Charon's message was a death sentence, and Elder Valerius knew it.
He was a man trapped between two closing walls. On one side, a clan that was beginning to suspect his corruption and a political firestorm that was eroding his power.
On the other, a shadowy organization that now saw him as a liability to be erased. A cornered animal is at its most dangerous, and Valerius was a dragon.
His response was not to retreat, but to escalate.
He used his remaining authority on the Azure Dragon council to do the unthinkable: he declared a state of high alert and mobilized the clan's elite fleet, the Azure Wings, citing 'credible threats of imminent attack from both the Sunstone Jaguars and the Onyx Serpents.' He was manufacturing a crisis, hoping to use the fog of war to consolidate his power, eliminate his internal rivals, and re-establish his value to the Vanguard.
The Core Sectors were suddenly on the brink of an open, three-way war. Fleets were mobilized.
Energy shields shimmered over the clan strongholds. The city held its breath.
General Tarik was furious.
"The man is a lunatic!" he roared in a secure communication with Kiera.
"He's going to burn the city to the ground to save his own skin!" Tarik's own plans were being threatened.
He had wanted a slow, controlled purge, not a full-scale war that would decimate all three major clans and leave the city vulnerable to the Vanguard's true forces.
"Your gambit has failed, warrior," he growled at Kiera.
"You have only succeeded in making him more desperate, more dangerous. I am revoking your sanctuary. You have become as much of a liability as he is." The walls were closing in on them again.
Disavowed by their ally, hunted by their enemies, they were once again alone, adrift in a city preparing for war.
Joric, his face grim, monitored the escalating military chatter.
"This is it," he said quietly.
"Once the first shot is fired, there's no turning back. The Vanguard will win without ever showing their faces." But Ryu, listening to the cacophony of the city's energy with his enhanced senses, felt something else.
Beneath the loud, aggressive roar of the mobilizing fleets, he sensed a new energy signature, one he hadn't felt before.
It was within the Azure Dragon stronghold itself, but it was not of the clan. It was cold, silent, and methodical.
It was the energy of a master spy, an assassin. It was Charon.
He wasn't just sending messages.
He had come personally.
"Charon is in the stronghold," Ryu announced, his voice tight with concentration.
"He's not there to help Valerius. He's there to 'clean house.' He's going to assassinate him." Kiera's eyes widened.
The pieces clicked into place with horrifying clarity.
This was Charon's endgame.
He had used them to discredit Valerius.
He had used Valerius's own desperation to create a city-wide military crisis.
And now, in the chaos of the mobilization, he was going to personally eliminate his rival's most powerful piece, an act that would be blamed on one of the other clans in the ensuing battle.
It was a perfect, multi-layered deception.
"We have to stop him," Kiera said, her voice a low, urgent whisper.
"Why?" Joric demanded.
"Let the vipers eat each other!" "Because if Charon succeeds," Kiera replied, "he not only gets rid of a rival asset, but he also gets the war he wants, and the Azure Dragons will be thrown into a succession crisis that will leave them vulnerable for decades. We can't let him win. We can't let *any* of them win." She looked at Ryu, her expression grim.
"We're going back in. One last time."