The tunnels beneath Keep Valcian were labyrinthine, their twisting corridors narrowing and widening at erratic intervals, as if the castle itself had been reshaped by time and secrecy. Felix's breath came fast and shallow, his boots pounding against damp stone as he ran, the echoes of his footfalls swallowed by the oppressive dark. The walls pressed in around him, the air thick with the scent of old rot, candle smoke, and something more insidious—the lingering taint of whatever Varrel had become.
His pulse still thundered from the encounter, his mind struggling to process what he had seen, what he had heard. The Book of Ashes. The Ashen God. Varrel's eyes—those dull, glowing things that no longer looked human.
He pushed forward, ignoring the dull ache in his legs, ignoring the way the darkness seemed to hum in the back of his skull, the way whispers crawled along the edges of his mind. Varrel's voice was still there, threaded into his thoughts like barbed wire. The Ashen God told him. The Ashen God guided him. The Ashen God demanded.
Felix clenched his teeth, shoving the words aside.
There was no time for this.
The tunnel ahead sloped upwards, curving sharply before opening into the last stretch—a crumbling stairway that led to the outer courtyard of the Keep. He took the steps two at a time, his muscles screaming in protest, his lungs burning as he burst into the night air.
And then—
He stopped.
Everything—the panic, the urgency, the pain—all of it ground to a halt as his vision adjusted, as the full scope of the city spread before him.
Oryn-Vel was burning.
Not just in pockets of destruction, not just isolated skirmishes in the distance. No.
The city was devoured.
Flames stretched high, licking at the sky, their crimson glow drowning out the stars. Black smoke billowed in thick, choking waves, turning the moon into a smudged, pale ghost behind the haze. The streets below were broken veins, lined with collapsed buildings, shattered stone, bodies.
Bodies.
Felix's breath hitched, his knees giving out beneath him. He sank onto the damp ground, hands braced against the cold stone, his heart hammering against his ribs.
This wasn't just destruction.
This was annihilation.
The Syndicate had done this. No—Varrel had done this.
Varrel, with his whispering god. Varrel, with his madness and his hunger and his belief.
Felix squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers digging into the dirt. His stomach twisted, nausea clawing at his throat. His family. Is this how they felt? When his childhood home had been burned by that mob? Were they like those thousands caught beneath the falling rubble, the collapsing streets, the spreading inferno?
He had joined the Syndicate with purpose. With resolve. With the intent to change something, to do something right.
And now?
Now he was kneeling in the middle of a dying city, staring at the aftermath of a catastrophe he hadn't stopped.
The wind howled through the ruined streets, carrying the scent of scorched stone and burning flesh. Somewhere in the distance, a building collapsed in on itself with a groaning wail, another piece of Oryn-Vel vanishing into ash.
Felix swallowed hard, lifting his gaze back toward the destruction.
No more hesitation.
No more freezing, no more second-guessing, no more reeling from the weight of it all. There was no time left to grieve.
The Archive.
It was the only lead he had left—the only place that might hold answers. If the Syndicate hadn't torched it already, if the flames hadn't swallowed it whole, then there was still a chance to understand what the hell was happening.
To understand what Varrel had become.
Felix inhaled sharply, steadying himself, then pushed back onto his feet. He cast one last glance at the burning cityscape, then turned, bolting toward the shattered streets below.
He needed to know.
*
The streets of Oryn-Vel were a ruin of embers and death. The city, once a sprawling mass of life, now lay fractured beneath the weight of fire and collapse. Smoke hung in the air like a mourning veil, thick and suffocating, carrying the acrid scent of burning wood, charred stone, and the unmistakable metallic tang of blood. It clung to Marin and Tess as they stumbled forward, their bodies broken, their minds reeling.
Marin's breathing was ragged, each inhale dragging sharp pain through her ribs. Tess leaned against her, her weight heavy but familiar, a warmth that kept Marin moving despite the agony in her limbs. Every step sent lances of pain up her legs, her battered body protesting against the strain, but stopping wasn't an option. They had survived. Barely. And now, they had to make it back.
The safehouse was their only hope.
Their journey through the crumbling streets was agonizingly slow, the city's ruin stretching around them in eerie silence. Oryn-Vel was dying. The distant crackle of flames, the groaning collapse of weakened structures, the occasional far-off scream—these were the sounds of its final moments.
Marin swallowed down the rising bile in her throat as she thought of Callen.
Taken.
She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that would make it any less true.
They had fought, bled, clawed their way through Ivara and her butchers, and yet it still wasn't enough. She had lost him. The last she had seen of Callen, he had been on the ground, bloodied, broken—his eye—
She grit her teeth, shaking the image from her mind. Tess trembled beside her, her own injuries slowing her down, but her grip on Marin's arm remained firm, grounding. They were both injured, both barely able to stand, but they had to keep moving.
The safehouse wasn't far now.
They just had to make it.
*
Inside the safehouse, the air was thick with tension.
Elyan sat beside Renna, who remained still, unconscious, her breathing shallow. The dim candlelight flickered against the old wooden walls, casting long, wavering shadows. Across the room, Merrick and Mira sat with Selka between them, their faces set in grim expressions, their thoughts unspoken but loud in the silence.
Then—a sound.
Elyan's head snapped up, her instincts sharpened from years of battle. Footsteps. Shuffling, uneven—injured.
She grabbed her sword, moving to the entrance swiftly, ignoring the way exhaustion weighed heavy in her bones.
And then she saw them.
Marin and Tess, barely standing, barely alive.
A gasp left her lips before she could stop it.
"Shit," she breathed, immediately rushing forward. "Get inside—now."
Marin barely had time to nod before her knees buckled. Elyan caught her, hoisting her weight with surprising ease. Tess all but collapsed against the doorframe, sucking in sharp, shallow breaths.
Inside, the others moved quickly. Mira scrambled to grab cloth and water, Merrick cleared space for them to sit, Selka hesitated, wide-eyed but quick to follow Mira's lead.
The two injured girls were settled onto the floor, their bodies shaking from exertion. Elyan crouched beside Marin, her sharp eyes scanning over the bruises, the cuts, the barely-stitched wounds.
"What the hell happened?" she demanded, her voice low but urgent.
Marin exhaled shakily. Her throat was dry, hoarse. "Everything."
Tess let out a pained laugh, but there was no humor in it.
Elyan's gaze hardened. "Talk. What did you see?"
A silence stretched between them, tense, suffocating. Then—Marin spoke.
She told them everything.
The fight. Ivara. The overwhelming numbers. The Syndicate soldiers that had fallen like animals, cut down in the blood-drenched street. How Tess had fought with the precision of a blade, how Callen had thrown himself forward, how his spirit had refused to break even as his body did.
How Ivara had taken him.
How she had whispered promises of pain.
How they had been forced to watch, unable to stop her, as she disappeared with him into the night.
By the time she finished, the room had fallen into a heavy silence.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
The weight of it all pressed down on them, suffocating, unbearable.
And then, the final blow—
Marin's voice cracked as she whispered, "The southern gate is gone."
Elyan's breath hitched. Mira's hands trembled against the bloodied cloth she held. Selka's face drained of color. Merrick cursed under his breath, his fist clenching against his knee.
"What do you mean—gone?" Elyan asked, though she already knew the answer.
Marin swallowed. "I mean it's—leveled. The explosion took everything. The fires—they don't stop."
Her voice wavered, just slightly, but it was enough.
It was enough to make them all understand.
The southern gate.
The last chance for the people still trapped in the city.
Gone.
Selka covered her mouth, her small shoulders shaking. Mira looked away, her jaw clenched so tight it trembled. Merrick's hands curled into fists.
Elyan exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand down her face. Her mind raced, strategies forming and unraveling in an instant.
They were trapped.
No exit. No reinforcements. No escape.
Just them, this burning city, and the chaos that refused to end.
For a long moment, none of them spoke.
And then, Elyan straightened her back.
"There's no point sitting here waiting to die," she said, her voice steel. "We need a new plan."
No one argued.
No one had the luxury of despair anymore.
*
Pain.
It was not the sharp, immediate kind that accompanied a fresh wound. No, this was something deeper, more insidious. It lived in him now, nestled into the marrow of his bones, spreading like rot. Every breath dragged it through his ribs, a slow, searing agony that refused to settle. His limbs felt heavy, too heavy, like they had been filled with molten lead, and his head throbbed with a deep, pulsing ache that made the edges of his consciousness blur.
Callen stirred, and the motion alone sent fresh waves of fire licking up his spine.
His body didn't feel like his own.
There was a distinct wrongness to it, as though he had been hollowed out and stuffed back into something unfamiliar. His stomach twisted, nausea rising, but there was nothing to throw up, only the thick, acrid taste of copper on his tongue.
Blood.
He forced his remaining eye open.
The world swam before him in a haze of dark shadows and dim, flickering light. Shapes blurred at the edges, indistinct and shifting. The first thing he noticed was the floor beneath him—cold, unyielding concrete, slick with something he didn't want to identify. It smelled of rust and damp rot, the scent curling in his nose and settling in the back of his throat like something foul.
A warehouse.
Still standing.
That, at least, meant he wasn't buried under rubble somewhere. Small mercies.
His body protested as he turned his head, his vision still struggling to focus. He sucked in a slow breath, tasting the stale air, and willed himself to understand.
Where was he?
Why was he still alive?
Then, a voice.
Smooth, edged with amusement, but carrying something dangerous beneath it.
Ivara.
She stood a short distance away, her stance casual, but the air around her radiated a quiet, coiled menace. Even half-conscious, Callen could feel it—like standing too close to a blade, unsure when it would strike.
She was speaking with someone else.
Another figure, partially obscured by the low light. Male, broad-shouldered, his presence steady but lacking Ivara's sadistic ease. Callen forced himself to listen, pushing past the heavy fog in his mind.
"…still no word from Harker or Grendon," the man was saying, his tone clipped. "They should have returned by now."
Ivara exhaled, something like disappointment curling at the edge of her voice. "Unfortunate. But not unexpected."
Callen's mind snagged on the names.
Harker. Grendon.
Who?
The words meant nothing to him, names without faces, unanchored to any part of his memory. He tried to reach for clarity, to focus, but his thoughts slipped. Groggy. Fractured.
His body screamed at him as he attempted to shift. His right side felt wrong, a phantom pressure where something should be.
His eye.
His stomach lurched as memory crashed down.
The fight. The blood. The sensation of steel raking through flesh.
The unbearable, blinding agony as his world split in two.
He squeezed his remaining eye shut, his chest heaving. The pain was worse when he thought about it—when he let himself remember. He forced himself to breathe, to push it down, to stay awake.
The conversation continued.
"We're stretched thin as it is," the man said. "If they were lost, we'll need replacements."
Ivara scoffed. "You make it sound so easy."
The man sighed. "It's not. But it changes nothing. Varrel still expects results."
Varrel.
That name—that name, he knew.
Callen clenched his jaw, the tendons in his neck pulling taut. His fingers twitched against the cold floor, faint movement, but movement still.
He wasn't dead yet.
That meant he had a chance.
A chance to escape.
A chance to fight.
A chance to make them pay.