The General's Daughter: The Mission

A few hours later...

Ares received an encrypted message from the Laguna Governor. He was summoned to go to the southern part of Isla, the opposite side of where they had visited the other day.

The boat engine cut through the lake like a blade through silk, low and relentless, leaving a trembling wake behind it.

The island ahead rose from the mist like something half-remembered — too dark, too still, as if the world had decided to forget it existed.

Lara held Shay close, one arm wrapped tight around the girl’s small body as the wind snapped at her hair and clothes.

Shay had fallen quiet sometime after they left shore, her earlier excitement swallowed by the heavy hush that seemed to live on the water.

Ares stood at the bow despite the protests about his injuries, broad shoulders cutting a hard silhouette against the fading sky. He didn’t lean, didn’t brace, didn’t show weakness — just stood there like the boat was an extension of his will.

Asher lounged near the stern, outwardly relaxed, but his eyes kept sliding to Ares with a thin, assessing focus.

No one spoke.

Even the lake seemed to be holding its breath, its dark surface stretched so still it looked less like water and more like a sheet of smoked glass laid over something deep and sleeping.

Then Shay stirred against Lara’s shoulder.

”Mommy,” she whispered, her voice small but edged with a strange certainty. ”That’s where the twin wolves lived. Gray and Snow. They were protectors Isla — that’s what the myth say.”

Lara followed the direction of her pointing finger.

The island was closer now, rising out of the fog like something dragged halfway into the world and abandoned there.

A jagged crown of towering trees clawed at the low sky, their branches knotted and bare in places, while pale slabs of stone jutted through the greenery like broken teeth. The mist didn’t drift past it — it clung, coiling around the shoreline as if reluctant to let the place go.

”Is there really a story like that?” Lara asked, her voice softer than she intended. A trace of something almost wistful slipped through.

Gray and Snow.

So their names survived throughout the centuries as whispers in half-believed tales about guardians that never died and a place no one was supposed to find twice.

Shay nodded, quick and certain, curls brushing Lara’s cheek. Then she went very still, as if even she felt the weight pressing down on the lake.

Silence swallowed the boat. No distant sounds of traffic. Not even the lap of water against the hull — just the faint creak of wood and the slow thud of Lara’s own heartbeat in her ears.

Ares’ voice broke the silence

”Everyone, we’ve arrived.”

The boat scraped against a narrow strip of gravel that passed for a shore. Ares stepped out first, boots crunching, one hand already extended back toward Lara without looking at her — as if he simply expected she would take it.

She hesitated only a second before placing her hand in his.

His grip closed, warm and steady enough to make the unstable ground feel solid. He didn’t release her immediately after she stepped down. Didn’t even seem to notice he was still holding on.

Or maybe he noticed too much.

Asher jumped out lightly on the other side, scanning the tree line with a faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

”Well,” he murmured, ”this place certainly screams not for family vacation.”

No one laughed.

The air on this side of the island felt different — colder, heavier, carrying a faint mineral smell like rain on stone... or something buried too long underground. The sounds of the mainland were gone. No distant traffic. No voices from a marketplace.

Just silence.

Shay slipped free from Lara’s grasp and took a few steps forward, staring into the trees with wide, fascinated eyes.

”It’s pretty,” she said softly.

Lara didn’t see anything pretty about it.

They moved inland along a different path based on the map, though nature had nearly swallowed it whole. Roots knotted through cracked stone.

Moss clung to everything in thick, velvety sheets. The deeper they went, the darker it became, as if the trees were crowding closer to keep outsiders out.

Then the forest opened.

Lara stopped.

Before them, the wilderness gave way to a raw, wounded clearing nearly a hundred square meters wide. The earth had been peeled back in jagged layers, roots dangling like torn veins, the rich black soil cut into sharp terraces by shovels and careful hands.

A small army of archaeologists moved through the pit with hushed urgency, brushes whispering against stone, tools clinking softly, radios crackling in low bursts.

Bright survey flags stabbed the ground in nervous clusters, their neon colors jarringly out of place against the ancient dirt.

The air smelled of wet clay, exposed rock, and something older — a dry, mineral scent like dust sealed away for centuries and suddenly forced to breathe again.

A man in his mid-forties, sleeves rolled down despite the heat and cargo pants streaked with dirt, turned at the sound of footsteps.

The moment he spotted Ares, his face lit with a mix of relief and barely contained excitement. He picked his way across the uneven ground and hurried over, boots slipping on loose soil.

”Mister Zuvel,” he said, a little breathless. ”We mobilized the team as soon as we received the photos you sent. During the aerial survey, we noticed a massive subsidence— a whole section of land had collapsed inward. When we came to investigate...” He gestured back toward the excavation, eyes shining. ”This is what we found.”

”There was a minor earthquake two days ago,” another archaeologist added from behind him, pushing sweat-damp hair off her forehead. ”Nothing major on the surface. The shock likely triggered the collapse, exposing this.”

The first man — who quickly introduced himself as the chief archaeologist — stepped aside and swept his arm in a slow, reverent circle, as if unveiling something sacred.

Stone walls — shattered but unmistakably deliberate — formed the skeleton of a fortress that must once have dominated the entire island.

Arched windows gaped like hollow eye sockets. Broken towers leaned at impossible angles, half collapsed into heaps of pale rubble. Vines strangled the remaining structures, creeping through cracks like veins reclaiming a corpse.

Sunlight spilled across the ruins, turning the stone silver and the shadows pitch black.

Shay ran towered the ruins, Sandro tailing behind.

”Shay, come back.”