Riviera Hotel – 6:07 A.M.
The first light of dawn bled into the suite, pale and merciless. Selene hadn’t slept; Cassien hadn’t stopped pacing. The air between them was thick with unspoken fear, every shadow in the room seeming to listen, waiting for what came next.
That word still hung in the air like smoke: Veyra.
Cassien’s voice was raw when he finally broke the silence. “I’ve searched every file, every archive. The name doesn’t exist in Vortiger records. Not in finance, not in the family tree, not in our global branches.” He stopped, rubbing his temples as though trying to force clarity into his skull. “Which means one of two things. Either it’s buried so deep even I was never meant to know… or it’s older than the Vortiger empire itself.”
Selene’s stomach twisted. “Older?”
“Saint M
