Location; The French Pyrenees – Château du Sélène
The early light of dawn filtered through the ancient stained glass of Château du Sélène, casting rose-tinted hues over the dusty parquet floors. High in the Pyrenees, the chateau stood like a forgotten monument—elegant, eerie, and steeped in generations of silence. It had once belonged to Damien's great-uncle, a war hero turned recluse who disappeared during a covert mission in Algeria. Officially, the property didn't exist.
Inside, Nora patched up Damien's arm. Her touch was gentle, but her eyes held steel.
"We need to regroup. This war isn't just bloodlines anymore—it's world systems being tilted."
Damien winced as she tightened the gauze. "It always was. We just never saw the whole map."
A soft chime echoed from Nora's retinal comm.
Incoming transmission: CODE BLACK – Initiated by: M. Valerio.
Nora stiffened.
"Valerio?" Damien asked.
She nodded. "My uncle. Former UN Special Envoy, presumed dead after the Khartoum incident."
The screen blinked to life. A silver-haired man with a scar down his left cheek looked directly at them.
"I don't have time to explain everything," Valerio began. "But the world's about to learn what Tavara's intelligence has kept buried for decades. Someone inside your circle betrayed your coordinates. I intercepted the transmission."
Damien's jaw tightened. "Who?"
Valerio leaned in. "Someone close. With access to the vault logs. Possibly… someone from the Lancaster branch."
"Impossible," Damien muttered. "They were purged during the Paris summit fallout."
"No one is ever truly purged," Valerio said grimly. "You need to leave France. Now."
But the transmission distorted mid-sentence—then cut.
A crackling sound followed. The scent of smoke.
Outside, a drone exploded in the courtyard. The force rattled the antique chandeliers above them.
"They're here," Nora hissed.
Damien pulled her toward the hidden staircase beneath the grand piano. "We'll take the underground passage to the Rhône River. It's old, but it'll get us clear."
As they fled through cobwebbed tunnels, flashes of memories returned—Damien's childhood visits here, the whispered stories of his family's enemies, the sealed room his great-uncle once forbade anyone to enter.
When they reached the sealed chamber, Damien hesitated. Then, slowly, he pushed open the iron door.
Inside was a control room. Dusty. Powered down—but intact. Maps of cities across Asia and South America lined the walls. Surveillance feeds. Military strike patterns. Lists of names—politicians, CEOs, journalists.
One name glowed red on the screen: Nora Lancaster.
Damien turned. "He had files on you."
Nora frowned, stepping forward. "So did your grandfather."
On a side table lay a worn leather journal. Damien flipped through it.
> "The child of Lancaster and Blackridge blood will either end the cycle… or ignite it anew."
"What does that mean?" Nora asked.
Before he could answer, a soft beeping began behind them.
Motion-triggered alarm.
Their location was compromised.
Above ground, the enemy was closing in. Archer Grey had deployed his elite team to reclaim the Voltaire files—and silence all living descendants.
In Tavara, the betrayal deepened. One of Damien's trusted cousins—Elise Lancaster, a brilliant analyst at Tavara's foreign ministry—was seen entering a clandestine meeting with foreign agents.
She wore the family crest.