Chapter 3

The tunnels shook with the first impact.

It wasn’t just boots this time — it was hammers, striking the outer doors in slow, bone-vibrating rhythm.

Harlow’s voice cut through the din.

“Positions! Seal the lower gates. Snipers to the balconies. Nobody dies clean — make them earn every drop they spill.”

The guild scattered into motion, shadows twisting into fighters, thieves, and killers.

Killian stood where she’d left him, fingers still curled around the vial in his pocket. The silver bolt in his shoulder throbbed, but it was the sound of the Wardens’ approach that sent something darker humming in his blood.

A figure slipped to his side — a thin man with pale hair tied in a knot, two curved daggers in his belt.

“You know how to fight, Vael?” he asked, teeth flashing in a grin that didn’t touch his eyes.

“I get by,” Killian said.

“Good. Because if you freeze, I’ll slit you myself before the Wardens do.” The man vanished into the fray before Killian could answer.

The first breach came fast — the outer doors gave way in a spray of splinters, and a dozen Wardens poured in. Their mirrored masks caught the green light in blinding flares, making them look like walking shards of moon.

Killian moved before he thought. His shadow magic spilled from his hands, coiling into spears that struck the lead Warden square in the chest, slamming him into the wall with a crack of armor and bone.

The others turned on him immediately, bolts hissing through the air.

He ducked behind a pillar, the silver burning every time a bolt came close. Two Wardens advanced, one with a war axe, one with a hooked chain meant for dragging prey down.

Killian stepped into the open, let them think they had him — then ripped the light from the witchlamps, plunging the tunnel into darkness so deep even his own eyes strained.

The Wardens hesitated. In that hesitation, Killian moved. The axe bearer went down first, throat opened by a whisper of shadow. The chain Warden followed, but not before he managed to catch Killian’s leg and pull him off his feet.

They grappled on the ground until Killian’s magic surged again, sending a burst of raw force that shattered the Warden’s mask and caved in the skull beneath.

When the lights flared back to life, half the Wardens were dead. But the rest kept coming — disciplined, methodical.

Harlow was a blur in the chaos, twin short swords carving arcs of steel. She caught Killian’s eye briefly, her expression unreadable, before she slipped away toward the rear vault.

The rear vault?

Why there, in the middle of a siege?

Killian cut down another Warden and followed, moving through a side passage slick with blood.

The noise of the fight faded behind him, replaced by the faint sound of voices.

He reached the vault in time to see Harlow kneeling over an open crate — not of weapons, but of glass vials filled with the same deep red liquid he carried in his pocket.

Vael blood. Dozens of vials. Maybe hundreds.

“You’re stockpiling,” Killian said, voice low.

Harlow didn’t look up. “We deal in what keeps us alive. And this—” she held up a vial, watching the light catch in it “—keeps the right people afraid of us.”

“That’s Varrow’s game,” Killian said. “You’re no better than—”

“Spare me your moral outrage, Vael. You’re still breathing because you’re standing in my tunnels, not his.”

Before Killian could answer, a shadow moved in the corner of the vault.

Not Warden.

A cloaked figure stepped forward, and Killian caught the gleam of amber eyes beneath the hood — familiar in a way that punched the air from his lungs.

It couldn’t be.

The figure’s gaze lingered on him a heartbeat too long, then slipped away into the darkness beyond the vault.

A Warden’s shout echoed down the hall — they’d found the rear passage.

Harlow grabbed Killian’s arm. “You want to live, you fight for us now. Whatever you think you saw, forget it. There are no friends in these tunnels, only debts.”

The walls shook again as the Wardens closed in.

Killian drew on his magic, the shadows around him thickening like smoke. But his thoughts weren’t on the fight anymore. They were on those eyes.

Eyes he’d seen once before — on the night his family died.