[POV: Sofia Lanka]

"You were dead. I watched the security footage of the explosion at the Cairo docks until the tape hissed with static, Mother. I wore black for three years while you were breathing the air of the Swiss Alps in a fortress paid for by my grief."

Sofia’s voice was as cold as the glacial wind howling outside the sanctuary’s reinforced iron doors. She stood in the center of the command hub, her hand clutched around the silver Lanka pin, her knuckles white with a tension that felt like it might snap her bones. The room was bathed in a clinical, blue light that caught the tears she...