Chapter 79: Investment 79: Into the Dark
They found the first clue near the orchard’s edge—a single, torn scrap of fabric from Mira’s sleeve, caught on the low branch of an apple tree, and beyond it, a trail of disturbed earth leading toward the estate’s rear boundary wall.
"They went out this way," Seria said, crouching to examine a partial boot print pressed into the soft ground. "Recently. The edges haven’t crumbled yet."
"How many?" Cassian’s voice was tight, controlled in the particular way that Elliot recognized as barely restrained panic.
"Two, maybe three sets of prints besides theirs." Seria’s expression hardened. "Whoever took them wasn’t part of the main assault. This happened separately, likely while everyone’s attention was fixed on the breach and the cellar."
"A third distraction," Elliot said grimly, the pieces finally clicking into a shape that made his blood run cold. "The wall assault pulled the guards. The cellar break-in pulled me. And that left the manor’s entrance—"
"Undefended long enough for someone to simply walk in and take them," Cassian finished, voice breaking slightly on the last word before he forced it back under control. "This was never about the fragment at all. Not directly."
"They wanted leverage," Seria said. "Something to force your cooperation without having to fight for the fragment at all."
Cassian’s jaw clenched. "Then we go after them. Now."
"Father, we don’t know where—"
"I don’t care." Cassian was already moving, following the disturbed trail toward the boundary wall with a single-minded intensity that brooked no argument. "I am not losing my wife and daughter to whatever’s out there, Elliot. Not tonight, not ever."
Elliot exchanged a glance with Seria, and found in her expression the exact same resolve he felt in his own chest.
"Then we go together," he said, falling into step behind his father.
The trail led them beyond the estate’s boundary wall and into the surrounding woodland, torn fabric and disturbed earth marking a path that grew increasingly difficult to follow as daylight continued fading into evening shadow. Seria’s frost-attuned senses proved invaluable, detecting subtle temperature variations in the ground where recent footsteps had disturbed the cooling evening air, guiding them steadily deeper into unfamiliar terrain.
"There," she said finally, after nearly twenty minutes of careful tracking, pointing toward a faint, flickering light visible through a gap in the trees ahead. "Movement. Small fire, maybe a camp."
They approached cautiously, Cassian’s earlier reckless urgency finally tempering into the same controlled precision he’d shown commanding the estate’s defense hours earlier. Through the gap in the trees, they found a small clearing—three cloaked figures gathered around a modest campfire, and bound against a nearby tree trunk, Lyra and Mira, both visibly frightened but, to Elliot’s overwhelming relief, unharmed.
"Mother," he breathed, barely audible.
"Easy," Seria whispered, catching his arm before he could move. "Three guards, at least. Possibly more we can’t see. We rush in carelessly, and we risk them being hurt before we can stop it."
"She’s right," Cassian said, though every line of his body strained with the effort of restraint. "We need a plan. Not a charge."
Elliot forced himself to breathe, to think past the raw fear clawing at his chest, and studied the camp’s layout with as much clarity as he could manage. Two of the cloaked figures sat near the fire, weapons within easy reach but postures relaxed, clearly not expecting pursuit this quickly. The third stood watch near Lyra and Mira, close enough to react instantly to any sudden movement.
"If we take out the watchman first, quietly, the other two won’t know anything’s wrong until it’s too late," Elliot said quietly.
"I can freeze him silently," Seria offered. "From this range, if the wind cooperates."
"Do it," Cassian said. "Elliot and I will handle the other two the moment he’s down."
Seria’s hands rose slowly, ice mana gathering with careful, controlled precision rather than her usual dramatic flair—a thin, nearly invisible thread of frost creeping silently across the clearing floor toward the unsuspecting watchman’s boots.
The moment it reached him, his legs locked solid without warning, and before he could so much as gasp in surprise, a second thread of ice sealed shut around his throat, cutting off any sound entirely.
"Now," Seria breathed.
Elliot and Cassian moved as one, breaking from the tree line in a coordinated rush that caught the remaining two guards entirely off balance. Cassian’s blade found the first before he’d even fully risen from his seat by the fire, and Elliot’s sword, wreathed once more in the golden warmth of his primordial ward, met the second’s hastily raised defense and shattered through it in a single, decisive strike.
Within seconds, the clearing fell silent, all three captors either dead or unconscious, and Elliot was already at his mother and sister’s side, cutting through their bindings with trembling, relieved hands.
"Elliot," Lyra gasped, pulling both him and the freshly freed Mira into a fierce, desperate embrace the moment the ropes gave way. "Thank the Sky Father. Thank the Sky Father, you found us."
"Are you hurt? Either of you?" Cassian was there instantly, checking them both over with frantic, careful hands.
"We’re fine," Lyra said, though her voice trembled with the aftermath of fear finally allowed to surface. "Frightened, but fine. They didn’t hurt us. They kept saying we were simply—insurance."
"Insurance for what?" Seria asked, though something in her expression suggested she’d already guessed the answer.
Mira, still shaking but drawing on some reserve of steel Elliot recognized all too well, answered before her mother could.
"They kept talking about someone called the Architect," she said. "Saying he’d want to negotiate directly with Elliot once they had us. That the fragment wasn’t the only thing he wanted anymore."
Elliot’s stomach dropped, the messenger’s earlier words echoing back with new, unsettling clarity.
Whatever came next, it seemed the true architect of this entire nightmare had finally decided to make himself known.
Cassian’s arms tightened protectively around his wife and daughter, but his eyes, when they found Elliot’s, carried a hard, resolute promise that needed no words to convey.
Whoever this Architect turned out to be, he would find House Reingard considerably harder to break than he clearly believed.