"I've mindlinked my men. They are on their way."
River's eyes moved to him briefly. He saw the question forming and dying in the same second, the how does that work competing with the my father is about to die.
Then she saw movement.
Through the matebond, her anxiety went nuclear. A hand glowing with dark magic in the tree line, forty yards east. Angled at Atlas's blindspot. The ambush was seconds from launching and the wolves were minutes away and the math between seconds and minutes was the math that killed kings.
Lucian felt the decision form inside her through the matebond before her body executed it. Her resolve hardened into something that went past determination and arrived at a place where consequences stopped mattering. The same frequency she'd carried when she stood between guards and Vesper. The same frequency she'd carried when she burned a star off her neck. The frequency of a woman who had already counted the cost and was paying it in advance.
