Golden eyes snapped open to a sliver of blue sky. Beyond the transparent do that served as her ceiling, clouds floated, their edges shredded by high-altitude winds. She must have forgotten to tint the smart glass before falling asleep.
Propping herself on her elbows, she tried to sit up. A warm, furry weight refused to budge from her stomach.
Mia, her Maine Coon, purred as Athena’s fingers combed the cat’s luxuriant ruff. The animal’s eyes glead the sa molten gold as her own. Perhaps that was why Father had chosen her.
“Morning, trouble,” she said.
Mia licked her fingers. Athena smiled. “You miss .”
The cat whined when she slid the duvet aside and reached for her phone. One swipe dimd the do, fading the sky to muted grey. The temperature rose a degree, although the mansion’s climate never changed without permission.
A reminder that soone else now walked its corridors.
She shrugged into a long-sleeved white dress just as two knocks struck the door.
Ares filled the doorway, almost brushing the fra. Even behind bronze-tinted lenses she felt his gaze burning. The lenses reflected the room like a two-way mirror, granting him sight while denying her the sa courtesy.
A power play as old as her childhood.
Adrian, her elder brother, lacked that piercing stare. Easier-going, far less stern. Even Ares had softened since her return, perhaps because this was the longest she had stayed ho in three years.
“How are you feeling, Thena?” Ares asked softly.
She looked away, not because she feared seeing his thoughts. His Gift dampened hers. Old habit, nothing more. “As well as can be expected, Father.”
Only then did he step inside, hands folded behind his back. “Are the visions still clawing at you?”
“They’re louder.” She paused, choosing honesty. “Images I would rather forget.”
“You could stay here and ride the storm.”
“We both know that won’t happen.” Their disagreent had burned through weeks of argunts. He wanted her to abandon the Academy. She refused.
“I thought we had an understanding. Adrian also believes I’ll be invaluable when this year’s graduates showcase their Gifts,” she reminded him.
Cover story, nothing more. Recruiting new agents for Father was out of the question.
He smiled. “Term Three resus in a month. Certain you’re ready to return?”
“Since I saw that thing called Pride, silencing the noise has grown harder,” she admitted. His gentler tone always loosened her guard.
Ares crossed to the balcony and rested both hands on cool marble. Winter sky arched over the Warrungal Ranges and the distant spires of Alchymia.
“Are you still determined to stay uninvolved, Father?”
He didn’t turn. “You an the flu, the violet mist, or the creature you claim to sense?”
“All of it. You can act. You should act.”
“I’ve never traded in charity, Thena.”
Of course. Cold space opened between them. “How long will you pretend you do not hear the rot?”
“Who says it is rot?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Might be evolution, entropy, dust. You’re assuming intent.”
Athena advanced a step. “You’ve heard the chaos. You watched the aftermath. Lives lost. Violence rising isn't accident.”
He chuckled. “Bold. Let guess, the Theomund boy has sparked a crusade in the girl who once flinched at stray thoughts?”
There it was again. Warmth had always been pretext. Silence that followed was calculated. She rembered exactly why she had wanted to leave.
Aggression didn’t need to shout. Sotis, it ca dressed in polished words and deliberate pauses. He hadn’t raised his voice, but he had spent years moulding her into sothing cold and precise. And for a long ti, no matter how hard she fought, it had worked.
It wasn’t until she stepped away that she saw the shape of the mould he’d tried to press her into.
“My life at school is not yours to manage.”
“Speaking of school…” He straightened. “Join for breakfast. We need to discuss your new arrangent.”
“What arrangent?”
“Orion will accompany you to St Kevin’s. She will keep the smoke creature hungry elsewhere.”
“Orion? You’re sending your most trusted operative?”
He nodded, once.
“I haven’t seen her in awhile. Where has she been?” she asked.
“Busy.”
Athena knew exactly where Orion was: Queenstown. She hadn’t ant to eavesdrop, but her father’s aide, the sa one who had accompanied her to Thomas’s Masquerade, broadcast his thoughts loud enough.
It struck her as odd that they both visited New Zealand so frequently, yet refused to say why. After all, that remote land lay far beyond his usual sches. Was he hiding sothing there?
Her father’s soft tone intruded. “She will enjoy the academy. I am certain.”
Unease slid down her spine. Orion had always unsettled her, and the thought of that woman gliding through St Kevin’s halls felt like trouble.
“Father, I don’t need a bodyguard. Not when the Council is still dealing with the outbreak.”
“Which is exactly why I’m sending her. Troubles cling to your school like moss to stone, do they not?”
“The Senate race and the flu aren't centred on St Kevin’s,” Athena argued. “Not exclusively.”
“Aren’t they?” Ares finally turned. “But close enough. You wanted support. I’m giving you Orion.”
“She’s not support. She’s an assassin. Putting her in a school full of teenagers is—”
“Dangerous, or effective?” he interrupted. That dark smile flickered again. Whenever Orion’s na arose, fascination sharpened his features to sothing disturbingly secretive.
Athena preferred not to know why.
“Is this really for my safety, or is there soone else you want her to hunt?”
His gaze wandered to the mountains. “She’s on the register already. You will hardly know she is there.”
Athena recognised dismissal. Conversation ended. She could only hope this year’s graduates steered well clear of her father.
Lionel slipped through the mahogany doors, pulse ticking in his ears. Afternoon sunlight painted thin bars across the Minister’s study. Within those bars Ares sat perfectly still, gloved fingers tapping the ebony desktop in ti with the cantabile of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu.
“Your report, Lionel.”
“Lord Minister.” He crossed the thick carpet and set the dossier exactly where the Minister preferred. Inside, photographs revealed a silver-haired woman holding twin blades that glittered like diamonds.
“tal Gift. Nothing abnormal recorded.”
Ares traced the woman’s jaw with a silk-clad thumb. “And yet she bends diamond to her will.”
“Professor Crane says tal Gifts can influence elents outside their usual lattice. Given enough control, carbon compresses—"
"I know the theory." Ares turned the pages without glancing at them, the chill in his eyes reserved for Lionel. “Have you ever seen anyone manage it?”
Lionel hesitated. “No, Lord Minister.”
The Minister poured himself a glass of Hibiki 35. “She’s either hiding the true extent of her range, or she’s exceptional.” His head tilted as though he heard a note below human hearing. “ Either way, she might be worth inviting. Especially now that the anomalies have vanished.”
“The smoke creatures, sir? You sense nothing now?”
Ares’s voice stayed soft, cold. “Funny timing, isn’t it? The Council’s operatives arrived last week, and, by coincidence, smoke and creatures evaporated. My inbox is empty.” He smiled. “ What does that tell you, Lionel?”
“That the Council’s hiding sothing?”
Ares chuckled. “Of course they are.”
“Might be because public opinion’s soured,” Lionel suggested. “Blackwood, the flu mis-managent, their passive watch on the Eye… confidence is fading fast.”
“Or they’ve found sothing and decided not to share.” Ares closed the dossier with a soft click. “Draft the petition. I am reclaiming custodianship of the Eye.”
Lionel’s head snapped up. “Lord Minister, with respect, the political fallout could be serious. We handed them the authority for—”
The Minister’s stare flattened the protest. “ Their credibility’s already in pieces, and they shad themselves by indulging my fool of a son. They will not oppose us this recruitnt cycle. They may try, if they dare.”
“If they reach Miss Astra first…”
“Astra.” Ares tasted the na. “One wooden sword, one breath, and she dispersed a creature their elite squad could not cage. St Kevin’s whispers “S-Class” while she barely tries.”
His voice dropped. “She will be ours.”
Then his eyes grew distant. “As is the Eye. Now, leave.”
Power seed to thrum through the wood-panelled room. Books shivered on their shelves.
“Understood, Lord Minister.” Lionel bowed, smoothed shaking hands against his blazer, and turned for the door. Over his shoulder he glimpsed Ares facing the sky, fist clenched. It trembled, too.
Lionel’s crimson eyes sharpened. The Minister’s timing was no accident.
Closing the door behind him, he prayed Ares would not dig deeper, yet he knew this year’s recruitnt would be watched like a hawk.
Coincidence, Lionel told himself, is only a polite word for design. Nothing is ever random.
Natalia must stay hidden, invisible and unremarkable. If Ares’s gaze swung her way…
His mind flickered back to the footage: Astra, casually wielding lightning at City Hall. It hadn’t been destroyed, only sealed and encrypted. A secret kept… for now.
Lionel clenched his own fist and walked on. He would protect his sister and spare her the fate that had consud so many others.
Even if the price was his conscience.
Even if it ant war.
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