Chapter 236: Blood Laughs
The scream had cut the market — a raw, high sound that ended as quickly as it began. Tobias heard it and moved.
Smoke curled in ribbons through the low tunnels, and the fire's heat painted his face orange. He slipped between toppled crates and upended barrels, keeping low. The market had become a theater of frantic movement: people running, stalls collapsing, the occasional metallic ring of a coin pouch abandoned and rolling away in the dirt. Above it all, the men sent by Victoria prowled like a second plague — precise, brutal, and laughing as they cut.
What irked Tobias more was the fact that they enjoyed the killings. Laughter spilled as people ran for their lives. They should be focused on their task, but instead, they were focused on killing people who had done no harm to them. Innocent lives were lost.
