Chapter 78. The Return Home

Lotus’s POV

The convoy winds through the snow-choked pass long after midnight.

The world is quiet except for the engines. Headlights cut pale tunnels through the falling flakes, glinting off the scorched armor of trucks packed with the wounded. The radio static hums faintly, punctuated by the occasional crackle of a voice calling coordinates; no one answers.

Louis rides in the backseat beside me, pale but breathing. His bandaged side rises and falls under a thermal blanket. He should be at the medical base, not in a car bouncing down a half-frozen mountain road, but he refused to leave my sight. Or maybe I refused to leave his.

Every few minutes, Levi looks over his shoulder from the passenger seat to make sure Louis is still alive. Lennox drives, jaw clenched tight, eyes fixed on the road like it might collapse if he looks away.

No one speaks. We’ve all run out of words that matter.

When the palace walls finally come into view, I expect re