Part 1
It's been thirty minutes since Velika's urgent summons drew them to the eastern courtyard.
The manifestation pulsed in the pre-dawn darkness like a heart made of starlight—turquoise veins threading through an impossible skeleton that would, in four weeks' time, deliver salvation or prove to be their most visible failure. James stood at its base, one hand pressed against the cool energy matrix, feeling the rhythm of its construction like a second pulse beneath his palm.
"It's stable," he said as Bisera approached, though his eyes remained fixed on the framework. "The unusual activity Velika reported—it's just the citizens. They've been coming all night, leaving offerings."
Indeed, the evidence surrounded them: winter apples arranged in neat pyramids, copper coins forming deliberate patterns, even a child's wooden horse placed carefully at the base of the main strut. The devotion made James's chest tight with responsibility.
"They're treating it like a shrine," Bisera observed, her voice neutral but her eyes soft. She moved to stand beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. In the turquoise glow, her elaborately braided hair—an hour's work at least, woven with silver thread that caught the light—looked almost ethereal.
"Can you blame them?" James turned to face her fully, and something in his expression made her breath catch. "Clean water in a siege might as well be—"
The bell from the western tower shattered the moment. Not the steady count of hours, but five rapid strikes—the signal for urgent command presence.
"The western gate," Bisera said, already moving. "That's—"
"The supply depot," Saralta finished, materializing from shadow with her unsettling new grace. "If they're targeting our grain stores..."
Bisera's tactical mind was already three moves ahead. "It's too obvious. Alexander knows we'd have triple guards there." She paused at the courtyard's edge, torn between duties. "James—"
"Go." He drew the sword she'd convinced him to carry, though they both knew his skill with it was more theatrical than practical. "I'll stay with the manifestation. If this is a feint to draw us away from the water—"
"Then they'll have to go through me first," Yanko interrupted, appearing with a squad of veterans. The scarred soldier's expression brooked no argument. "General, the Great Mage will be protected."
Bisera hesitated for one more heartbeat, her eyes meeting James's. In that glance was everything they couldn't say: be careful, I love you, don't die while I'm gone. Then she was moving, Saralta flowing beside her like a shadow given form.
"Take the spine-walk," Bisera commanded as they climbed. "I'll go via the ramparts—we can converge at the western barbican."
They split, and Bisera found herself running along the wall-walk, her elevated position giving her a clear view of both the western gate ahead and the eastern courtyard behind. The city spread below her like a map made real, torchlight marking patrol routes, the occasional window glowing with sleepless anxiety.
She was halfway to the western gate when the eastern courtyard exploded into violence.
Part 2
From her position on the ramparts, Bisera saw it all unfold with the terrible clarity of distance: shadows peeling from walls to become men, civilian cloaks discarded to reveal darkened armor, the sudden bloom of Gillyrian fire as clay spheres shattered against the manifestation's framework.
And at the center of it all—James.
He stood with his back to the manifestation, sword raised in an unfamiliar guard as three figures closed on him. Even from here, she could see the awkward grip, the financier trying to remember lessons barely learned. Yanko and his men were engaged, overwhelmed by the coordinated assault that had clearly been the real attack all along.
The western gate had been theater. This was the true performance.
No.
Bisera didn't think. She vaulted the rampart's inner edge, channeling mana in a way that would leave her shaking later but now made her bones sing with purpose.
The drop should have shattered her legs; instead, she landed in a controlled roll that brought her up running. But even with her supernatural speed, she could see she'd be too late.
The lead attacker—massive, wearing Gillyrian colors—had already broken through James's guard. The mace rose high, a falling star of spiked death, and James was on one knee, his sword-arm numb from the impact he'd barely deflected.
Time crystallized around her desperation.
She was still twenty paces away when Yanko's shield intercepted the second killing blow, bronze screaming as the mace head bit deep. The opening was tiny—a triangle of space between shield, defender, and attacker—but Bisera flowed through it like water finding the only crack in a dam.
Her blade painted its argument across the assassin's throat in a single, perfect line.
Blood arced across her polished cuirass—she had spent ten minutes oiling the bronze until it gleamed, hoping James might notice—and spotted her carefully braided hair with garnets. The contrast should have been absurd: the general who'd primped like a maiden now decorated with blood. Instead, she looked magnificent, terrible and beautiful as a storm given a woman's form.
She spun to James, and her entire being transformed between one heartbeat and the next.
"Are you hurt?" The words tumbled out raw, desperate, nothing like a warrior's measured tones.
"Sword took the impact," James managed, though his hands still buzzed with shock. "Bells ringing in my head, but nothing broken."
Relief hit her like a physical blow. Without thought, her hand found his wrist, fingers seeking his pulse. She counted three beats—alive, alive, alive—before remembering they had an audience.
"Stay close," she breathed, and only James heard the second meaning beneath the tactical instruction.
The battle raged around them, but now Bisera was in her element. She moved through the chaos with deadly precision, each order snapping soldiers into position, creating order from pandemonium. Gillyrian fire met sand, not water. Crossbow bolts found gaps in armor. The infiltrators had expected panic; they got Vakerian discipline instead.
"Protect the manifestation!" she commanded. "They want us to chase—don't give them the satisfaction!"
Beside her, James had given up on swordwork entirely, focusing instead on what he did best. Golden light flowed from his hands as he healed a soldier whose arm had been opened to the bone. The man gasped, watching flesh knit itself together, then scrambled back to his position with renewed fervor.
"Darling, your combat skills remain tragic," Seraphina observed in his mind. "But your healing is rather divine. Literally, in this case."
Then Saralta arrived from the western gate, and the battle shifted.
She didn't fight—she performed, her blade writing poetry across hamstrings and wrists, each movement precisely calibrated. When raw power surged through her—that terrible mana-powered strength she had hidden for so long from prying eyes—she caught an attacker by the throat and drove him through a water barrel hard enough to explode it into kindling. Then she stopped, as if suddenly aware of the surrounding audience.
Saralta's mouth quirked in something between grimace and grin. She dialed back the raw power, trading devastating strength for the kind of precise swordwork that looked merely exceptional rather than impossible.
Bisera noticed. Filed it away. Said nothing. There would be time for questions later—if they survived.
Part 3
The melee had that particular quality of close combat where time becomes elastic—twenty minutes that felt like hours, every heartbeat stretched between breaths. Vesmir's scorpion teams thumped into position on the parapets, their mechanical poetry launching bolts that folded men in half where accuracy mattered. Monks with quarterstaffs herded civilians behind the forge's bulk while Velika alternated between devastating shots and increasingly creative profanity.
And through it all, Bisera's tactical mind kept counting. Analyzing.
Wrong. This was all wrong.
The mace-wielder had gone for the visible manifestation framework, not the actual load-bearing supports hidden beneath. Two infiltrators had targeted panels that would shatter spectacularly but meant nothing structurally. The Gillyrian fire made excellent theater but poor sabotage—too visible, too easily countered with sand.
"Performance," she said under her breath, and James heard her despite the chaos.
"What?" James had just managed to help a wounded soldier behind cover, his hands already glowing with that golden light that marked angelic healing.
"They're performing. Making sure the city sees them attack the water system." Her eyes tracked the patterns of attack and retreat. "This isn't sabotage—it's theater."
A horn bleated—three short notes—and the infiltrators broke as one. Their retreat was too clean, too rehearsed. Pre-cut exit routes revealed themselves: a barrel kicked aside to show a drain grate, a false offering cart that became an escape route to the tanners' quarter. The last pair threw more Gillyrian fire spheres, but these burst into blinding white glare—meant to dazzle, not burn.
"This was too easy," she said slowly.
"Because it is a decoy," Saralta added, wiping her blade clean. "It was just an elaborate diversion. Look—" She gestured at the damage. "All superficial. Showy flames, lots of noise, but the structural supports are untouched."
Understanding dawned like a cold sunrise on Bisera as a whisper escaped her mouth. "Nikolaos."
"You mean... they are..." James said as he got up from the crouching position, Bisera steadying him with a touch that lingered.
The next thing James knew, Bisera was already turning, barking orders. "Saralta! Two dozen riders to the prison tier. Now! Yanko, secure the courtyard."
Saralta nodded once and was gone, her war-braid streaming behind her like a battle standard.
Only then did Bisera let herself turn back to James. The commander's mask slipped for just a moment, revealing the woman underneath—the one who'd been terrified she'd lost him.
"Will you be all right?" The question was barely a whisper.
He flexed his fingers, feeling the pins-and-needles sensation of returning circulation. His ears still rang, and his arms felt like he'd been trying to stop a charging bull with his bare hands. "Sword took the worst of it. Though I might not be able to hold a spoon steady for a while, much less a sword."
Something in her expression softened—pride and tenderness and possession all tangled together. Her hand found his shoulder again, a touch that looked professional to any observer but felt like a claim. "You held against a trained killer with fire-salt weapons. That was..." She paused, searching for words that wouldn't reveal too much. "Brave. Idiotic, but brave."
"I learned from the best," he said, managing a smile despite the way his whole body ached.
"The idiotic part or the brave part?"
"Both, I think."
Despite everything—the blood, the smoke, the moaning wounded—she almost smiled. Then duty reasserted itself, and she turned to address the aftermath with typical efficiency. She went to each wounded defender personally, kneeling beside pallets without regard for the blood seeping into her knee guards.
"You held," she told a young soldier with a gash across his belly. "You stood between them and a child. The Spirit sees such courage."
She found the woman who'd been burned by fire-salt, took the sand bucket herself, and carefully smothered the last traces of the golden flame. "Velika!" she called. "Crossbows on this wall—a full rack."
"Already bullying the quartermaster," Velika replied, and her grin was like sunrise after a storm. "Also, James? Next time someone swings a giant flaming mace at you, maybe duck instead of playing hero?"
"I'll consider it," James said, still flexing his numb fingers.
"Consider it harder. Bisera almost turned that man inside-out when she saw you go down. I've never seen her move that fast, and I've known her for fifteen years."
Bisera's cheeks pinked, but she kept her command voice steady. "Vesmir, bring Adelais to the prison tier. Velika and James, come with me."
Part 4
They were halfway up the inner stairs when Saralta appeared on the landing above, her face carved from stone.
"Gone," she said simply. "Guards had their throats cut—from behind. The door was opened with a key."
For a moment, Bisera just stood there, processing. Then she did something so unexpected that James actually blinked in surprise.
"Oh, for the love of—" She actually stamped her foot, the gesture so incongruously girlish that it transformed her from legendary warrior to frustrated young woman in an instant. "We changed the locks! We doubled the rotations! How in the Spirit's name did they—ugh!"
The little growl of frustration that escaped her was possibly the most adorable sound James had ever heard. He found himself fighting an incredibly inappropriate urge to smile.
"You're laughing at me," Bisera accused, catching his expression.
"I'm not," he said, though his lips twitched.
"You are!" Despite everything—the attack, the escape, the looming siege—she found herself fighting her own smile.
"I'm not laughing," James insisted, though his eyes danced. "I'm... appreciating the contrast. The Lioness of Vakeria, terror of the battlefield, defeated by a locked door."
"It was unlocked! That's the problem!" But she was definitely smiling now, the moment of levity precious as water in a siege.
Saralta cleared her throat. "Are you two quite finished?"
They sobered, though something warm lingered in the glances they shared.
"Inside knowledge," Bisera said, back to business. "Someone with access to keys, guard schedules, probably patrol routes too."
"Or someone made copies," a new voice suggested.
Part 5
Adelais had arrived, escorted by a group of guards, and James noticed things he probably shouldn't: the way exhaustion had made her linen cling with sweat, outlining curves that her healer's robes usually hid. Her fiery red hair had escaped its pins, falling in honey waves around a face flushed from exertion. She looked like she'd been working hard, which she probably had been.
She also looked, James thought with guilty awareness, incredibly alluring.
Beside him, Bisera's posture shifted almost imperceptibly—a tightening that said she'd noticed his glances.
"Keys can be pressed in wax," Adelais continued, seemingly oblivious to the undercurrents. "Any competent smith could make copies. It wouldn't require inside access, just observation and patience."
"Where were you when the attack began?" Bisera's voice had gone soft. Dangerous.
"The infirmary. We've been treating Gillyrian fire burns all night." Adelais held Bisera's gaze steadily.
The guards who'd accompanied Adelais nodded confirmation, their faces showing the kind of respect reserved for those who'd saved comrades' lives.
"You were there the entire night?" Bisera said quietly, her tone gentler than anyone expected.
"Yes." Adelais kept her voice level. "Most of the night. Those... burns"—she glanced at the men with fire bites—"they spread if you miss a thread. We were short of hands."
Bisera watched her for a long four heartbeats, taking in the soldiers' eyes—gratitude, not fear—taking in the real work.
Then Bisera's stern expression softened slightly. The general's sense of justice warred with her suspicion. "Thank you... for your hard work," she admitted, the words clearly costing her.
She reached out and briefly touched Adelais's shoulder—a gesture of acceptance that made Adelais's eyes widen with surprise. "Continue your work here. We need all the help we can get."
Adelais blinked, clearly not expecting acknowledgment. "I serve as I can, General." Her eyes flickered to James, lingered for just a moment too long, then back to Bisera. "The Great Mage—is he well? I heard there was fighting..."
"He's fine," Bisera said, and James didn't miss the slight emphasis on the possessive that followed: "I reached him in time."
Something flickered across Adelais's face—disappointment? Relief? It was gone too quickly to read.
"That's... fortunate," she said simply. "And... I should return to the infirmary. There are many more wounded to tend to."
After she left, silence settled over the crime scene like snow.
"You know, in a good shadow web, the left hand often does not know what the right hand is up to," Saralta said with a tease.
"You have a good point," Bisera admitted. She turned to James. "Did you notice how she looked at you?"
"I noticed how you noticed," James said jokingly.
Bisera flushed but didn't back down. "She's beautiful."
"Yes."
"You noticed that too."
"I'm not blind, Bisera. But I'm also not interested." He touched her hand, quick and light but unmistakably intentional. "How could I be when my heart only has you?"
The words hung between them, too honest for the setting but somehow exactly right.
"This is really not the time," Bisera murmured, but her fingers caught his for just a moment, squeezing before releasing.
"Yes, indeed." Saralta's sarcastic voice interrupted, and they had no answer for that.