The scent of smoke still lingered in the air.
Silas knelt at the edge of the ruined banquet hall, his gloved fingers brushing over a smear of soot across the marble floor. The faint acrid tang clung to the tapestries and the gilded plates still lying overturned. Guards whispered nervously from the shadows, unsure whether to speak, move, or breathe.
"Who was on watch?" Silas's voice was soft.
A young officer stepped forward, helmet tucked under one arm. "My lord, the smoke; we believe it came through the vents beneath the hall. It wasn't fire —"
"I can see that," Silas murmured. He rose to his full height; not towering like Darian, but exuding a lean, coiled menace. "And what of the powder's source?"
"Gone, my lord. The tunnels under the kitchen are sealed —"
"Then someone unsealed them," Silas interrupted, his tone snapping like a whip. He turned sharply, his cloak slicing through the air. "Find me the rats who know those passages. Stokers, scullions, sewer-men. I want names before the sun rises."
The officer hesitated. "My lord, the King has ordered —"
"I don't give a damn what he's ordered," Silas hissed, stepping close enough that the officer could see the madness glittering in his eyes. "The King will have his explanations when I've torn them from someone's throat."
He strode from the hall, his boots pounding loudly on the stone floors with each step.
Outside, the night was thick with fog and the low hum of panic. The city hadn't slept since the night before. Rumors were already spreading — that the foreign king had been cursed, that spirits haunted the feast, that Jameson's ghost haunted the castle. Silas smiled faintly at that last one.
"Not a ghost," he muttered to himself. "Just a butcher's boy who hasn't learned when to stay dead."
By dawn, Silas was in the undercity; in a network of old drainage tunnels and forgotten catacombs beneath Harta. He carried only a lantern and a dagger, the kind favored for close work. The guards had balked at following him down. He didn't order them to.
He didn't need company.
The light caught the edges of the tunnels; damp stone, dripping roots, the scurrying of rats. His boots splashed through stagnant puddles. Every few steps, he stopped, crouching to trace bootprints in the mud — large prints, heavy, too long in stride for any ordinary man.
He smiled.
"Darian," he breathed. "You can't hide forever."
He found signs of passage; chalk marks on the walls, faint and smudged. A few pieces of torn cloth near a rusted grate. The remnants of a fire long extinguished. All evidence of someone who knew these depths intimately.
He followed the trail deeper until it ended in an old culvert — the smell of burnt powder lingered there. Silas knelt again, his fingers brushing the soot like a lover's cheek.
"You've grown reckless," he said softly. "Bold. Good. I was getting bored."
Above ground, the palace simmered in quiet fury.
King Mansis paced before the throne, his eyes burning. "He humiliated me before a foreign king," he spat. "Smoke in my hall! Treachery under my nose! My lords whisper like old women, my allies doubt me — and you stand there telling me you've found nothing?"
The courtiers shrank back. Queen Nina stood by the window, her emerald gown pooling like spilled ink around her feet, her expression calm and unreadable.
"Perhaps," she thought to herself, silently, "he should ask himself why the people whisper."
"Perhaps fear breeds rebellion faster than faith. The people remember his brother's rule. They remember mercy."
"Strength doesn't need to burn taverns to prove itself."
When he left the chamber, she allowed herself to breathe again — slow, quiet, controlled. She turned to the tall mirror beside the window. Her reflection looked back: a beautiful woman carved of marble and fear. But beneath that fear, a glint of something sharper remained.
Resolve.
She crossed to her writing desk and unrolled a small scrap of parchment. Her hand trembled slightly as she wrote; not words, but sigils. The code she and Darian had devised: a worker's tally in appearance, a message in truth.
The serpent coils. The hounds move. Wait for the bell.
She sealed it with wax and pressed her ring into the stamp — not the royal seal, but her own crest, half broken. Then she tucked it into the folds of her gown.
By nightfall, Silas had returned to the upper city. His boots were covered with mud, his armor streaked with grime, but his eyes gleamed with purpose.
He entered the king's private chamber without knocking. Mansis looked up from a pile of parchment and scowled. "You look like hell."
"I've seen worse," Silas replied easily. "And I've found him."
Mansis' eyes lit like embers. "Where?"
"Near the old butcher's district," Silas said. "He's moving between the tunnels beneath the grain stores and the riverfront quarter. He's using the old escape routes your brother had built."
Mansis leaned forward. "You're certain?"
"I've tracked him half the night," Silas said. "He's not hiding from me. He's watching. Waiting. Which means he's planning something."
Mansis stood, pacing. "Then end it."
Silas's smile widened. "Gladly."
As he turned to leave, Mansis called out, "Silas —"
He paused at the door.
"If you find the queen consort meddling in this…" Mansis' expression hardened. "Make it look like an accident."
Silas inclined his head slightly. "Of course, Your Majesty."
That same evening, Queen Nina slipped through the back corridors of the palace. She had dismissed her attendants early, feigning illness. Now, her hood drawn low, she moved silently past the sleeping guards and the hollow statues of saints long forgotten.
At the edge of the gardens, where the moonlight pooled like silver across the dew, a cloaked figure stepped from the shadows.
"Nurse Lira," Nina breathed.
"My queen," Lira said softly. "You shouldn't be out here."
"Neither should you." Nina pressed the sealed parchment into her hand. "There's a peddler by the north gate — a man with a white mule. Give him this. He'll know what to do."
Lira hesitated. "If they catch me—"
"They won't." Nina's eyes softened. "You've done enough for me, for the boys. After this, go to the countryside. Hide. Take them with you if you can."
Lira's throat tightened. "And you, my queen?"
Nina smiled faintly. "Someone has to stay and keep the serpent distracted."
She turned away before Lira could answer.
Meanwhile, far below, Darian moved again.
He'd received word from one of his spies; an old soldier named Brann, once a stablehand in the royal guard, that Silas was hunting him. The message was brief: "The hound is loose."
Darian didn't fear the man, Silas had been the king's knife for years, and while Darian was strength and conviction, Silas was precision and venom. One misstep, and he'd be cornered like a beast.
Still, he smiled grimly as he adjusted his cloak and hefted his sword. "Let him come," he murmured. "Maybe the city needs to see what kind of monster serves as the king's hand."
The first clash came at the edge of the riverfront quarter.
Silas men moved through the alleys like wolves; six of them, with lanterns shuttered and blades ready. The moonlight glinted off the damp cobblestones, and the air hummed with silence.
Then, a shadow detached itself from the wall.
Darian hit them like a storm.
The first guard's lantern shattered against the wall; the second's sword broke beneath a single swing of Darian's. The alley filled with sparks and shouts, steel on steel. Silas stepped forward, his own blade flashing.
"Darian!" he called. "Still fighting for ghosts?"
Darian turned, the light catching the pale scars across his jaw. "Still serving devils?"
Their blades met in a burst of sound that shook the narrow street. Silas moved like a serpent; fast, precise, deadly. Darian countered with sheer force, each strike like a hammer. Sparks danced around them as steel screamed against steel.
"You should have stayed in your grave," Silas hissed.
"You should have stayed human," Darian growled back.
For long minutes, they fought; strength against speed, will against cruelty. At last, Silas hit low and slashed across Darian's arm, drawing blood. Darian staggered, but only for a breath. His boot connected with Silas' chest, sending him crashing into a wall.
By the time Silas rose, Darian was gone; vanished into the labyrinth of alleys, leaving only a smear of blood and the echo of his voice:
"Tell your king his time's almost up."
By dawn, Silas limped back to the palace, eyes burning with rage. Mansis met him in the throne room, already dressed for court.
"Well?" the king demanded.
Silas bowed low. "He's alive."
"And?"
Silas looked up, smiling coldly. "And he's not hiding anymore."