Chapter 449: The New Battle Hint (3)
The cellar beneath the eastern barracks had once been a wine vault, its walls lined with thick clay shelves built to cradle dusty amphorae. Most of those jars lay shattered now, their sweet fumes long since dried into sour stains on the flagstones. Only the musky tang of old cork lingered, mixing with the iron scent of fresh blood and the sharp reek of spilled lamp‑oil. One crooked lantern swung from a ceiling hook, creaking with every sway and scattering ragged shadows that seemed to prowl the corners.
The prisoner knelt in the center of the room, wrists lashed behind his back with waxed cord. His clothes—patched linen tunic, fraying trousers—were good enough to pass for a refugee’s, but up close the mending stitches were too precise, the cloth too clean in hidden places. A soft‑handed spy masquerading as a laborer. Dried mud masked the soles of his boots, but the pattern of tread was cavalry issue, not peasant leather. Ravia had noticed all of that in the instant she dragged him out of the arrival line; still, she kept her voice gentle when she asked his name.
He had offered three different ones, none matching the travel papers folded in his pouch. So she called for Alice, and the mood turned colder than the stone floor.
Now the man’s head hung low, sweat beading at his nape despite the chill. A single ring of torch‑soot clung to his neck where Alice had gripped him a bit too firmly. Every so often he tried to swallow, only to find no spit left. Across from him stood Wilhelmina, arms folded, a small ledger open in one hand. She wrote nothing—just let the scratch of her quill on the parchment’s edge drum tick‑tick‑tick into his skull.
Surena leaned against a support pillar, arms bare, fingernails idly etching a groove in the haft of her dagger. Her winter‑wolf pelt hung over one shoulder, dripping from the rain outside and shedding silver droplets onto the floor. Each time the lantern creaked, the fur glittered like frost. The spy tried not to stare.
Lyan watched from the back of the room, half cloaked in the wobbling gloom. His eyes—dark, reflective—never left the prisoner’s shoulders. He counted breaths, the rhythm of pulse fluttering in the man’s throat, the tremor of bound fingers. Already he could tell the spy was close to cracking; the only question was what leverage would pry him open wide enough.
On a low bench near the wall, Alice finished cleaning her sword with an oiled cloth, metal glinting. She set the blade across her knees and spoke just above a whisper. "Tell us your real name, and this goes easier."
The spy lifted his gaze, lips pressed to a defiant line. A smear of brick dust striped one cheek where Ravia had shoved him face‑first into the cellar archway. "I’m nobody," he rasped, voice hoarse from the earlier scuffle. "Just a worker seeking bread."
Ravia—still wearing the guise of a tired refugee—stepped forward. She brushed damp hair from her brow in a weary gesture, but her eyes glinted with foxish amusement. A twist of her wrist, a shimmer along her skin, and her form folded inward, then expanded. When the illusion settled, she had become a Varzadian scout—one of the men captured during last night’s tower assault. Same cropped sable hair, same half‑healed cut across the nose. Even the smell of old chainmail and pine‑tar clung to her clothes.
The spy’s pupils dilated. He flinched as Ravia crouched beside him and whispered, "They’re making preparations upstairs. I can get you out. But you need to give me something worth risking the gallows."
The man’s breathing quickened. "You—You’re one of ours?"