Chapter 33 · The Beacons Bite Back

"She's burning out." Thera's voice cut through the ice chamber. "Pull her out now or the core takes everything."

"No." I kept my hand on the crystal. Every beacon across the north pulsed in my skull like a second heartbeat. I could feel them—forty-seven camps, all lit, all waiting. "Not yet."

Virrak grabbed my shoulder. "Lynn. Your nose is bleeding."

"I know." The blood tasted like copper and old snow. The core hummed under my palm, warm and hungry. Numbers I hadn't seen in weeks flooded back—troop counts, supply lines, morale percentages—but wrong, backwards, like the system was reading me instead of the other way around.

"What's it showing you?" Aldric stood at the chamber entrance, one hand on his sword. He'd followed us down here. Of course he had.

"Everything." I blinked and the frost on the walls turned into tactical overlays. Weak points. Strong points. Who'd kneel. Who'd fight. "Every clan that cast me out. Every lord who said I was too weak."

"And?" His voice was careful. Too careful.

"And I can make them kneel." The words came out flat. True. The beacons weren't just lights—