Chapter 17: Veins of Fire

Capital City, Tavara – Nora's Hidden Clinic, 3:03 AM

Thunder cracked over the city of Tavara as rain pelted the windows of a discreet clinic buried deep within the old district. Inside, Nora Alden stood alone in the operating chamber, scrubbing the blood from her gloved hands. She had just completed a high-risk, unauthorized surgery—on a man whose name couldn't be traced and whose heartbeat barely survived the night.

Her fingers trembled slightly.

Not from the surgery—but from the familiar pressure building in her core.

Her spiritual veins—long dormant—were awakening.

She had suppressed them for years, binding her cultivation to protect her double identity. But something was shifting. The presence she had felt in the crowd earlier that day—the overwhelming aura—had unsettled her. Could it have been him?

Her mind flashed to Damien.

No… He was too controlled. Too grounded in power. But there was something in his eyes. Something ancient. Dangerous.

She locked the clinic door, walked to her private chamber behind a false wall, and unrolled a crimson silk scroll—marked with the same jade insignia Damien had seen.

Lines of ancient script shimmered as her qi pulsed faintly in the room. She sat cross-legged and closed her eyes.

Moments later, she was no longer in her body.

Within the spiritual plane, a storm raged. The same storm she had fled from all those years ago—when Project Astralis fell and her entire family line was declared extinct by the global coalition of science and military heads.

Bang!

Back in the clinic, a door slammed open.

She snapped to her feet, her senses sharpened like blades. Someone had breached the outer perimeter—her failsafe alarms had been bypassed.

She moved without sound, sliding open a hidden drawer. Out came twin obsidian daggers, balanced for her hands alone. One breath… two… three…

Footsteps neared.

Suddenly, the door burst open—and there he was.

Damien.

Wounded, blood trickling down his neck, suit torn. His left arm clutched tight against his ribs.

"Nora," he rasped, eyes burning with a storm of fury and something she hadn't expected.

Trust.

She moved to him instantly. "What happened?"

"Serpent X. They know. Everything."

As she helped him lie down on the clinic table, their eyes locked—two titans pretending to be ordinary, still hiding the truth from each other.

Neither knew the full extent of the war they were stepping into.

Neither knew they were walking straight into the center of a storm designed decades ago—by their own families.