For a long, breathless second, nobody on the ridge moved.
Then the nearest shape stepped fully into the moonlight, revealing a tall woman in dark tactical gear, silver fist and broken crescent stitched plainly across her chest, and behind her, at least a dozen more spreading through the trees with the disciplined quiet of soldiers who had done this exact maneuver more times than Elena wanted to imagine.
"Elena Hart," the woman called out, her voice carrying easily across the open ridge. "Or should I say, heir of a bloodline my grandmother spent her whole life being told was extinguished. We felt the light from your first shift three valleys away. That is not a small thing, child. That is the kind of thing certain people have spent a hundred years hoping never to feel again."
"Who are yo
