The courtyard was a war zone.
Heavy wagons loaded with jagged, three-inch carbon-steel plates crashed through the main gates, crushing gravel beneath iron rims. Apprentices screamed orders, hauling timber beams, rolls of barbed wire, and casks of sulfur while the manicured gardens of Ramona's youth were ripped apart to feed the immediate, brutal geometry of survival.
Ramona reined her stallion to a dead stop, vaulting out of the saddle before the beast’s hooves had even finished kicking up mud.
Julian Vance dropped down behind her, his boots hitting the flagstones with practiced grace. He took in the rapid erection of the palisades, the trench work, and the frantic labor tearing across the estate.
“I thought I was hired to guard a debutante’s parlor,” Julian muttered, a dry, sharp edge to his voice. “Looks like you’re prepping for a planetary invasion.”
“An invasion would be clean, Captain,” Ramona snapped, not breaking her stride as she marched toward the main steps. “An army respects logistics. What’s coming doesn't care if you bleed.”
Julian fell into step beside her, his smirk vanishing. He had spent the ride from the garrison watching her issue flawless directives without a single wasted breath. She wasn't playing at being a general; she had the dead-eyed certainty of someone who had already buried a world.
“Word in the capital is you've completely lost your mind,” Julian noted. “The merchants are screaming to the crown about your grain hoarding.”
“Let them scream,” Ramona barked, shoving open the heavy oak doors of the foyer. “By the time the Crown realizes the food supply is gone, gold won’t buy them a crust of mold. Get to the courtyard. Divide the guard into three shifts. Double the wall patrols. No sleep.”
Before Julian could answer, a frantic, high-pitched gasp tore through the air from the grand staircase.
“Ramona!”
Princess Eleanor Monroe stood on the landing, clutching a crumpled parchment, her face drained of every drop of blood. Nanny Wilson clutched her arm, shaking like a leaf.
Ramona froze. Every muscle in her body locked solid.
In her past life, the first major notification of northern border escalation had been a death warrant for her father—General Marcus Monroe, stationed at the vanguard outpost of Kaelen’s Pass when the anomalous seismic tremors hit.
“What is it?” Ramona whispered, her voice dropping into a lethal, glacial register as she bounded up the stairs three at a time.
Eleanor thrust the letter forward, her hands trembling so violently the parchment whipped in the air.
“It’s... it’s from the northern command,” Eleanor sobbed, tears spilling over. “A dispatch rider broke through the outer gate just now. There’s been a catastrophe at Kaelen’s Pass.”
Ramona snatched the letter. Her eyes tore across the military script, scanning the ink until the words detonated in her brain:
Unprecedented seismic fracture... deep-core strata collapse... northern garrison cut off by aggressive, anomalous fauna swarms... General Monroe's vanguard surrounded.
The timeline had shattered.
Her own actions—hoarding grain, cutting exports, accelerating defenses—had forced the planetary pressure points to snap early.
“The pass is completely blocked by rockslides and monsters,” Eleanor cried, clutching Ramona’s sleeve. “The Ministry says it’s suicide to send a column! They’re writing the garrison off as dead!”
Julian stepped onto the landing, his sharp eyes tracking the volatile surge in the room. He didn’t say a word, recognizing the suffocating weight of an absolute crisis.
Ramona stared at the paper. For a fraction of a second, the phantom agony of finding her father’s broken body beneath the rubble threatened to crush her lungs.
Then the iron gate slammed shut on her soul.
She folded the dispatch with terrifying, robotic calm and slid it into her coat.
“They're writing him off?” Ramona whispered, her voice vibrating with a fury that made even Julian flinch. “Good thing I never trusted the Ministry's judgment.”
She whirled on Julian, her gray eyes flashing like naked steel.
“Saddle thirty of our hardest men. Issue heavy repeating crossbows, lances, and two weeks of rations. We ride north in ten minutes.”
Julian stared at her, stunned. “North?! Ramona, the pass is swarming with anomalies and choked by an entire mountain collapse! That’s a suicide run!”
“It’s only a suicide run if you plan on dying, Captain,” Ramona fired back, striding past him toward her chambers to pull her father’s heavy hunting broadsword from its display mount.
She strapped the blade across her back, the familiar, brutal weight anchoring her to reality.
The apocalypse had knocked early. Let it. She had held the Da Nang line against the end of the world; she wasn't about to let her father rot in a frozen ravine while she hid behind half-built walls.
“Tell the smiths to finish the outer gates before nightfall,” Ramona called over her shoulder, descending the stairs like an avenging angel. “We’re bringing the General home.”