They woke Sofia at 3:33 a.m. exactly.
Dom Pius stood over her cot in the infirmary, face grim.
"He's asking for you. Personally."
The entire monastery was already gathered in the chapter house, a long stone room lit only by candles and the soft glow of two hundred and nineteen sealed foreheads.
A single black drone—no larger than a football, matte finish, no markings—hovered in the exact center of the ceiling like a spider.
It had slipped through every jammer, every blessed perimeter, every guardian-angel patrol.
It simply appeared.
Now it projected a perfect, life-size hologram into the air.
Prince Alessandro de Luca stood in the chapter house as though he had walked straight out of St. Peter's Basilica at midnight.
Charcoal suit immaculate, black hair swept back, eyes the color of winter oceans.
He looked twenty-eight. He looked ancient.
He smiled the way a cat smiles at a bleeding bird.
"Good morning, little sister," he said in perfect, gentle Spanish. "Or should I say… General?"
Every monk and refugee flinched at the voice. It was beautiful. It was poison wrapped in honey.
Sofia rose from the cot slowly, still wearing the oversized monastery hoodie someone had given her, brown scapular visible at the neck.
The olive-wood rosary hung from her belt like a sword.
She walked until she stood directly beneath the drone, staring up into Alessandro's projected eyes.
"My name is Sofia Isabella Morales," she said. "And I belong to Jesus and Mary. You already know that."
Alessandro's smile widened.
"Of course. The girl who prays and makes my toys fall out of the sky."
He gestured, and the hologram shifted—showing live drone footage of the night before: two hundred soldiers kneeling, the Host blazing above them like a second sun.
Then the image changed again: Sarah Kline dying in the snow, lips still moving in the Fatima prayer.
Sofia's breath caught.
Alessandro's voice dropped to a lover's whisper.
"I could have stopped the bullet, little sister. One word from me and Captain Kline would be alive right now. One word from you, and no one else ever has to die."
He spread his hands.
"Come to Rome. Just you. No tricks. We will speak face to face. You can end the Tribulation tonight."
Father Elijah stepped forward, face white with fury.
"You are the Tribulation, you bastard—"
Alessandro's eyes flicked to him and the priest dropped to one knee, choking as though an invisible hand had closed around his throat.
Sofia raised one hand. Elijah gasped and could breathe again.
She never took her eyes off Alessandro.
"You want me in Rome?" she asked quietly.
"Desperately," he said.
"Alive?"
"Very much alive. I have… plans for you."
The hologram leaned closer, until his projected face was inches from hers.
"I am not your enemy, Sofia. I am your destiny. The world you knew is gone. Billions are terrified. I can give them peace tomorrow. All I ask is seven days of conversation with the only human being on earth who still frightens me."
He smiled again, softer.
"Seven days. No Mark forced on anyone. No raids. No executions. Just you and me, talking theology in the Sistine Chapel. If at the end of seven days you still say no… I will let your little Army walk free. You have my word."
Diego growled from the back, "His word is worth spit."
But Sofia was staring at the hologram as though she could see straight through it to whatever wore Alessandro like a glove.
She felt the Host against her heart burn—not painfully, but urgently.
Our Lady's words from the checkpoint echoed in her soul:
I am crushing the serpent… under your feet… right now.
Sofia took one step closer.
"Swear it," she said. "By the Name you hate most."
Alessandro's smile faltered for the first time.
The drone flickered.
"Swear it," she repeated, voice ringing like a bell. "By the Name of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, that for seven days you will order no violence against any soul who refuses the Mark, if I come to Rome alone."
The hologram hissed—literally hissed, like steam escaping a broken pipe.
Then Alessandro's face smoothed again.
"Very well," he said, voice silk over razors. "By… that Name… I swear it. Seven days of peace, beginning at sunset tomorrow. In exchange, you arrive in Rome, alone, unarmed, before the seventh dawn."
He extended a hand through the hologram, palm up.
"Do we have a bargain, little sister?"
Sofia looked at the hand.
Then she lifted her own right hand and made the Sign of the Cross in the air between them.
"I accept," she said. "But not for your reasons.
I'm coming to finish what began at Fatima."
The drone burst into flame mid-air and fell to the stone floor in a pile of smoking plastic.
The hologram vanished.
Silence.
Then chaos.
Every voice in the chapter house exploded at once.
"You can't go!"
"It's a trap!"
"He'll kill you the second you land!"
Sofia raised both hands.
They quieted instantly.
She looked at Dom Pius, at Father Elijah, at Diego, at the children clutching their rosaries like teddy bears.
"I have to go," she said simply. "Mary is sending me."
Father Elijah's face crumpled. "Then we go with you."
"No," Sofia answered. "The oath was for me alone. If any of you follow, the seven days of peace end and the killing starts again."
She turned to the entire Army.
"But I won't be alone."
She lifted the olive-wood rosary high.
"Every decade you pray while I'm gone will walk beside me in Rome.
Every Rosary, every scapular, every Mass offered—will be my armor."
She smiled, small and fierce and utterly unafraid.
"Sarah Kline died so we could learn how to face him.
Now it's my turn to walk into the lion's den with fifteen decades and the Immaculate Heart."
She looked at the smoking remains of the drone.
"Seven days," she whispered. "Just like the seven swords in her heart."
Then she turned to Dom Pius.
"Charter a plane. The oldest one you can find. No electronics. I want to fly under their radars the way the angels fly."
The old abbot bowed low.
"It will be done before sunrise."
Father Elijah caught her arm as the crowd began to disperse in stunned, prayerful motion.
"Sofia… when you stand in front of him… promise me one thing."
She waited.
"Promise me you'll remember who you are."
She touched the faint imprint of the Host on her chest, then the glowing seal on her forehead.
"I'm a daughter of Mary," she said. "That's all I've ever been."
Then she walked out into the freezing night to pray her departure Rosary beneath the stars that still remembered Fatima.
And somewhere across the ocean, in a throne room that had once belonged to Peter, Prince Alessandro stared at his unbleeding hand and smiled with too many teeth.
The game had finally begun.
To be continued…