Chapter 131: Ch.128: The Immortal City’s Shadow
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- Abandoned Village, Northern Italy -
- May 14, 1939 | Midnight -
By the time the moon rose above the broken roofs of the abandoned village, the strangers had made themselves at home among its ghosts. Stone walls cracked by old winters leaned against each other like drunks in an alley, and the wind rattled broken shutters with a soft, restless sigh. Somewhere behind the ruins, an old church bell hung crooked but silent — no prayers left to answer here.
The men Karna and Neel had tracked for two days now crouched around a half-collapsed barn. No fire. Just the moonlight spilling through the holes in the roof, touching tired faces and the single crate they’d carried so far through the woods and over the border.
Hidden behind a row of crumbling walls, Neel lay belly-down in the dirt beside Karna. Above them, an old window gaped open to the sky, the stars blinking through shattered glass like curious eyes. Between the two scouts, a small brass device no bigger than Neel’s thumb glowed faintly in the dark — Aryan’s gift to the Hidden Flame. A seed of runes and circuits that drank sound and gave it back whole.
It hummed now, soft as a sleeping cat, catching every word the strangers spoke just twenty paces away.
Inside the barn, the men who had killed Hydra’s convoy sat on crates or leaned against splintered beams, their coats thrown over their shoulders. For the first time since the forest, they looked less like shadows and more like tired men shaking off days of cold and blood.
One of them — younger than the rest, dark hair curling damp against his forehead — shifted closer to the leader. His voice carried low but clear through the brass listening seed.
"Luca," he asked, tone half question, half relief at finally letting words loose, "why’d we do it, eh? Steal this thing from Hydra after watching them for months? We never lift a hand unless Sir Newton says so. Now suddenly we’re robbing Nazis in the middle of nowhere for... this?"
He knocked his knuckles lightly on the side of the crate. The sealed old book inside made no sound — just sat there, heavy with secrets.
Their leader — Luca — didn’t scold him. He was older, maybe forty, sharp lines under his eyes but something soft there too, a tired kindness that didn’t quite match the knife at his belt. He leaned back against a beam, arms folded, breath misting in the cold.