Kessa stepped out of the guest house behind Kane, fully dressed, ears forward, expression set.
Griselda followed a moment later, wings folded, yellow eyes already measuring the soldiers. Neither of them spoke.
Shenron’s voice was low and hard.
"Two days is short notice for a journey to the capital."
"The emperor does not require your opinion on the timeline," the leader answered without heat.
"He requires their presence. The roads will be clear. No pack will hinder them. That is the extent of the courtesy being offered."
Kane stopped a few paces from the soldiers and rested Mjoldr’s head against the packed earth.
"I accept the summons."
The leader studied him for a long moment, nostrils flaring once as he took in the layered scents of the compound, Kessa, Griselda, the residual black fluid of the mutant, and the unmistakable mark of recent, thorough claiming.
"Wise. The emperor prefers guests who walk through his doors on their own feet. Be at the outer palace markers by dusk on the second day. Further instructions will be given there."
He gave a short, precise nod to Razan and Shenron, acknowledgment without deference, then turned.
The detachment wheeled as one and left the way they had entered. The gate closed behind them with a heavy, final sound. The silence they left behind was thicker than before.
No one spoke until the last of the armored footsteps had faded down the residential street.
Razan exhaled through his nose.
"He sent his own. Not a messenger. Not a lower officer. His personal guard. That is not a request dressed as an order. That is the order."
Shenron’s red eyes stayed on the gate.
"The welcome is no longer theoretical. Whatever Marisa told you, whatever Vorra decided, it is all secondary now. Grathak has decided the time and the place. You will stand in front of him in two days whether you are ready or not."
Kessa moved up beside Kane, shoulder brushing his.
"I’m ready. I didn’t come back to these borders to hide in a guest house when the real door opened."
Griselda’s voice was quiet and steady.
"Neither did I. The summons changes nothing about the reason we crossed the true border. It only removes the remaining time to pretend otherwise."
Kane looked from one to the other, then to the two older males on the porch.
"Then we use the two days. We travel light. We take the clearest road. And when we reach the outer markers, we walk in with our eyes open."
Shenron finally turned his full attention on Kane.
"I will go as far as the capital’s outer district. After that, the emperor’s authority is absolute, and my presence becomes a liability rather than a help. Razan will keep the compound closed and quiet until this is finished—one way or another."
Razan’s gaze flicked to his daughter, then to the winged woman, then back to Kane.
"You brought this to my gate. See that my daughter walks back out of that hall on her own feet. Everything else is secondary."
Kessa’s ears angled toward her father, but she did not argue. The weight of the summons had settled over the entire compound like a change in weather. Even Lira’s earlier humiliation and the complicated heat of the previous night felt distant now.
Kane adjusted his grip on Mjoldr.
"We leave at first light tomorrow. That gives us the full two days to reach the markers without looking like we’re running or delaying. Anyone who wants to say something that matters can say it before then."
Shenron gave a short, sharp nod.
"I’ll have supplies ready and two quiet warriors for the first leg. After the river fork, you’re on the emperor’s roads. Behave accordingly."
He turned and walked toward the main house without waiting for agreement.
Razan remained on the porch a moment longer, red eyes unreadable, then followed his son inside.
The compound’s younger warriors slowly returned to their tasks, but the earlier ease of the household was gone.
Every movement carried the knowledge that the outsider, the tiger-striped daughter, and the winged woman would be walking into the emperor’s hall in two days, and no one in the eastern residential district could change that fact.
Kane, Kessa, and Griselda stood alone in the yard for a short stretch of silence.
Kessa broke it first, voice low and practical.
"I’ll pack what we need and nothing we don’t. No extra weight. No gifts. No statements. Just steel, water, and the three of us."
Griselda inclined her head once.
"I will be ready before first light."
Kane looked toward the gate where the soldiers had disappeared, then back at the two women who had crossed the true border with him.
"Two days. We use them. After that, we stop answering to anyone except the one who sent the summons."
The rest of the day passed in tight, purposeful motion.
Kessa packed with the efficiency of someone who had left home before and expected the road to be unforgiving: steel, dried meat, water skins, nothing that could not be carried at a run.
Griselda checked her wings and the few blades she preferred, movements quiet and precise.
Shenron arranged two low-profile warriors for the first leg and confirmed the clearest route toward the capital’s outer markers.
Razan watched it all from the porch with the same hard, closed expression he had worn since the soldiers left.
Lira appeared only once, late in the afternoon, when Kane stepped into the main house to collect the last of the water rations.
She stood in the doorway of the inner room, arms folded beneath her breasts, silver-streaked hair tied back.
The heat scent on her was still present but colder now, edged with the sharp pride of a female who had been refused.
"You’re walking into the emperor’s hall with my daughter, and that winged one," she said.
"Try not to get them killed for the sake of whatever game you’re playing with Marisa’s visions."
Kane met her eyes without flinching.
"I’ll bring them back."
"See that you do."
Her gaze dropped briefly, then returned, pointed and unfriendly.
"And if you ever pin me to a wall again, finish it or don’t start. Half-measures are for weaker blood."
She turned and disappeared into the house without waiting for an answer.
The rejection still sat between them like an open cut.
Near dusk, as the final straps were tightened and the compound settled into the uneasy quiet of a household preparing for absence, Marisa appeared.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter