CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: OF BLOODLINES, BULLETINS, AND THE GHOSTS THAT NEVER LEFT
RIYEE'S POV
ECLIPSA SANCTUM — THE SIGIL HEART HALL
Apparently, yesterday we solved justice. Or at least, that's what the record says.
The Court versus Bianchi, Lucian, and Rowan—plus the traps, the lies, and the almost-body count at the Sovereign Chase Ground. It was supposed to be closed. Case sealed. Justice delivered.
Except it wasn't. Not really.
We only pretended to drop the case so we could keep watching them. There's that old saying—keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That's what we did. Filed it away like closure, but it's surveillance in disguise.
Today? We're summoned before breakfast. Welcome to the Ardent Court. Where sleep is optional, drama is compulsory, and even your blood has a backstory.
Lyle called us in. Crowned, stern, unsmiling. Which usually means a breach, a mission, or someone tried to poison the lunch line again.
But today's not a mission. Not yet. It's worse.
New directives. Three of them. Straight from the Headmaster's secure line.
The moment the first day of Ber-month hit, Headmaster Antonio declared a "surprise academic break." The announcement came like a gift—until the bulletins followed, reading more like war orders.
First a surprise exam.
Then a surprise sports week.
Now? A surprise break.
This school doesn't post updates. It posts landmines.
Just like Saichel. The Headmaster's son. Always smiling, always laughing, always hiding something that could explode under the right pressure.
The holotable glowed to life. Red directives burned across the sigil-map like wounds reopening. I counted three folders. Three directives. Each one felt like a secret no one was supposed to name out loud.
Three folders appeared. Three directives.
Each one glowing like a secret no one dared say out loud.
Lyle stood at the head of the table—unmoving, unreadable—but I saw it. The hesitation. A breath he didn't mean to take. A flicker in his control.
"New directives from the Headmaster," he said.
The first folder opened. And my heart dropped. Hard. Loud. Fast.
OPERATION: DANA YSABEL SORIANO DEL RIO – CONTACT & EXTRACTION
Saichel swears under his breath. Thres goes unnervingly still. Seb's grip on the edge of the holotable tightens—but he doesn't look away.
Me? I just stare. I couldn't move. Couldn't blink. Couldn't breathe.
My mother's name burned across the holoscreen.
Dana Ysabel Del Rio. Former Court Tactician. Critical Witness. Whistleblower.
No.
No, no, no. She wasn't supposed to be part of this. She wasn't supposed to be part of this world. She was the woman who left me and my dad without a word. No calls. No letters. No reasons. Just... gone.
She wasn't an operative. She was an absence. A hole in our lives we learned to walk around. She was the mother to every kid at the Home for Angels. She should've stayed like that. I made peace with that version of her—the kind who left, the kind who gave me up. I forgave her.
So why was her name here? Why was she now a mission?
"Home for Angels?" Alexie murmured then looked at me. "Isn't it the place where she is right now?"
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OPERATION WINTERSPINE (Strings Between Us Book 2)
Teen Fiction✧ STRINGS BETWEEN US ✧ Book Two: Operation Winterspine by miszywitch She thought she buried the war with her title. But some crowns aren't laid down--they're reactivated Arielle Rylance Del Rio walked away from the Ardent Court, from the strategist...
