The Grunewald forest was a cathedral of bone-white birches and suffocating silence, broken only by the rhythmic, percussive thud of the Berlin Relay detonating deep beneath the frost. The earth shuddered, a subterranean groan that sent a flock of crows screaming into the obsidian sky. Snow began to fall—thin, sharp needles of ice that sought out the scorched fabric of Seraphina’s tactical gear.
She stood at the edge of the crater, her fingers clamped so tightly around Dante’s hand that her knuckles were translucent. The heat from the vent shaft behind them was a physical wall, a deceptive warmth that smelled of ionized copper and the incinerated dreams of the Romano line.
"Alessandro," she whispered. The name didn't carry. It was swallowed by the wind.
Dante was shaking, his breath comi
