Mother of Midnight

The guard had been put to work on various cases in Serkoth—it was part of the job. Crime was low here, sure, but that didn’t mean the city was perfect. Every place had its share of troublemakers, and Serkoth was no exception.

Kellar was well aware of Lyssandro and his crime ring. Everyone in their line of work was. It was tolerated, mostly because Lyssandro didn’t suffer rivals. He kept to his territory, operated in the shadows, and ensured his particular brand of crime didn’t spill over into the streets. As long as things remained under control, the Serkoth family had little reason to crack down on him. Suppressing crime entirely often had the unintended consequence of creating more crime, and there was little point in fixing what wasn’t broken.

But this new case—this one was different.

He’d been assigned a few men and tasked with investigating the undercity, a place that, as far as Kellar had known, was entirely abandoned. The people of Serkoth were well-fed, employed, or taken care of if they couldn’t fend for themselves. A well-run city didn’t leave room for the kind of desperation that usually bred a slum beneath its streets. That was something other cities dealt with. Hell, it was a damn sight better than what the humans on the other side of Greyreach did, or so he’d heard.

Yet somehow, someone had managed to sneak into the tunnels below the city and set up shop. And worse—it wasn’t Serkothans. The reports suggested outsiders, possibly from the Sovereignty itself. That was a concern.

The order had come directly from Narek. Kellar liked working for Narek. The Serkoth family were no fools—Kavren might have been the most meatheaded of them all, but even he wasn’t an idiot. Narek, though? He was in a different league. A strategist, the first point of contact between the Serkoth family and the rest of the city. If something needed handling, he ensured his people had what they needed to do the job right. His network was extensive, and when he assigned a task, there was usually no shortage of information to work from.

But not this time.

This time, the details were sparse. They were given a map of the labyrinthine tunnels and told to poke around, assess the situation, and report back. No clear leads, no detailed intelligence—just a directive to investigate. That, more than anything, put Kellar on edge.

Something about this wasn’t right.

The map in Kellar’s hands was well-worn, the ink slightly smudged from use, but the markings were clear. Several points of interest were marked—two battle sites close to each other and, more notably, a large circle drawn around what was labeled as a fortress. A fortress. Under the city. That was a hard one to swallow. A structure that large existing right beneath Serkoth’s streets without anyone noticing? Seemed far-fetched. But Narek wasn’t the sort to toss around false leads. If he said it was there, then Kellar would see it for himself soon enough.

“Sir, the first site is ahead,” said Farah, stepping up beside him.

Farah was one of his best. Sharp, methodical, and easily the most reliable tracker in the guard. Intelligence and diligence made up for what she lacked in combat skill, and her developed aether meant she could pick up on things others would miss. Unlike most of the guard, whose features retained at least some human elements, Farah had fully crossed the line. Her aether use had reshaped her completely—her body was covered in thick fur, and her head was unmistakably lupine. It made her stand out, but her heightened senses made her invaluable.

Word was, her transformation wasn’t the result of combat augments, but investigative ones. Too much time enhancing her senses during cases had left its mark.

“Understood,” Kellar said, rolling up the map and tucking it into his coat. “We’ll poke around, see what we can find, then move on. No sense in spending the whole damn night down here.”

He cast a glance down the tunnel ahead, where the stone walls loomed tight around them, the air thick with dust and the faint, lingering scent of something old.

Kellar stepped forward, boots scuffing against the damp stone floor. The air was stagnant, thick with the scent of mold, old blood, and something else—something acrid and wrong, like the aftertaste of spent aether. The tunnel walls bore deep scratches, some jagged and wild, others deliberate, carved with precision.

"Blood here," Farah murmured, crouching near the base of the wall. Her nose twitched as she ran a clawed finger through the dark stain smeared across the stone. "Old, but not that old. A few days, maybe a week at most."

Kellar knelt beside her, narrowing his eyes. The way the blood had dried suggested it had been sprayed, not pooled. A fight, then—violent, messy. He traced a finger over one of the deeper gouges in the wall. Too rough for a blade. Claws? No, the pattern was too erratic. Something had raked against the stone in a frenzy.

"Sir." One of his men, Drevan, called from further ahead. "Got something."

Kellar rose and strode forward, Farah close behind. Drevan stood by what looked like a makeshift barricade—broken crates, splintered beams, and rusted scraps of metal stacked haphazardly in the tunnel. A last stand, judging by the scorch marks and embedded crossbow bolts.

Beyond it, the tunnel opened into a small chamber. Aether lanterns had been affixed to the walls at some point, but now only a few flickered weakly, casting sickly green light over the scene.

Bodies.

Not human, not lekine. Certainly not siren.

The bodies—if they could still be called that—were strewn across the chamber in varying states of grotesque transformation. Some were partially fused with the stone floor, their limbs locked in agonized poses, skin hardened into craggy, rock-like formations. Others had vines snaking through their flesh, curling around exposed bone, bursting from empty eye sockets like parasitic growths. A few were little more than husks, their skin stripped away to reveal raw, sinewy muscle, yet they looked almost preserved, as though something unnatural had halted their decay.

Kellar’s breath came slow and measured as he surveyed the carnage. The stench was unbearable—earthy rot mixed with the sharp tang of dried blood and something else. Something metallic and wrong.

A strangled noise came from behind him.

“What in the gods' names are those?” Brevik’s voice was hoarse, almost a whisper, yet it carried through the chamber like a gunshot.

Kellar didn’t answer immediately. He stepped closer, crouching near one of the bodies that had been torn open from the inside. Ribs jutted out like broken teeth, something dark and fibrous curled around the exposed organs, pulsing faintly as if still clinging to life. His fingers twitched with the instinct to draw his weapon, but he forced himself to remain still, to look.

“They smell like aetherbeasts, sir,” Farah said, her ears twitching as she took another cautious sniff of the air. “But they still have the scent of something alive.”

Kellar frowned. “As if they were once people?”

Farah hesitated before nodding. “It’s strange. It’s like… something in them changed, but not all the way.”

That wasn’t reassuring.

Kellar straightened, scanning the room once more before barking out orders. “Everyone, get a count on how many bodies. Write down any details—anything unusual. We’ll have to send people to collect samples later.” He exhaled sharply. “I don’t like where this is going already.”

His men exchanged uneasy glances but nodded, scattering across the chamber to begin their grim work.

Kellar, meanwhile, kept himself busy—not idle, but not counting bodies either. He studied the map again, his mind running through every detail they’d uncovered so far.

Narek knew something. That much was clear. He wasn’t the type to send people in blind unless there was a reason for it. If he had omitted details, it was either because he wanted Kellar to see this firsthand or because something had changed since his last report.

Either way, it didn’t sit right with him. If Narek had already investigated, why send Kellar and his guard down here? What had changed?

He exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. His informants might be sharp when it came to smuggling rings and gang disputes, but they weren’t trained for this kind of work. Kellar and his guard were.

“Sir.” Brevik’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Got something. A human body this time.”

Kellar turned, making his way over.

The corpse lay sprawled against the stone, or at least what was left of it. Massive chunks of flesh were missing, ragged and uneven, as if something had ripped into him rather than using teeth or claws with purpose. Deep gouges marked his torso and limbs—claw marks, unmistakably, but from what exactly?

Kellar crouched, examining the wounds. If one of those things had done this, then why weren’t there any left? Had they wandered off? Died elsewhere? Or had something else come through after?

He hated questions without answers.

When the half-bell passed, the count was done, the details recorded, and Kellar gave the order to move out. The second site wasn’t far.

It was another corpse—human again—but this one was entirely different from the first.

Kellar crouched beside it, eyes narrowing at the sheer contrast. Unlike the first body, which had been savaged beyond recognition, this one was mostly intact. He could see minuscule puncture marks scattered across the flesh, clustered together in patterns that suggested rapid, precise strikes. There were no jagged tears, no heavy lacerations—just those small, surgical wounds.

A thrusting weapon, then. Something meant to pierce but not slice. The lack of any wider gashes ruled out a sword or even a dagger. A stiletto, maybe? A spear with a strangely narrow tip? The pool of blood beneath the body suggested the wounds had been deep enough to bleed the man out quickly, but there was no sign of a struggle. No defensive wounds. He had been dispatched efficiently.

Farah muttered under her breath, ears flicking back. “I don’t like this.” She gestured at the corpse, expression tight with unease. “That first man was eaten—like something wild tore him apart. But this? This is different. A different killer. Different intent.”

She turned toward Kellar, brows furrowed. “If something devoured the first one, why didn’t it eat this one too? I’m thinking a third party’s involved here.”

Kellar exhaled slowly, tapping his fingers against his thigh. “I was thinking the same thing.”

If there was another player in all this, that meant the undercity wasn’t just home to the creatures they’d already seen. Someone else had been down here, armed, and had killed with purpose.

His gaze flicked over the body one last time before he called out, “Iune! Need your expertise here.”

Iune, their resident weapons expert, made his way over. The man had spent years as a mercenary before signing up with the guard, and if anyone could piece together the weapon that had been used here, it was him.

“Yeah, Cap’n,” Said Iune, rubbing his jaw. “I have no idea what did this.”

“Really, nothing?”

Iune nodded, leaning in closer to the body. His eyes took on a soft glow, shimmering like the night sky as his augment activated, allowing him to see deeper—beyond the surface of flesh and into the structure of the wounds themselves.

“Yeah… these punctures go deep,” he muttered, tracing the marks with a gloved fingertip. “And they barely taper at all. If I had to guess, I’d say a stiletto—but even that would be too wide for this. Even spears have bladed edges to help with penetration.” He pulled back slightly, exhaling. “Unless someone’s running around with a giant needle and stabbing people to death.”

Kellar pinched the bridge of his nose, rolling his shoulders. “Great. Just what I needed—some bastard with a godsdamned knitting tool skewering people.” He let out a sharp breath before straightening. “Alright, get whatever details you can from the corpse—identifiers, emblems, anything. Then we move.”

His men and women immediately got to work, combing over the body with trained efficiency. Farah took note of any markings on the corpse’s tattered clothing, while Iune double-checked the wound patterns, muttering calculations under his breath. Kellar gave them space, glancing back down at the map.

Once everything of value was documented, they pressed on, the tunnels stretching long and dark before them.

But when they finally reached their destination, all thoughts of the corpse, of strange wounds, of eerie, devoured bodies—were immediately overshadowed.

They stepped into a vast, yawning cavern, the air suddenly open in a way the tunnels had not been. Stalactites jutted from the ceiling like the jagged fangs of some sleeping beast, and deep within the cavern stood what could only be the so-called fortress marked on their map.

But what struck Kellar first, before the fortress, before the sheer size of the cavern—was the fire.

A massive ball of flame hovered just below the cavern’s ceiling, burning bright as a miniature sun. It pulsed with a slow, rhythmic flicker, casting long, wavering shadows across the cavern floor. Their torches—so necessary in the tunnels—were now entirely redundant beneath its glow.

The entire place was bathed in golden light. Warm. Oppressive. Alive.

Kellar let out a slow breath, his fingers tightening on the hilt of his sword.

“…Well,” he muttered. “That’s not something you see every day.”

“Ah, shit!” Iune cursed, stumbling back a step as he threw a hand over his eyes. “Forgot to turn the augment off!”

Brevik snorted. “Dumbass.”

“Save the banter,” Kellar said, tone firm. “We’re on the job.”

Both men straightened at that, refocusing as they pressed forward.

Getting into the fortress proved more difficult than expected. The massive front doors were barred from within, refusing to budge even under force. They circled the structure, searching for another way in. Most of the side entrances—likely once used by servants—were either collapsed or blocked by rubble. It took time, but eventually, they found a smaller, partially caved-in doorway.

It took effort, but together, they forced the remains of the door open with a resounding crack, stepping into the darkened interior.

The air inside was thick, stale. Dust floated in lazy trails where their movements disturbed the stillness. As they navigated the fortress, it became clear that parts of it had been abandoned for decades, if not centuries. Entire rooms were left untouched, filled with furniture covered in dust-heavy sheets, their edges brittle with age. The stone walls bore signs of time’s passage—cracks creeping along their surfaces like veins, moisture warping the wood in places.

But not all of the fortress was old and forgotten.

Some rooms bore clear signs of habitation. Rich furnishings, clean surfaces, candles still in their holders—this was no empty ruin. Someone—no, some group—had been living here. And recently.

The deeper they went, the more unsettling it became.

Then they reached the first of the major halls.

And all of them stopped in their tracks.

The air smelled of blood and rust.

Bodies—dozens of them—lay scattered across the floor in grotesque displays of violence. These weren’t just any soldiers. The unmistakable emblem of Aegis was stamped onto their armor, their tabards, their shields.

It wasn’t just the fact that they were dead—it was how they were killed.

Giant claw marks had been gouged through their armor as if it were paper. Limbs were missing. Some were bisected entirely, their torsos ripped clean from their waists. Others had been torn apart in even more gruesome ways, their remains smeared across the stone.

Kellar exhaled slowly, scanning the carnage.

Everyone got to work immediately, moving with the efficiency of seasoned investigators. Some searched the corpses, carefully peeling back what remained of armor and cloth to examine wounds. Others scoured the room, noting the placement of bodies, the spread of blood, and any discarded weapons. The metallic scent of old blood and the stale bite of decay hung heavy in the air, but none of them so much as flinched. They had seen worse.

Time passed in near silence, only the occasional scribble of quills against parchment or the shifting of boots against stone breaking the quiet. After a bell of work, Kellar finally called them to the hallway adjacent to the carnage.

“What have we found?” His voice echoed slightly in the enclosed space.

Brevik stepped forward, his usual easy demeanor subdued as he held up a parchment secured to a wooden board. “Twenty-eight dead that we counted. There are a few extra sets of armor, though, so there could have been more, but if so, they’re either missing or unrecognizable.” He adjusted his grip on the board before continuing. “We found more puncture wounds, like the ones in the tunnel. But all of them have been…” He hesitated, then grimaced. “Eaten. At least partially.”

Kellar exhaled sharply through his nose. He’d expected as much.

Brevik continued, “As for the claw marks, it looks like whatever did this had five digits. Probably humanoid, but not normal. The wounds are too deep. Claws like these would have to be extended, maybe a full handspan each.”

Kellar scratched at his chin, mind working through the implications. “So we’re not looking at just one attacker. If there is a third party, then there’s more than one individual involved. At least two.”

Farah nodded in agreement. “That was my thought as well, sir. I think the bodies in the tunnel were killed separately—two different styles, two different approaches. If there are two, then they might have split up to deal with them first before regrouping here.”

Kellar folded his arms, his gaze drifting back toward the ruined hall, taking in the torn bodies, the clawed armor, and the sheer brutality of it all. Every instinct in him screamed that something wasn’t right—this wasn’t just an unfortunate slaughter. There was a purpose behind it.

“I don’t like this,” he muttered, exhaling sharply before straightening. “Let’s keep moving. We’re splitting up to cover more ground.” He pointed to his men as he gave orders. “Brevik, Ganna—you’re together. Search the eastern wing. Iune, Sethi—you two check out the servants’ quarters. Be thorough, and if you find anything useful, mark it down.”

A chorus of nods followed.

“Farah, you’re with me,” Kellar finished, and with that, the group dispersed, boots scuffing against the ancient stone as they moved deeper into the fortress.

Kellar and Farah braved the carnage once more, stepping carefully over the remains as they exited the hall into a long corridor. The air grew heavier, thick with the metallic stench of old blood and rot. The torches along the walls sputtered, their feeble flames barely illuminating the devastation ahead. More bodies littered the hallway—soldiers, armored and armed, yet just as lifeless as the ones before.

They were clustered around a heavy wooden door, their corpses slumped against it as though they had died fighting to get in. Some had been partially devoured, their torsos torn open, ribs jutting through shredded flesh. Others bore the same precise puncture wounds as the bodies from before, clean and deliberate. A few had both—their bodies pierced and then feasted upon, as if one killer had incapacitated them while the other had cleaned up afterward.

Kellar sighed, stepping carefully over the dead and pushing the door open.

The stench hit them like a physical force.

The room beyond was a strategy chamber—its long wooden table was covered in maps, charts, and piles of documents, many of which were now soaked in blood. Candles, long burned down to waxy nubs, sat untouched, and overturned chairs lay scattered across the floor, as though the room had been abandoned in a hurry. But what made Kellar’s stomach tighten was the sheer number of bodies.

Dozens more filled the space, slumped over the table, collapsed in chairs, or strewn across the floor, their weapons still clutched in cold, lifeless fingers.

Farah barely had a moment to react before she gagged violently, doubling over as her stomach emptied itself onto the stone floor. The overwhelming scent of carrion was too much for her heightened senses.

Kellar wasn’t far behind. His gut twisted, his body rebelling against the putrid air, and for all his years in the guard, all the corpses he had seen, even he couldn’t stop himself from retching.

The most horrifying fact, the one that sent a chill creeping down Kellar’s spine, was that not a single corpse in the room had more than a third of it left. Whatever had done this hadn’t just killed—it had feasted. Bones were stripped clean, shattered where marrow could be sucked out. Armor lay discarded, bent and torn like paper, as if its wearers had been peeled from within.

Kellar wretched, a dry heave racking his chest, his body revolting against the sheer stench of decay. The air was thick with it, an oppressive mix of iron and rot that clung to his lungs like a wet cloth. He pressed his arm against his nose, trying in vain to block it out.

“Farah,” he croaked. “If you need to step out, do it.”

Farah, still hunched over, sucked in a breath between heaves but shook her head. Sweat matted the fur along her neck, her ears pinned back in distress. But she stayed.

Good woman, that one.

Kellar swallowed hard, forcing himself to focus. The room itself was an absolute wreck. A strategy hall, judging by the enormous table at the center, though its surface was barely visible beneath the piles of papers, maps, and discarded weapons. Blood stained everything—smeared across documents, pooled in the grooves of the stone floor, drying in dark, sticky patches where bodies had fallen. He stepped carefully, boots crunching against shattered glass and what he feared might be fragments of bone.

The walls told their own story. Deep gouges marred the stone, massive claw marks carving through solid rock as if it were no more resistant than parchment. A single strike, five deep lines—too large for any beast he knew, but too precise for an animal.

A fight had happened here. A slaughter.

And then, there was the map.

Pinned beneath a blood-slicked dagger, a massive chart of the continent lay spread out across the table. Lines and symbols crisscrossed it, some drawn hastily, others methodical and precise. A city plan of Serkoth sat beside it, covered in red markings. The more Kellar looked, the more certain he became—this wasn’t just tactical planning. This was preparation. A full-scale operation.

And it hadn’t been completed.

Farah finally straightened, wiping her mouth. Her nose twitched, sniffing, but she grimaced immediately. “Sir... this isn’t right.”

“No,” Kellar agreed, pulling the dagger free and rolling up the map. “This was something bigger than a skirmish. If Aegis was planning a move against Serkoth, why wasn’t this reported? Why weren’t reinforcements sent?”

Farah frowned, glancing toward the corpses. “Maybe they didn’t have time.”

He followed her gaze. The state of the bodies… no. This wasn’t the work of soldiers turning on each other. And the puncture wounds they’d seen earlier—they were here too, buried between massive gashes and shredded armor.

Two killers.

One brutal. One precise.

And yet, none of it made sense.

“Sir,” Farah said suddenly. She stepped forward, crouching beside one of the bodies that had collapsed against the table. She reached out carefully, pulling back what remained of the soldier’s shredded cloak.

Underneath, still clutched in the man’s stiff fingers, was a scroll case. Blood coated it, but the seal was unbroken.

Kellar took it immediately, prying the dead fingers loose and cracking the wax with his thumb. Inside, the parchment was stiff with dried blood, but the ink was still legible. He unrolled it, scanning the words quickly.

Kellar’s brow furrowed as he reread the orders, his voice low and measured. “Secure the fortress. Eliminate any who learn of it. Work with locals to procure supplies. Wait for further orders.”

Farah leaned in closer, her lupine features tense. “Well, that answers what they were doing down here. They were planning to attack Serkoth from below—probably in tandem with a siege, if I had to guess.”

He nodded, lips pressed into a thin line. “Yeah, that tracks. But it still doesn’t tell us what killed them.”

They continued their search, stepping carefully over the ruined bodies, continuing to sift through maps, notes, anything that might give them more insight. The stale air was thick with the stench of blood and decay, but they’d worked under worse conditions before.

Farah suddenly called out, her voice sharp. “Found a body. Different cause of death.”

Kellar strode over, kneeling beside her. The corpse was unlike the others—Aegis clergy by the look of his robes, though tattered and bloodstained beyond recognition. Unlike the rest, his armor was intact, his body untouched by claw marks or the vicious puncture wounds that riddled the others.

But his leg—his entire leg—was gone.

“No signs of a struggle, no defensive wounds,” Farah murmured, her nose twitching as she took in the scent. “If I had to guess, he bled out from that wound. But whatever killed and ate the others either didn’t kill him or didn’t see fit to eat him.”

Kellar nodded, his thoughts churning. “No puncture wounds, no claw marks… whatever was down here wiped out an entire force but left this one alone, at least in part. Could be something significant about him.”

Farah exhaled sharply. “Only thing I know for sure is that he’s missing the wounds the others have. That’s not a coincidence.”

Kellar stared down at the corpse, his chest tightening. Something wasn’t right. They were missing a piece of this puzzle, and the longer he looked, the worse the feeling in his gut became.

He pushed aside a torn scrap of fabric, his fingers brushing over a bloodstained emblem beneath it. The insignia was unmistakable.

His breath slowed. “I think I just found someone with the Rathik insignia on them.” His voice was steady, but the weight behind it was unmistakable. “One of our own?”

Farah stepped closer, peering over his shoulder. The moment she saw the sigil, the fur along her arms bristled.

“Seems to be that way, sir,” she murmured.

Kellar clenched his jaw. The Rathik family was no small name. They were part of Serkoth’s foundation, trusted, deeply entrenched. If one of theirs had been down here—had died here—then this was more than just an Aegis operation gone wrong.

This meant someone in the family had known. And they hadn’t warned them.

He exhaled sharply, straightening. “Keep searching. I want to know who they were and what the hell they were doing here.”

This was spiraling into something worse than he’d anticipated. Aegis being down here was one thing—bad enough on its own—but if someone from the Rathik family had been involved, that meant the corruption ran deeper than just an outside threat. It was a problem festering from within.

He exhaled through his nose. When they got back topside, there would be questions.

Farah’s ears flicked. “I think I smell something else, sir. Narrative aether.”

Kellar turned to her sharply. That wasn’t something he’d expected to hear. Narrative aether was rare, its users even rarer. It didn’t just alter the world—it twisted the story of things, bending fate itself to new shapes.

“You’re sure?”

“It’s hard to smell through the stench, but yes. It was used here at some point.” She lifted a hand, pointing toward one end of the room. “It’s strongest over there.” Read complete versıon only at noveⅼfire.net

They stepped carefully over the ruined floorboards, past splintered chairs and overturned tables, the scent of blood thick in the air. As they reached the far end of the room, Kellar’s gaze landed on a patch of warped wood, barely noticeable at first glance but unmistakable now that he was looking for it.

The floor had changed.

It wasn’t decay, and it wasn’t damage from battle. The grain of the wood curved in unnatural directions, spiraling in places, stretching in others, as though reality itself had been nudged and reshaped.

Kellar crouched down, running his gloved fingers along the surface. The texture was off—too smooth where it should have been rough, too soft in places, like the wood had been melted and reformed.

“Someone rewrote something here,” he murmured.

Farah’s tail twitched, her nose wrinkling. “Which means someone with narrative aether was directly involved.”

He exhaled slowly, rising to his feet. That changed things. That meant whatever happened here wasn’t just bloodshed—it had been altered, edited, reshaped by unseen hands.

And they had no way of knowing what the story had been before.

“I think we’re done here,” Kellar said, rolling his shoulders to shake off the tension. “Let’s meet up with the others and head topside.”

“Yes, sir.” Farah fell in step beside him as they retraced their path through the ruined corridors.

The fortress felt heavier now, the silence pressing in as if it had swallowed every scream, every dying breath that once echoed through its halls. They stepped over corpses—half-eaten, stabbed, torn apart—each one a grim reminder of the massacre that had happened days prior. And yet, despite the slaughter, the lingering scent of narrative aether clung to the air like an afterimage of something unnatural.

When they reached the meeting point in the main hallway, Brevik and Ganna were already there. Brevik stood with arms crossed, tapping a finger impatiently against his bicep, while Ganna sat on a fallen chunk of stone, adjusting the straps on her boots.

But something was missing.

“Where are the other two?” Kellar asked, eyes scanning the corridor.

Brevik let out a slow breath and stretched his neck before answering. “Dunno. Haven’t seen them.” He cleared his throat. “We didn’t find much. Just some dead servants.”

Kellar’s frown deepened. “Let’s find the other two, then we head up. We have a lot to go over.”

The unease in his gut didn’t fade as they moved. The fortress was dead—silent, save for the occasional creak of shifting stone or the rustle of tattered banners hanging limp in the stale air. Their boots echoed off the walls as they pressed forward, checking each room, each darkened corridor where shadows stretched long and unmoving.

They found Iune and Sethi in what looked like an old storage chamber, surrounded by broken crates and discarded supplies. Relief barely had time to settle before Kellar noticed they weren’t alone.

A girl sat slumped against the wall between them.

She looked like she might collapse at any moment—skin pale, eyes sunken, her breath coming in shallow, ragged gulps. The simple servant’s garb she wore was torn and stained with grime, and her hands trembled where they clutched weakly at her skirts.

Iune straightened when he saw them. “Found her hiding in a crawlspace,” he said, voice quiet, careful. “She’s in bad shape. Dehydrated, starving. Might have been down here for days.”

Kellar crouched in front of her, careful not to startle her. “You with the nobles?”

The girl swallowed hard, her throat working around the effort, but she gave a shaky nod.

Brevik muttered a curse under his breath. “A survivor. Hell.”

Farah moved closer, sharp eyes scanning the girl up and down. “She’s not wounded. Not in the way the others were, at least.”

Which meant something had spared her. Or she had managed to evade it. Either way, she might have answers.

Kellar exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “Alright. Let’s get her topside. She can rest while we go over what we found.”