Page 28 of Elven Throne

A hushed silence descended over the decimated parking lot. The entire task force shared the wordless revelation of what this now meant for them in the bigger scheme of things—beyond breaking up the siege, rescuing all personnel from the collapsing compound, and merely surviving the rest of the night.

Because no, this absolutely wasn’t over for Shade. This was just a hard-won pause within the chaos. A brief moment in which to catch their collective breath.

The crunch of shattered glass beneath shifting weight and a metallic groan rose from the compound’s front entrance, instantly drawing everyone’s attention.

Archie emerged from the building, his bright-orange mohawk coated in dust and ash and debris. A thick plume of it filtered down onto his shoulders and trailed behind him in a billowing line as he squeezed through the twisted remains of the doorframes with a small plastic storage tote gripped between his hands.

“Too small.” Zida hobbled toward him and scoffed.

Another shower of dust, bits of drywall, and flecks of ash rained from Archie’s mohawk again when he shook his head and finally met the healer’s gaze. “Grabbed what I could. This is all that’s left.”

The muscles of Zida’s face twitched so quickly and in so many different directions, it was impossible to nail down a single expression or even guess what she might have felt. For a moment, it looked like she might attack the ogre in violent denial.

But then she huffed out a sigh and reached for the disappointingly small box of her infirmary supplies. She rifled through it with a clawed hand and clicked her tongue. “No bandages, huh? Well, I’msurewe can still scrounge up a few more things inside.”

Archie scratched the back of his head, loosing even more debris from the back of his mohawk that shouldn’t have been able to stand even partially upright with all the gunk still in it. “No. There’s nothinginside. I mean this isallthat’s left…”

“Right.” Zida looked up at him and froze when she realized he wasn’t joking, one hand still buried within what little he’d salvaged.

Then Archie turned toward Rebecca, pain glinting in his orange-brown eyes as he spread his arms. “Building suffered way more damage than I thought. We held off the breach attempts well enough, but short of keeping these griybreki bastards out, it just didn’t hold.”

Rebecca swallowed the tight knot rising in her throat.

She’d expected this caliber of bad news, but that didn’t make it any less painful to hear.

“How bad?” she asked.

“The whole residential wing’s shot to shit. Barely hanging on by a few support beams. From the back of the compound all the way up past the common room, whatever isn’t still on fire is buried under rubble.”

Yep. Exactly as bad as she’d thought.

Eduardo’s main goal had been to inflict major damages upon Shade. To hit them where it would hurt the most, and hit them hard. That much was abundantly clear. Even if the asshole hadn’t survived to celebrate his victory, he’d certainly been successful.

Rebecca nodded. “Thanks, Archie.”

The ogre might have intended to smile but delivered an uncomfortable grimace before looking like he had no idea what to do with himself next. So he scratched another startling shower of dust and wood chips and bits of stripped wiring out of his mohawk. Again.

When Rebecca looked out across the parking lot one more time, she certainly hadn’t expected to find every single member of her task force staring at her now. All of them devastated by the news sinking in and of how great their loss truly was.

All of them waiting for their Roth-Da’al to deliver her decision for what came next, whatever that happened to be.

Rebecca didn’t have a plan. After the kind of night they’d had, both out in the field and right here at home, rarely didanythingcome next.

They had all defied the enormous odds stacked against them, one battle right after the other. They’d pulled through to still be here in the end. To survive.

But now it seemed the more they survived, the more they lost and the higher those odds against them continued to grow.

The silence broke when Zida grumbled something unintelligible before hobbling away to do what she could for the wounded, rifling through her tiny box of remaining supplies as she went.

For the first time since the end-of-battle explosion, Bor didn’t move to go after her. He stayed right where he was, staring at nothing in mute stupefaction.

Probably because he’d just heard through Archie’s report that his entire industrial kitchen plus all his inventory and supplies were gone now too.

“So what now?” Nyx asked, her usually soft voice sounding disproportionately loud within the silent stillness.

“That’s what we need to figure out,” Rebecca replied, turning toward the Katari. “Sooner rather than later.”

Then she looked across those gathered closest, who’d seen Eduardo’s severed head with their own eyes and had heard Archie’s report, while the rest of the task force did what they could to help Zida with the wounded or sifted through the rubble as best they could, trying not to bring what remained of their home crumbling down on top of them.

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