Chapter 76: Execute The King

Sable POV

The air grew thick as my thighs burned with lactic acid as we sprinted down the steepest slope of the lower tunnels. We were far past the residential tiers. Down here, the volcanic bedrock trapped the heat, pushing the temperature to suffocating levels.

Drazen suddenly threw his good arm out, catching me across the chest to halt my

momentum.

Without making a sound, he pressed his back against the wall, gesturing for me to do the same. I flattened myself against the rock, forcing my breathing to slow despite the burn in my lungs.

A sharp, metallic grinding noise echoed from the corridor ahead.

We managed to move forward, using a massive pillar for cover as I peered

around the rough stone.

The doors to the Hatchery were already destroyed. The slabs had been blown off their hinges, lying fractured on the floor.

Inside the chamber, the seven dormant eggs rested on the central dais.

Kassia stood at the base of the platform, five massive guards surrounding her. They weren't local thugs or street fighters, they wore thick, armor over their chests and carried heavy fire power slung across their backs.

But they weren't aiming weapons at the shells. They were unloading a cylindrical steel canisters from a military bag.

"Drill the anchors directly," Kassia ordered, her voice echoing through the breached doorway.

"I want the thermal charges wired in sequence. If you just crack the shells, the biological material might survive the exposure. We incinerate the entire dais down to the magma vent. Nothing walks out of this room."

In plain terms, she was going to burn this place down. One of the guards pulled a heavy industrial drill from the bag. The grinding

noise resumed as he drove a carbide bit into the base of the stone platform.

The Hearthblood in my veins spiked, reacting to the closeness of the unborn dragons. It urged me to step out from the pillar, to unleash the heat and burn the intruders out of the sanctuary.

But as I took a half-step forward, Drazen’s hand clamped down hard on my shoulder, hauling me back behind the rock.

"Let me go," I whispered harshly, keeping my voice barely audible. "They are wiring explosives."

"Look at the guards, Sable," he breathed, his mouth inches from my ear. His voice was ragged, the strain of the chemical damage in his lungs showing in the shallow rise and fall of his chest. "Scoria vanguard. We cannot fight them, at least not like this."

"If we don't do something and she detonates those things, your race is dead."

"If we walk into that room, we die in thirty seconds," he countered. "Kassia will kill us, trigger the explosives anyway, and Carvek will remain entirely unchallenged above ground."

I stared at him, frustrated by the absolute coldness in his eyes. "You're just going to leave them?"

"They are setting sequence charges into solid rock. It will take them at least twenty minutes to wire the dais properly." he didn't blink. He used his good hand to point at the bag slung across my chest. "You told me in the kitchen to treat my war like triage. Take your own advice. Who is the critical patient right now?"

The paramedic training kicked in, violently overriding the emotional panic.

"The rebellion," I whispered. "We need the defectors. We need Jonah’s weapons."

"Exactly." he released my shoulder. "We have the blackmail files. We have the financial deeds. If we get back to the surface, we can arm an entire resistance and return with enough firepower to clear this room before Kassia finishes the sequence."

He was right. It was the most terrifyingly stupid idea but that was the best we got to keep the eggs safe.

"We have nine minutes," I said checking my watch, the reality of the distance crashing over me. "Theron’s window at the end gate opens at midnight. It’s on the complete opposite side of the residential block."

"Then we run."

Drazen turned his back on the Hatchery. He didn't look at the dais, or Kassia, or the legacy of his people sitting in the crosshairs of a demolition crew. He completely internalised the loss, locking it away behind an impenetrable

mental vault.

Once I was sure he was okay, we moved.

The ascent back up the tunnels was grueling. We didn't bother with stealth. We sprinted through the dark, abandoned service corridors, bypassing the main intersections where Carvek’s loyalists were likely patrolling.

My lungs burned, the air of the upper levels biting at my throat. Drazen kept pace right beside me, but I could hear the wet, heavy rattle in his breathing.

We had just five minutes to midnight. We had to reach the gates before it resetted.

We cleared the lower transit shaft. The gray, dying moss on the walls provided barely enough light to navigate the uneven terrain.

Three minutes to midnight.

"Left," Drazen grunted, pointing down a narrow, sloping corridor that smelled like rotten eggs. "The gate is at the end."

We took the turn hard, my boots slipping on the slick stone. At the end of the long corridor, the massive iron slab of the maintenance gate loomed in the shadows.

To make matters worse, a small keypad was mounted into the rock beside it.

Two minutes to midnight.

"We made it," I panted, dropping the bag onto the floor as I bent over, resting my hands on my knees to catch my breath.

Drazen on the other hand didn't stop, he simply walked straight to the keypad and pressed the activation key.

I held my breath expecting the worse but nothing happened. He slammed bi's hand against the casing, trying to wake the interface but the screen remained dead, devoid of power.

I straightened up, a cold knot tightening in my stomach. "Drazen. What's wrong?"

He didn't answer. He gripped the heavy iron door, planting his boots into the dirt, and pulled with his good arm with all his might. But in mockery, the metal didn't groan or shift.

One minute to go.

"Theron said he would bypass the biometrics," Drazen said, his voice dangerously quiet. "He didn't just leave the locks engaged. He severed the hardline. The keypad has no power."

"Why would he do that? He promised."

Just then footsteps echoed from the corridor behind us and we both turned to see Carvek stepped out of the shadows.

Three heavily armed guards were by his side as he held a thick bundle of severed electrical wires in his hand before tossing them onto the dirt floor between us.

"He didn't," Carvek replied, a cruel, satisfied grin spreading across his face. "Theron did his job perfectly. Unfortunately for you, my men caught him walking away from the terminal."

Midnight hit.

The faint, mechanical hum of the Undercourt's automated security grid resetting echoed through the walls. The sixty-second window was gone.

"Take the human," Carvek ordered his men, pointing a scaled finger directly at me. "And execute the King."