I’m crouched next to Kragna, Veeto, Harriet, Bruce, and Charen on the edge of a catacomb entrance—runes etched into the stone like warning marks. Each of us is silent, listening to the war erupt above.
“It’s time,” I whisper.
Kragna shifts into battle mode. His skin thickens, suffused with obsidian plates; curved talons sprout at his fingertips; two golden horns blaze from his forehead, glowing like molten metal. The shift hums through his bones.
“Lead the way,” he growls, voice low and sure.
I step into the tunnel first. Darkness swallows us whole. Torchlight flickers off the damp, slick walls. Blood seeps from old cracks, staining the floor like memory. The air is heavywith centuries-old magic and sorrow—the damp stench of decay, incense, and long-britonguised tomes.
Each footstep echoes in our ears. The melody of trapped ghosts. Vetters ahead slink like shadows over broken carvings and pillars slashed by ancient wars.
I taste iron on my tongue.
We move fast but careful. Every head on tilts, every nerve taut. A collapse ahead—debris we ignore, trusting Kragna to shield us. He presses forward with silent violence. His horns glow brighter, lighting the path.
A chamber opens: a cross-tunnel, walls covered in candles that gutter in the damp air, revealing branching routes. Veeto unfolds his map on the wall—scratched indicators, arrowed corridors.
“We need to go right, twin passages, jump start old guard room,” he says, voice echoing. “Then down shaft to entry under watchtower.”
“Do it,” I say, heart pounding with Dirges of Hope and dread.
We slip through the maze, living shadows in the veins of the city.
The sound above intensifies—screams, clashes, the clang of steel. The city bleeds. But we’re ghosts beneath it.
Here, only whispers.
Yet something shifts—movement in the shadows. Figures haunting the edges of torchlight.
Assassins emerge. Silent. Blade-tipped arrows flick from hidden halls.
Kragna’s roar cracks stone—and I feel it in my bones. The creatures lunge, and he swats them aside like flies, bone-horn catching steel, glittering claws slashing shadows.
Bruce roars. Claws catch metal—flesh tears, bodies shudder and collapse. The ground shakes with Harriet’s hissing heads—fumigated breath choking out the invaders.
Charen dives down in drunken fury, talons ripping feet from ankles, wings flaring sparks on stone.
I’m moving behind them, clasping River’s hand as I sweep the hallway. Every stone is soaked in centuries of betrayal and blood, but tonight, we paint new stories on these walls. One foot in front of the other. Torchlight revealing shapes: a skeleton clutching a helmet, a drip of fresh blood onto bone.
“Yes,” I breathe. “That’s it.”
We burst into a chamber underneath the guard tower. A spiral stair cuts upward. Beyond it, torches burn weakly through grated doors. The tower looms above, guarded from all sides—but here, beneath it, we’ve carved a path.
Kragna gives a nod, silent, fierce.
I strip off my cloak, hand him charcoaled rope—“Smoke bombs—just like we practiced,” I whisper.
He ties knots in that voice of steel. “Go.”
I flick the match. The smoke blooms—golden, churning. It wraps around our group like breath, swallowing vision, clutching sound. The world becomes the stink of burning herbs and shifting stone.
Guards falter. Chains rattle. Footsteps near.
I lead us up that iron stair—dark, slick. Crowded with shadows and fear.
At the top, torches and armor. Guards ready. Blades raised.
But Kragna steps forward—massive, glinting, impossible.
