Chapter 189 Chapter 189

Chapter 189 Chapter 189
Merrick
The air in the war room is thick, heavy, and metallic, stinking of cold iron, oiled leather, and the sour tang of the nervous men surrounding me.
Outside the high arched windows, night has swallowed the peaks whole, wrapping the valley in a dark, bruised violet fog. Inside, the grand war table is an absolute mess of slate markers, carved oak wolves, and sprawling topographical maps detailing the iron mines three miles south along the jagged granite ridge.
I stand at the head of the table, my palms pressed flat against the rough wood, staring down at the ink-stained parchment until the lines blur.
Jo’s due date is weeks away, maybe less - it’s all very uncertain at this point. Clara made that brutally clear this morning after checking Jo's pulse and measuring the tight, constant drops of her bump. Hope is sitting so low now that Jo can barely take a full breath, and her sun-fire aura is humming at a pitch that means her body is preparing for labor. 
In a week, maybe two Jo has to step through the iron gates of the Moon Temple to prepare for labour. For a moment, I’m gripped by panic. Not because the war is now closer than ever before, but because we have not prepared for the baby. We don’t have a cot, nappies, or so much as a onesie for poor little Hope.
But I’m confident, as ever, that the Omegas will sort it out.
I turn my mind back to the task at hand.
Right now, a mere three miles away, though it might as well be a hundred, Lysander is sitting in the dark, digging deeper into the mountain to anchor a shadow-well directly beneath our feet.
If that bastard completes the well before Jo goes into labour, he’ll throw open a shadow-bridge right into the lower vaults of the palace. He won't need to breach our gates or fight through our Vanguard. He’ll simply bleed the shadow-well, manifest his shadow walkers inside our walls, and trap Jo, our daughter, and every soul in this keep inside a localised pocket of absolute darkness.
We freed Haven’s Crest, but the Goddess only knows how many humans Lysander has at his disposal.
And then, once Hope is born, he’ll use her essence to bind us in the shadows forever.
I feel Enoch thrashing behind my skin, his territorial rage clawing at my throat until my veins sing and every cell aches to shift.
"Look at the shaft alignment here," Julian says, breaking the suffocating silence. 
He leans over the map, tapping a long, pale finger against a series of dotted red lines that snake under the southern ridge. 
The playful smirk he usually wears is completely gone, his blue eyes icy and focused. "Lysander isn't just tunneling for sport. He’s utilising the old iron veins because the raw ore acts as an amplifier for dark magic. He probably locked… I’d guess about three dozen human captives down in the tertiary level, using their fear and life force as a living battery to stabilise the catalyst.”
"And the spatial wards around the mine mouth are already distorted," Nathaniel adds, his voice tight. 
He steps up to the left side of the table, placing a heavy brass compass over the entry point. Atlas stands right behind him, broad-shouldered and looming, his golden skin glowing softly under the hanging oil lamps. 
"If we try to shadow step or attempt to portal jump a strike team inside, the spatial distortion will shred us to ribbons before our boots touch stone. We have to go in on foot."
"Breaching a bottlenecked mine entrance against shadow-casters is suicide," Valerius rumbles from his oversized chair. 
The old King sits back, his heavy fox-fur cloak draped around his massive frame like a boulder. 
He gestures with a thick, scarred hand toward the northern face of the ridge, his ice-blue eyes gleaming with that theatrical, old-world gravitas. "You do not charge into the mouth of a beast when you can starve it in its lair. Sten and I collapsed the Iron Crags in the second age by driving seismic spikes into the fault lines. We collapse the mountain onto their heads and let the stone bury them."
"Oh, brilliant tactical genius," Atlas snorts, leaning his spine against a carved stone pillar and crossing his thick arms. "Let's throw a mountain on top of a volatile, half-formed shadow-well. 
“Do you know what happens when ten thousand tons of rock crush an unstable dark catalyst, old man? It implodes. It creates a black hole that will drag half the valley, and this palace, straight into the ether."
Valerius narrows his eyes, a low, tectonic growl vibrating deep within his chest. "Watch your tone with me, Ultima, before I teach you the respect your kind used to show the Eastern throne."
"Used to," Atlas smirks, flicking a lazy thumb against his jawline. "Before your ancient throne became a museum piece, and before my darling sister turned the South into a slaughterhouse."
The room drops ten degrees in a split second.
Apollo, who had been lazily balancing his unlit wooden pipe on the edge of the map table, catches it cleanly in his palm and sits up straight. Across the room, Astraea stands by the cold hearth, her silver gown pooling around her bare feet like liquid moonlight, her radiant face turning sharp and cold.
"Athena," I say, my voice dropping an octave, heavy with a dark, simmering fury. "Where is she?"
"Where she always is," Apollo says with a dry, bitter laugh, shaking his head. "In the shadows behind a bigger fool. Athena has no loyalty, Merrick. She doesn't want a realm or a throne - she wants total, absolute chaos. She plays the puppeteer while better men bleed for her."
"She played Balthazar like a fiddle," Nathaniel growls, slamming a fist onto the table. "Balthazar isn't our enemy. The man is half the king his father was, and a useful idiot… a desperate Southern King who thought he was making political treaties to save his failing borders, while Athena was handing his territory to the Cabal piece by piece behind his back."
"My sister believes the Goddess abandoned our lineage when the Fae gates fell," Astraea says, her clear, bell-like voice cutting cleanly through the heavy air. "Apollo brings heat, Atlas brings force, and I bring alignment. 
“But Athena... Athena brings chaos and corruption. She gave Lysander the ancient runes required to bind human souls to the shadow-well. Without her knowledge, Lysander would never have been able to manipulate the shadows as well as he does."
I stare at the map, tracing the dark tunnels with my eyes as the full, lethal scope of their plan crystallizes in my head.
"We don't have time to hunt Athena, and we can't afford a siege," I say, the words falling like heavy iron blocks onto the stone floor. I look around the table, locking eyes with each of them in turn - Nathaniel, Valerius, Julian, and the three godlike Ultimas standing among us. "Here is how we take the mines."
The room falls dead silent, every eye fixed on me.
"We split their forces into three distinct operational strikes," I explain, pointing directly to the southern ridge on the map. "Lysander expects us to hit the main gate or attempt a rift-jump. 
“Instead, Nathaniel, you take the Western Vanguard and Atlas around the rear cliff face. You’ll breach the old ventilation shafts near the upper ridge. Your only job is to locate the human captives, cut their chains, and get them out. The moment those humans are out, the shadow bridge loses its living power source."
Nathaniel nods sharply, his blue eyes flashing with cold resolve. "Consider it done."
"Valerius," I continue, turning my gaze to the ancient King. "You, Astraea, and the Eastern warriors will hold the valley pass below the ridge. Lysander has shadow casters stationed along the treeline waiting to flank us. You lock down that pass and ensure not a single rogue or shadow walker escapes into the valley toward the palace."
Valerius offers a slow, grim nod, his scarred jaw tightening. "No one crosses the pass on my watch, boy."
"And the main shaft?" Julian asks, stepping closer, his hand resting on the hilt of his short sword.
"Julian, Apollo, and I lead the Northern Vanguard straight through the front door," I say, as Enoch starts to howl for the blood of our enemies. "We don't use heavy magic that risks detonating the well. We go in with iron and silver. We slaughter the guards, Apollo suppresses the shadow-cables with pure sun-fire, and I shatter the core catalyst with my bare hands."
I lean over the table, looking at the clock on the wall, then back at my commanders.
"We move at midnight," I growl, my voice echoing off the ancient stone walls. "We destroy that well before my Queen steps foot into the birthing temple."