.

"Ava." Rain's voice is right behind her, low and tight. "He's got a map."

"I know."

"If he reaches the Heart—"

"I know."

She knows. The Windstone Heart isn't just some family heirloom locked in a pretty box. It's the core of the bloodline, the thing her great-grandfather sealed under the fief when the gift started eating people alive. If Klaus gets his hands on it, he doesn't just own her land. He owns the thing that makes crops grow in frozen soil and timber hold through storms. He owns the reason refugees keep showing up instead of dying on the road.

He owns her.

The tunnel splits. Klaus goes left. Ava doesn't hesitate—