(Dominic’s POV)
The knock came just after sunrise—three short raps, sharp and insistent. I was already awake, hunched over a half-finished report in the war room. Sleep had abandoned me weeks ago.
“Enter,” I called, voice gravel from too many sleepless nights.
Skylar stepped in, dirt smeared across his collar and the kind of exhaustion in his eyes that meant this wasn’t just a routine update. “We’ve got a problem at the Outer Reach post.”
I stood immediately. “Which one?”
“Northwestern ridge. The one near the dried creek bed.”
My jaw tightened. That outpost was strategically critical—isolated enough to monitor border incursions, yet small enough to be overlooked. “What happened?”
“Two things,” Skylar said. “We lost contact with one of the scouts overnight. Second—supplies are missin
