War did not arrive with a formal declaration.
It arrived as a border that had been quiet for three seasons suddenly burning at both ends before dawn.
I felt the change through the bond before the first runner reached the Alpha house—Tristan’s attention snapping from sleep into lethal focus so hard it dragged me awake with him. By the time we were on our feet, the outer alarm patterns were already moving through the complex, and the night sky beyond the reinforced windows carried the faint, wrong glow of fire to the northeast.
“Eastern corridor,” Tristan said, already pulling on field clothes with the efficiency of a body that had never fully forgotten siege rhythm. “That’s Darien-adjacent buffer land.”
The name landed between us like a blade set carefully on a table.
Within the hour t
