They had moved into the iron skeletons of Lucian's rule like smoke, silent, determined, with the cold certainty of people who had nothing more to lose. The chapel they had abandoned was just a memory now; the map upon which they had worked for days a ghost inscribed on Adriana's mind. Every step forward had the taste of inevitability.
But inevitability is two-edged.
In the highest of the fortress chambers, Lucian sat before a brazier, its blue and thin flame eating shadows over the walls of stone. His lieutenants appeared in the room, singly, heads lowered, voices just above whisper.
"The convoy on the river was hit," said one. "The raiders cut through the guards, took the supplies. Blazes along the way east. They"
"did what I knew they would," Lucian finished, not looking up. He stirred a cup of black wine, his voice like smoke. "Hale thinks he is a general now. The girl thinks she can outsmart me."
Discontent hung in the air like a held breath.
Lucian smiled. He looked at his men now, eyes burning with hunter's patience. "Do you think that I staked my destiny on convoys of lamp oil and bread? No. That ammunition was bait, paid for with money to purchase time. Now their swords are dull with little victories. Now their hands are soiled with fire."
He rose, casting a high shadow over the room. "Release the inner guard. And prepare the hunters. The wolf does not drive his prey into the den he waits, jaws open."
Adriana pressed her hand against the cold of corridor wall. Too motionless.
Their advance had been uninterrupted so far too uninterrupted. An unbarricaded gate, missing guards from their watchtower, patrols unaccounted for their assigned posts. The weak seam Julian had opened in Lucian's defenses was exposed before them like an open wound begging to be salted.
"It smells wrong," Elara breathed, her hand reaching towards the blade of her knife.
Adriana nodded. "No ancient fortress leaves its belly undefended." She waved her hand, telling the team to slow down.
Behind her, Julian checked the emitter strapped over his chest. His eyes flicked nervously from shadow to shadow. "We might be in the wrong sector maps Victor's could be out"
"Victor's maps were accurate," Adriana cut in. "Which is the problem.".
They broke through. The corridor opened up into a wide hall columns begrimed with dirt, ceiling iron beams ribbed with metal. No guards. No trap. Just silence heavy enough to choke on.
Then the wall torches burst into flames all at once, white-hot and blazing, blinding in their fury.
The trap had been triggered.
Shadows moved on the edges of the flames. Not man stuff. Forms made of smoke and skin, eyes glowing ember-red. Lucian's "ash-born." They slid along walls, across the ceiling, mouths open with blackened teeth.
"Formation!" Adriana yelled, steel flashing in her hand.
Julian hurled an emitter onto the ground; its light flashed, burning shadows back for ten seconds precious, heartless seconds. The squad charged hard, swords cutting, arrows shot. But for each beast that dissolved into ash, two more seethed out of the flames.
Adriana chopped, her arms aching, her lungs burned by the acrid smoke. She caught Elara's gaze in the confusion: not fear, but grim readiness.
And then the voice.
It never echoed from the hallway that it lay in their heads, a breath as intimate as skin against skin.
*"You entered my lungs," Lucian said. "Now inhale."
The shadows deepened. The beasts shoved harder. And Adriana knew with calculating clarity: this wasn't war. This was performance.
Miles in the distance, Damian swung his axe down through the ribs of a river guard, blood-slick boots slipping on the surface of the water. Behind him, the convoy was on fire, barges tipping over, store crates slipping into the water. His men were shouting in triumph.
The triumph rang hollow in his ears.
The fight had been too fierce. The guards had fought like zealots, not mercenaries. They would die. To allow this to happen.
He yanked his axe free and glanced towards the edge of the woods. A crow perched on a branch, watching him with an unearthly immobility. Then it dropped something into the mire at his feet and flew away.
Damian crouched. His heart turned to iron.
A tattered strip of material Adriana's scarf, singed at the tips, soot-stained.
His grip became tighter so the fabric creased in risk of tearing. The metallic taste of the trap against his teeth. Lucian had known. Lucian had placed it.
He roared to his men, "Fall back! Now! This was not the prize it was the noose!"
Within the fortress, conditions shifted. The beasties retreated, slinking back into crevices and niches. The fires dwindled to embers. The hall fell suddenly silent.
And out of it, deep within, Lucian emerged. He wore black, he was tall, his flesh white as bone lit by the dancing fires. He did not move a muscle, only gagged.
Adriana raised her sword, but her arm trembled with the strain.
"You've become bold," Lucian said, his tone low, each word a sting. "Few survive my fire. Few are foolish enough to come into my heart." He tilted his head, studying her as a curiosity. "Hale has taught you strategy. Pride. But not yet despair. That is mine to give."
He moved closer, and despite her body begging her to attack, Adriana stood still.
What do you want?" she snarled, voice scraping.
Lucian smiled. "Want? I do. Every path you draw out, I have walked down first. Every step you envision, I have taken in dream and flame. You fight to win a war. I fight to shape the world. That's the difference."
He turned his eyes to Elara. "And you traitor convert supplicant. Do you think that your salvation lies in following the shadow of this one? No. You belonged to me once. You will belong to me again."
Elara spat blood upon the ground at his feet. "Better to die than to submit."
Lucian's laughter was soft, nearly. "Then die you will. But not tonight.".
And then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he disappeared back into the darkness. The monsters snarled, retreating. The flames went out and flared.
He had chosen not to kill them. He had chosen to allow them to slink away defeated, knowing that they were ants in his hand.
"Move!" Adriana shouted, shoving her crew down the side corridor.
They fled by fire and destruction, Julian igniting lights to blind the darkness behind them, Elara covering their retreat with knife and will. The fortress itself seemed to breathe before them, each wall shifting, each staircase collapsing beneath their feet.
At the final gate, the monsters made a final attack. Elara pushed Adriana in front of her, absorbing a blow meant for her. The claw of the beast tore through her side, dragging down blood along her ribs. She didn't cry out. She merely stumbled, hard-set eyes, tight-lipped on the agony.
Julian shot another emitter. Adriana grabbed Elara by the arm, fury burning her chest. The last of them erupted into the open air, lungs taking in the reeking night.
Behind them, the fortress remained, unbroken, unharmed, its black crown glinting in the moonlight.
Lucian had let them live. And that was the nastiest wound of all.
They staggered back to the destroyed chapel, half their party gone, the others bloody and empty-eyed. Damian waited. When he spotted Adriana alive, relief smote his features but the scarf still seared in his hand.
"What happened?" he ordered.
Adriana gently set Elara down onto a bed, shaking hands. "It was a trap. He wanted us in there. Wanted us to view him.
Julian slammed his fist on the table. "He knew it all. All of the routes. All of the signals. Either Victor is a traitor, or Lucian"
"was always playing leapfrog," Adriana said.
Damian's jaw hardened. He grasped her hand, holding her steady, even as his own breathing slammed with rage. "Then we adapt. We move on."
Her eyes locked with his, harsh and unblinking. "No. We stop pretending we can outmaneuver him at his own game. Strategy will not work. We need something he does not expect."
There was stillness in the chapel. Outside, the wind carried the smell of ash, acrid and familiar.
High above, in the citadel, Lucian stood on his iron balustrade. Below him, his trackers huddled at his feet in ranks, armor as black as rock. The city stretched out beneath him like a carcass to be plundered.
Lucian raised his goblet. "They sneak through the shadows thinking they are cunning," he declared, his voice echoing over the courtyard. "They do not yet understand. The fire has only just begun."
The hunters cocked their rifles in silent respect.
Lucian sipped, his smile cutting like a knife. "Now, let them come.".