On my command, the floor-to-ceiling windows on the first level shattered under a hail of baseball bats. Servants and bodyguards scattered like rats, hands over their heads. I followed the pull of my Immortal Soul, striding toward the basement level of the Harding estate. The steel door to the basement was sealed with a combination lock. I stepped back. Bruno pulled out the hydraulic cutters he always carried. One clean crunch, and the lock snapped apart. I kicked the door open. The stench hit me first. Blood and antiseptic, thick enough to taste. The moment I saw what was inside, my vision went red. This was no storage room. It was a fully equipped sterile surgical suite. Thomas Harding. My brother. The man who had once stood tall in the Celestial Realm, untouchable and effortlessly elegant. He was strapped to a freezing operating table. His face was the color of ash. His eyes were shut. Each breath came so faint it barely counted as breathing at all. His back had been cut open. A tube as thick as a man's forearm was jammed into his spine. Dark, reddish marrow crept through the tube, draining out of him drop by drop. On a second bed beside him, a plush hospital bed fit for a hotel suite, lay the Harding family's pampered fake prince: Vivian Harding.