Silas watched Jessa disappear into the rain, her lantern swallowed by the dark.
He touched the scroll in his inner pocket. It felt heavy, heavier than paper had any right to be. It wasn't just leverage anymore. It was a death sentence for Varis Calder.
Stealing from the Crown, Silas thought, turning back toward the complex. That's the one sin the Crown doesn't forgive. You can murder, you can torture, you can burn a district to the ground. But you don't touch the treasury.
He had spent the last two days hoarding secrets like a miser, terrified that one slip would end him. But hoarding hadn't stopped the assassin in the alley. It hadn't stopped the executions in the plaza.
You can't outrun people who know where you sleep. It was time to weaponize the truth.
He turned and walked back toward the Crown complex, keeping his head down against the rain. The sleet had turned the cobblestones into a slick grey mirror, reflecting the distant torchlight of the guard towers.
Assets, he thought, cataloging as he walked. Dagger Mastery—common, but functional. A knife that's already killed once. The manifest that proves Varis is skimming from the Crown. And one eel vendor who either trusts me or wants to gut me. Maybe both.
He ducked under an overhang as a patrol passed, two guards sharing a cigarette and grumbling about the weather. They didn't look at him. Nobody looked at clerks.
He reached the side door of the complex and pressed his palm against the cold iron. The lock clicked—his key still worked—and he slipped inside.
The corridor was empty. The other clerks were either asleep or drowning their misery in whatever passed for cheap wine in this city. Silas climbed the stairs to his room, his boots leaving wet prints on the stone.
Halfway up, he paused.
I should check the inventory.
He closed his eyes and reached inward, calling up the Storage interface. The familiar lattice bloomed behind his eyelids—a grid of slots, most of them empty, a few holding the spoils of his first real kill.
[Storage]
The grid showed what he'd stashed: thirty Void Coins, the Shipwright's Shank he'd pulled off Jed's corpse, an unlabeled poison vial, the dormant Toxin Mastery seed, the manifest sheet, and some crumpled bills from Seattle—the hush money Evan's guard had stuffed in his pocket before everything went sideways.
He stared at the Skill Seed icon, still greyed out and locked. The tooltip was blurred, unreadable, but he remembered the text from when he'd first acquired it.
Catalyst Required: Unknown.
He didn't have time to experiment. The mission timer was ticking, and every hour he spent grinding for power was an hour Varis Calder used to consolidate his.
I'm not strong enough to fight a Regent with his army. I'm not smart enough to outmaneuver the Crown. The only thing I have is information.
He dismissed the interface and resumed climbing.
So I use the information. I send it to someone who can act on it. And I hope they move before Varis does.
It wasn't a good plan. It was barely a plan at all. But it was better than waiting for the next assassin to find his room.
He reached the top of the stairs and pushed open the door to his quarters.
His room in the Crown complex was silent, save for the rhythmic dripping of the leak in the corner.
He sat at his desk, the oil lamp turned low. The Arlen Mora Assignment Folio lay open before him. It was a dull, bureaucratic thing—leather-bound, stamped with the Crown seal, filled with standard-issue transfer orders.
But Silas wasn't looking at the words. He was looking at the logic.
The Crown isn't stupid, he thought, running his fingers along the spine. They don't send auditors to a place like Stoneveil just to die. If Varis is rogue, they know it. And if they sent Arlen Mora, they sent him with a failsafe.
He re-read the "exile" backstory text in the folio. ...due to factional disputes and a history of insubordination... It was too specific. Too tailored to explain away a man with combat skills and a bad attitude. It was a cover story written by a professional.
If I'm a plant, I have roots.
He pressed his thumb against the inner seam of the leather binding. He felt a ridge. A stiffener that didn't flex with the rest of the cover.
He took his pen knife and carefully picked the stitching.
The leather parted. Something slid out onto the desk with a soft clack.
It was a whistle. But it wasn't wood or metal. It was carved from grey, porous bone, cold to the touch. Wrapped around it was a thin strip of vellum with a single line of instruction:
Sound for the Shrike. Pay the Toll.
Silas held the bone sliver up to the light. It looked like a finger bone, hollowed out and drilled with precision holes.
A panic button, he thought. Or a snitch line.
He checked the window. The rain was coming down in sheets, turning the world outside into a blur of grey and black. Perfect cover.
He copied the key data from the Private Transport Manifest onto a scrap of parchment—dates, weights, the "V.C. Holdings" consignee. He rolled it tight and sealed it with a drop of wax. He wasn't sending the original. That stayed with him.
He slipped the whistle into his teeth and opened the window.
The wind hit him like a punch. The roof of the Crown complex was a steep pitch of slick tiles, glistening in the dark.
Silas didn't hesitate. He swung his leg over the sill.
His boot found purchase on a gargoyle's head. He shifted his weight, testing the grip.
Slippery, he noted. But manageable.
He reached up, his fingers finding the edge of the gutter. He pulled.
The movement triggered a memory—climbing chain-link fences as a teenager, the scrape of metal on palms.
Same muscles, Silas thought, a grim smile touching his lips as he hauled himself up. Different stakes.
He moved with a fluidity that surprised him. His fingers found gaps between tiles. His boots stuck where they should have slipped.
He reached the chimney stack at the peak and wedged himself against the warm brick.
Below him, Stoneveil was a sea of fog and misery. Above, the clouds churned.
Silas took the bone whistle from his pocket and put it to his lips.
He blew. No sound came out. He blew harder—still nothing, just the hiss of air through bone. But the pressure built in his ears, a sharp pop that made him wince.
Silent frequency, he realized. Dog whistle for monsters.
He waited. Ten seconds. Twenty. Maybe it was broken. Maybe the bird was dead. Maybe Arlen Mora had been abandoned long ago.
Then the smog tore open.
It didn't fly; it fell. A blur of motion dived from the clouds, arresting its descent with a violent snap of wings that sounded like a cracking whip.
The creature slammed onto the slate roof three feet from him, its talons gouging white scratches into the stone.
It was the size of a hawk, but that was where the resemblance ended. Its feathers were dark, metallic, clinking softly as it ruffled them. Its beak was a hooked nightmare of iron and bone. And its eyes...
Its eyes were red LEDs burning in the rain.
The Void-Shrike, Silas thought, staring at the bio-mechanical predator. The Crown's courier.
The bird cocked its head, the red eyes fixing on him with zero warmth. It hopped closer, the metal talons clicking on the roof.
Silas held out the rolled parchment.
"Take it," he whispered, his voice lost in the wind. "Express delivery to the Capital."
The bird ignored the paper. It looked at his hand. Then it snapped its beak—a sharp, metallic clack-clack.
Pay the Toll.
Silas looked at the instruction strip in his mind. Then he looked at the bird's beak.
I thought birds liked fish, he thought, a wave of revulsion rising. Why does everything in this city want blood?
He sighed. "Fine. But you better be worth it."
He extended his index finger. The Shrike didn't hesitate—it struck like a snake.
Pain flared, sharp and hot. The beak clamped down on his fingertip, piercing the skin, then ground down, the serrated edges chewing for a fraction of a second. Silas hissed through his teeth.
The bird held on, the red eyes cycling through a rapid flicker pattern—processing, verifying—then flashed solid crimson.
It released him. A single drop of blood welled on his finger. The bird licked it off its beak with a disturbingly long tongue, then snatched the scroll from his other hand.
It swallowed the parchment whole.
Storage stomach, Silas guessed, nursing his throbbing finger. Secure transport. The Shrike gave a final, metallic shriek and launched itself into the air, vanishing into the storm in seconds.
Silas watched it go, the rain cooling the sting in his hand.
He had done it. He had pulled the trigger. The evidence was on its way to the only people who could hurt Varis Calder.
Sleep well, Director, Silas thought, looking down at the courtyard. The audit is coming.
He turned to climb down—and froze.
A light flickered in the window across the courtyard. The Director's office. Voss was there, a silhouette against the yellow lamplight. He was standing at the window, looking out into the storm. Looking up.
Silas held his breath, his heart hammering against the wet roof.
Did he see the bird? Did he see me?
Voss stood there for a long moment, a statue of suspicion. Then Silas heard it—the faint, metallic click of the window latch being thrown. Voss reached out and closed the curtains. The light vanished.
Silas let out a breath that shook.
Close, he thought. Too close.
He began the descent, moving slower this time. The game had escalated. He wasn't just a clerk hiding a secret anymore. He was an active combatant in a war he had just started.
And if Voss looked up again, there would be no roof to hide on.
[POV: Halven Voss]
Halven Voss was not a brave man. He knew this. His mother had known it. The bullies in the Academy had known it. And Varis Calder definitely knew it.
He sat at his mahogany desk, staring at the Private Transport Manifest. The numbers were perfect. Balanced to the ounce. The "Grade A Cargo"—the raw Stillstone ore destined for the Crown Belt—was accounted for with a precision that was almost artistic. It made his skin crawl.
Incompetence is safe, Voss thought, his hand trembling as he reached for his wine glass. Incompetence means you're just a fool. Competence means you're a threat.
He was about to take a sip when the air in the room changed.
It wasn't a sound. It was a pressure—a sudden, heavy static that pressed against his eardrums, like descending too fast in a diving bell. The storm outside, which had been rattling the windowpanes all night, seemed to hold its breath. Voss froze, the wine glass hovering halfway to his lips.
He's here.
The door to his office didn't creak. It swung open silently, as if the hinges were afraid to make a noise.
Regent Varis Calder stepped inside.
He wasn't a physically imposing man—lean, pale, with the sharp features of the East Sea aristocracy. He wore a high-collared coat of dark blue wool, the silver buttons polished to a mirror shine. He looked like a banker, or a particularly fastidious undertaker. But the air around him felt like lead.
The Anchor Heart, Voss thought, setting his glass down with a clatter. He's not even trying, and I can feel the weight of it.
A sharp pain spiked in Voss's head. He raised a hand to his face and felt something wet. His nose was bleeding. The pressure was rupturing the capillaries in his sinuses. He wiped it away hastily with his sleeve, terrified to show weakness.
"Regent," Voss said, standing up too quickly. His chair scraped against the floor, a harsh sound in the unnatural silence. "I wasn't expecting—"
Varis ignored him. He didn't look at Voss. He didn't look at the decor. He walked straight to the desk, his movements fluid and precise. He peeled off his leather gloves, finger by finger, the soft creak-creak sounding like gunshots in the quiet room.
"The manifest, Halven," Varis said. His voice was soft, cultured, and utterly devoid of warmth.
Voss pushed the log forward. "Ready for the Friday shipment, sir. All quotas met."
Varis ran a pale finger down the column. He stopped at the total.
"It's clean," Varis murmured.
"Yes, sir. We've been working—"
"It's too clean." Varis looked up. His eyes were a pale, watery grey, like a winter sea. "You don't have the patience for this level of detail, Halven. And your previous Crown clerk was an idiot who couldn't count past ten without using his toes."
Voss swallowed. The air pressure seemed to increase. He felt a headache blooming behind his eyes.
"I... I have a new clerk, sir. Arlen Mora."
"Mora," Varis tested the name. "The transfer from the Capital."
"Yes."
"And why is he so efficient?" Varis asked, his voice dropping an octave. "In Stoneveil, competence usually implies treason. Or a spy."
Voss felt the sweat trickle down his spine. This was the moment. The precipice. If he faltered, Varis would dig. And if Varis dug, he would find the gaps in the books where Voss had been skimming profits for years.
"Not treason, Regent," Voss said, forcing his voice to stay steady. "Desperation."
Varis raised an eyebrow. "Explain."
"He's a political exile," Voss said, repeating the story Mora had given him. "Some dispute in the Capital. He thinks if he does a perfect job—if he balances every book and polishes every boot—the Crown will forgive him and let him go home. He's a useful idiot, sir. He's working eighteen hours a day just to please us."
Varis stared at him. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Voss felt like he was underwater, the weight of the ocean pressing on his chest.
Buy it, Voss prayed. Please, by the Tide, just buy it.