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Chapter One

The card we were shown is a Glass Card.

In six hours, its details will shatter and be forgotten.

Kildare and Kaos must go immediately.

I will guard the Queen.

The Heavenly King will know the assignment upon arrival.

Kross had spoken the words without pause the moment Raviel left. An order sealed in iron and dropped into their minds by the archangel Raviel. No code to trace. No second copies. Just one moment of clarity, burned into the body for six hours.

Kaos sat in the passenger seat of the rented pickup, pondering what kind of battlefield would require such a card. Nebraska. The state they were driving to. The state belonging to the continent he dangled in pieces on. He listened to the tires mow down asphalt on a road that seemed endless and without purpose. Frozen trees lined the way beneath a sky of dead gray. The color of breath between here and there, between nothing and something.

Kildare drove without a word. When their triune bond had been whole, his silence spoke volumes. Now, everything between them existed in body language that required dissecting. No more shared instincts. Not with him, not with Krave, not with Reuban. And not with his Queen. There remained only the piece of himself he didn’t understand. Kross. And his Lust and Rage. Both warring inside him. Seeking a target to unleash on.

Kaos focused on his immediate dilemma. Him and Kildare were required to hide their true form beneath a humancloak. Something Kildare was no doubt familiar with in his eternal existence, but for Kaos, it was utterly foreign. And he had exactly fifty minutes to master whatever functions he could of his vessel and hope the job didn't require maneuvers he didn’t yet possess.

All food for his Rage. Along with the oath that remained. Protect a Queen that was no longer his. There was nothing to resent. Nothing to kill. Nothing to annihilate. There was only the power to do all three, the desire to see it done, and the cold reality of knowing it wouldn’t.

The truck turned off the road where black, broken trees lined a graveled lane. At the first curve, a house came into view. With every ounce of his limited knowing, he knew a shift was coming. One that brought his flailing Lust and blind Rage to salivating attention.

The truck settled onto loose gravel before the engine cut. Kaos eyed the trees circling around them, bent and brittle. He turned his gaze to the house ahead, leaning into a slope of a hill. While waiting for the Heavenly King to know what needed knowing, Kaos tracked the curve of the earth where the shadow of a barn disappeared behind the house.

Kaos glanced at Kildare the second he sensed the air shift with something. He studied his breaths, the tension in his body, the set of his jaw. His shoulders were locked into place as he kept hold of the steering wheel.

Finally, his chest filled with a deep breath, low and leveled, his hands lowering to his lap. “Interesting.” He angled his gaze at him, the usual blood-red now a muted dark crimson in his human form. “Seems we’ll be operating a business called Trojan Horse Corporation."

Kaos picked up mild wonder and awe.

“It’s a private sector of cultural intelligence. Narrative warfare and influence inversion. And our function iscounterinfluence through immersive creative disruption. The company will be funded through aligned sources, embedded under deep blackout protocols.” He finally glanced out the windshield, something on his lips adding mischief to the data Kaos collected. “Our cover identities activate upon contact. At that point, I’ll become Kade King, and you’ll become Kohl King. Brothers and founders of the corporation.”

He propped his elbow on the door, making eye contact again. “Trojan Horse specializes in fighting the rapid spiral of something greater than moral decay.” His mouth spread with a smile that hid what caused it.

“What could be worse than moral decay?”

He added raised brows to his grin. “Removing one’s ability to choose.”

The ruby in his eyes flared and Kaos turned his gaze to the home with this new data.

“Interestingly enough, Trojan Horse is already a real firm with impressive results. Our primary subject—the one in this house—is Jaxi Jane Juniper. Female, age twenty-six. Survival-based artist. Orphaned at six, system-raised, no guardians, no family claims. No professional history outside shelter work and urban outreach.” He added a deep breath. “She lives alone above a defunct bakery in Lincoln and visits her family residence—this place right here—on the weekends.”

“What’s the directive here?” Kaos asked, ready to get to that.

“To give her a business proposition. Her gifts match Trojan Horse’s needs—intuitive instruction, grief-based recovery encoding, natural pattern alignment and high-response emotional frequency output. She isn’t trained, she’s instinctive. Hard to track and trace. And the moment she accepts the proposal, she becomes our most viable asset that will be transferred to Trojan Horse headquarters — a secure five-milecompound, two hundred miles due east. Extraction by air. Helicopter arrival set for two hours.” Kildare turned toward him again. “Your job is to stay with her until retrieval. Keep her covered. Anchor her until transfer is complete. No transformation. No exposure. If you must shift into your true form — she mustnotsee it.”

Kildare opened his door.

“Wait,” Kaos called, searching for the correct words required to proceed. “Define no transformation. And no exposure.”

He eyed him for a few seconds, weighing his questions. “Your true spiritual form,” he said. “Don’t show it. And if you must use it, don’t let her see it.”

Kaos opened his door, getting shoved in the face by the cold wind. He eyed the house looming again. “I don’t possess the same abilities I once did in this form.”

“Yes,” Kildare said with unspoken understanding. “But whatever is required of you, will be gained.”

He spoke it like a being who’d existed for eons. And Kaos believed him like a being who existed barely two breaths.