Chapter 378: Parent’s Warning

Morning did not bring rest

Lucifer left the upper chamber well before the twin moons had been swallowed, dressed and was headed down to the deep recovery halls. The palace was awake in the anxious way that it only did when bad news was to be received. The guards took up more stringent posts, origin messenger couriers took tight, purposeful routes within their hush and the air itself seemed braced to receive the news.

Damaris and Lilith had been allocated a sealed off recovery chamber close to the central wards. As Lucifer walked into the chamber the pair were already sitting up, their faces still pinched with exhaustion but the immediate shock of the fight past them. Under their skin, lingering currents of authority swam through their bones and muscles.

Damaris assessed him as evenly as she watched her chains stretch at the edges of the enclave. ’You didn’t sleep long.’

’Long enough.’ Lucifer answered. ’I need what you know of the orb and the being running it. The details that will help in the next fight, not the shape.’

Lilith dark eyes followed his progress as he reached the edge of their respective platforms. ’Then take that chair. If you loom at us like a blade waiting along a scabbard you’ll miss half what you need to know about by standing there.’

He did not lower himself onto the seat but he did stay in place.

Damaris drew a slow breath and began. ’The orb is not only a place of storage but a threshold engine. It does not require all feeds to be brought to the table. Just enough density made up of the appropriate concentration. Removing us, you saw, was two feeds taken away from what it needed to finish the work so it will have its balance shifted but it can still be made to reach the end if we are not all removed by faster drain output from the being running it.’

She paused a beat and it was Lilith who spoke next.

’Not to mention the alternative approach is to claim a late-seed density source such as yourself within its walls and it has sufficient chains to achieve threshold completion with less taken feeds. Which is why the being spoke to you the way it did. You are as much a potential shortcut as the feeds in your veins are to the engine of the orb. Now if you manage to make it close enough to the engine again without appropriate force you, personally, have just made it further than you were prepared to on this occasion.’

Lucifer’s red eyes narrowed. ’By choosing me and me alone as a distraction when you might have threatened to kill anyone available you don’t make me a rescuer. You make me a material’

’Exactly.’ Damaris agreed. ’And you won’t stand in the way after what happened because the first strike was harvest and self-defense, this one is a counter hunt. They’re sending in hunters specialized to kill anyone they see fit and capture any who might be worth the retrieval cost. Us, you, anyone whose deaths or captures will make the threshold math easier for them.’

Lilith’s fingers curled white into the edges of her recovery platform. ’They won’t give a metronome warning next time this happens. They’re arriving fully formed and ready. If your outer lattices are still prepped to test wall strength and take pressure spikes you are expecting the wrong shape of attack.’

Aeloria entered at that moment, her silver-streaked hair damp from another round of recovery cycle breathing. She took in what was said and understood. ’Then we retune the defense grid for infiltration cells, not just pressure mass. Lucian needs that now.’

Nyx hovered in the doorway a pace back, living shadow shifting over stone. ’And the breach team might want to revise their plans out of raiding party formations and into consideration of starting this where you are right now. From here on in it can begin inside your streets without requesting permission.’

Lucifer was already turning back toward the exit to relay these orders when the outer emergency channel erupted open

’Dammit Lucian!’ The young warrior’s voice broke the silence harsh and pared of all pretension. ’Got contact on the outer district, nothing for pressure testing. Several small contacts poked right through the lattice at various points simultaneously. They’re inside the capital rims now.’

The recovery room stilled for a fraction of a beat.

Then the first distant echo of impact rolled through the corridors of the palace

Damaris turned sharply toward the sound. ’Too soon.’

Lilith’s sharp features were already set in the familiar mask of battlefield expression. ’On time for a decision to have already been reached that you would come walking back in tired and in some degree of shock.’

Another impact echoed closer. The crystalline monitoring sphere at the edge of the room flared as several small pockets of hostility shot through the outer districts aiming for the high value clusters.

Aeloria’s starfire bloomed neat and controlled around her hands. ’Counter hunt.’

Nyx’s shadows spilled over the floor in anticipation. ’They didn’t decide to make it a holiday for a week this time.’

Lucifer was already striding toward the exit, the very air around him charged through with sharp current of his authority. ’Lucian, seal the recovery halls. No one breaks in without seeing me personally. Aeloria, Nyx, with me. We intercept before depth is gained’

From the platforms behind him Damaris called after him. ’Not at the risk of losing one to the streets, these aren’t constructs made to measure. They don’t have to come out all at once, just when there’s something worth having in there.’

Lilith’s voice was even colder from where she sat. ’If any of them happen to be built from material to take rather than kill, take for granted the chances they see in the three of us.’

Lucifer did not look back. ’They won’t reach you.’

He vanished from the recovery hall in a blur, Aeloria and Nyx in his wake, the outer districts of the Vampire Realm already awash in the first counter hunt the sealed universe had seen.

The warning had been well founded, it came only minutes before the first blades would be offered.