“Get to the edge of the city,” Calira murmurs, her voice barely carrying beyond the cluster of them. “Place the bottles of gas on window ledges where the enemy will see—divert their course into the entrance we’ll be waiting in. Do not release the mist yet. We wait for the second wave. On my signal, we release.”
Several pairs of Venomshades peel off without question, disappearing into various narrow passages between buildings. Jax watches one of them draw a small bottle from her belt, twisting the stopper loose just enough to let a thin stream of vapor spill into the air. It curls, dense and deliberate, hanging on the air to reroute the enemy and push them exactly where they want them to go.Or die.
Efficient.
Cruel.
Exactly what they need. Maybe that’s why war makes sense to Jax. It gives fury shape. Gives pain permission to become useful. This is the terrible truth of Jax—everything inside her settles the moment survival becomes simple enough to be found in the sharp tip of a blade.
Jax shifts her grip on her blade and moves with the next group, slipping into the shell of what used to be a home. The walls still hold the imprint of lives lived here—marks on the floor, a chair overturned in haste, a child’s blanket left folded ona small crib as if whoever fled believed they would be back for it.They won’t be.
The night drenches the world in darkness, giving the unit cover to move from abandoned building to abandoned building. Jax crouches low, following the unit and clocking exactly how they move, exactly how they do things.
Calira nudges her with her elbow and presses a round canister into Jax’s palm.
“What’s this?” Jax asks, unfastening the lid to reveal hundreds of thin, long, needle-like objects.
“Throw them. They’re so thin the eye cannot detect their movement through the sky. Grab only this end,” she explains, tapping the top of the canister. “They are dipped in Shadelock. Fatal if they touch the skin.”
A weapon of stealth. Far more subtle than Jax’s usual methods, but effective. Almost terrifying in their simplicity.
Jax nods, but Calira has already moved.
“Positions,” Calira says from somewhere just beyond the doorway, her voice threading through the structure without needing volume. “Runewrights, hold until we’ve taken out the first unit. Hold until the second crosses the threshold. Do not engage early.”
Venomshades are positioned through buildings along the street of Virellin—the street chosen specifically for its lack of side-streets. Nowhere for the enemy to run. Only poison for them to run into.
The perfect place for controlled collapse.
Jax feels the shift before she sees it. The Runewrights move differently, their stillness more dangerous than motion. Her mind drifts to Maldrak for a fraction of a heartbeat. She wonders how many times he pressed runes into her skin to glean information when she thought he was tracing idle circles on her skin after intimacy. Wonders how many times the truthslipped from her lips without her conscious decision to do so. Wonders how many times his tenderness was just abuse in disguise.
She shakes her head.Not here. Not now.
The Runewrights press themselves into the edges of rooms, into the blind spots of entryways, waiting with the kind of patience that only comes from knowing exactly how little time they will need once the moment arrives.
No one moves.
They wait.
And wait.
Jax’s stomach tightens in the way it always does before battle. Before the high possibility of death. Not that she fears death. At times, it has felt like it would be a welcome reprieve.
But before she can dissect her own thoughts, the first of Maireth’s soldiers enter the street.
Jax hears them before she sees them. Armor brushing against itself, boots striking stone with the careless rhythm of men who think they are advancing into control rather than stepping into a trap already set for them. There is no hesitation in their movement, no sense that the city itself has been hollowed out to receive them.
That is Teddy’s plan, she thinks.Let them believe it.
The first man crosses the invisible threshold from the Frael Forest, just as Teddy predicted. The threshold they need the units to cross before releasing the mist. Before they trap them inside.
More soldiers come into view, flooding the streets of Virellin with the enemy. With the ones who would rather see it fall. The same enemy who wants Zerynthia to fall, too. Jax knows they’re coming for her kingdom next—when it has no allies, no army, and no king.
Their swords are drawn, ready for an attack.
But it doesn’t come.
Instead, the soldiers infiltrate the city, taking step after step after step into the snare they’ve laid for them.
