Karatash was loud enough to hide all things that didn’t want to be seen, and Stonewraith was one of them.

  She kept to the back alleys where the city’s eternal roar was muffled behind cluttered bricks and rotten timber. The back alleys were safe. Let the crowds stamp and sing out on the main streets. Let them paint their faces with mountain dyes and swing ribbons from their wrists as if freedom was something they could rehearse like a dance. Karatash was preparing for its annual independence parade in two more days—the day before the first day of the winter months—and that meant nobody cared about looking into the gutters.

  Even still, the air smelled like preparations for a festival. Pitch for torches, fresh-cut pines, boiled sugars, and the faint metallic tangs of iron-made fireworks all reached her nose quite sharply.

  She hated fireworks.

  She hated parades.

  She slid past a butcher’s back door where bloodwater ran into the alley.. A drunkard leaned against a wall and laughed into his own sleeve. She passed close enough to smell the sour grain on his breath, and he didn’t even look at her. Nobody did. The closer the city was to the celebration, the less people noticed anything that didn’t glitter, so she wore the shadows like a cloak and stopped at a door with a symbol carved into the lintel: a mountain with its peak struck through. Someone had filled the grooves with soot so it looked like a scar.

  Two knocks on the door. Pause. One knock. Pause. Three knocks.

  The door cracked open. An eye appeared in the crack, red-rimmed and suspicious. She lifted her sleeve just enough to show the inside of her wrist, where the faded tattoo of the Ironshade Corps’ crest lay.

  Then the door opened slightly wider, and the man inside tossed out a small sack. She caught it, slung it over her shoulder so it could join the other sacks, and the door slammed shut on her.

  Even if we’ve been disbanded for years, the black market vendors across Obric still recognize the Ironshade Corps.

  They’ll provide anything I ask for, no questions asked.

  As she turned to leave, meaning to visit one more vendor before she had to get started with her preparations, a serpent’s hiss made her head turn slightly.

  A small, red-feathered serpent poked its head out from the shadow under a broken stair behind her. It stuck out its forked tongue and hissed at her again, before tilting its head towards a deeper, narrower cut between the run-down buildings next to her.

  … Understood.

  She followed the serpent’s directions. Every few turns, another small serpent would appear out of a crack or crevice and give her more directions, and after ten serpents, she reached a dead-end alley that smelled like old rain and pure rot. Above, the sky was a thin strip of bruised blue, and here, the noise of the main streets were incredibly distant. The city couldn’t reach in properly. This was as secretive an alley as anyone could get in Karatash.

  So when the eleventh serpent slithered out from a broken pipe in front of her, its head adorned by a black-feathered crown instead of the usual red, she immediately knelt and bowed her head.

  “Serpenscribe,” she whispered. “It is good to see you again. Rest assured that I am still—”

  “Did the Ironshade Corps not teach its assassins how to confirm a kill?” the serpent hissed. “The three-eyed man lives. He hasn’t been dealt with.”

  Stonewraith frowned. Her first thought was confusion. Her second was doubt. Her third circled back to confusion.

  “That’s… impossible,” she whispered slowly, but her voice cracked anyway. “I killed him. Blade through the heart. I saw it. I felt it—”

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  “He wasn’t convinced, then,” the serpent interrupted. “After you sent in a report saying you’d dealt with the Defiler, I went to Cantalya to see if I could find his corpse, but he wasn’t there. Then I interrogated one of the townsguard who was there that night and learned, in fact, that he had survived via a revival-type relic.”

  Stonewraith’s stomach flipped.

  “But… I didn’t—”

  “Furthermore, it would appear that the three-eyed man has also managed to capture a conversation between you and him with a Reality Bubble. Said Reality Bubble is now on route to Stormearth Serenity in the hands of the Second Princess of Obric. No doubt she plans to expose us at the peace summit.”

  Her mouth tasted like metal. Her fingers clenched in the dirt.

  “No,” she said, too fast. “No, he… he can’t have. Are you sure it was him who revived? He didn’t look like he had a—”

  Fireworks went off on the main streets without warning. The sounds cracked across the sky, sharp and concussive, and she flinched back hard enough that she hit the brick beside her.

  For half a heartbeat, Karatash vanished. The alley blurred into smoke and fire, into collapsing stone and screaming metal, and… into the thunder of siege charges. Her head snapped up at the glow in the sky. White and golden light bloomed—fire, fire bloomed—and her lungs locked, refusing to draw breath.

  No.

  Gotta… breathe.

  Breathe.

  She dragged in air through her nose, counting the seconds the way she’d been taught by master. Inhale. Exhale. Again. Her fingers curled tight against her palm until the tremor in them dulled, and the present pushed its way back in.

  Narrow alley. Damp stone. The stink of refuse and the distant roar of a celebrating city.

  She swallowed and steadied herself.

  “... Be that as it may, and whatever you saw, the three-eyed man still lives,” the serpent finished calmly.

  “I can… I can fix this,” she rasped, dipping her head. “Give me time. I can hunt him down again. I will not make the same mistake—”

  “Calm down, Stonewraith,” the serpent whispered. “Disruptions and Defilers happen. They always have. When we told you to awaken the golems so they can destroy Granamere and aggravate Braskir, that was an adjustment in our plans. When we told you to send the stampede into Braskir to draw the three-eyed man out, that was another adjustment in our plans. This, too, will be no different. We always have contingencies.”

  Her throat tightened. “Then… what now? If the Second Princess is carrying a Reality Bubble to Stormearth Serenity—”

  “We already accounted for that, but you don’t need to know how. Your role here hasn’t changed. You will stay in Karatash, you will continue your original mission, and you will ignore the three-eyed man even if he comes for you. Simply do your part as best as you can… and even if you fail, that, too, will still be our victory. That is the power of our Prophet.”

  His words landed heavier than any blow. He wasn’t expecting anything from her—not anymore—and shame and grief welled up hot behind her eyes, but she crushed it down the way by gnashing her teeth, bowing her head ever deeper.

  “I will not fail,” she said, forcing conviction into her voice. “I believe in my original mission. I will succeed in Karatash, and…”

  She hesitated, then lifted her gaze just enough to look at the serpent from the corner of her eye.

  “And if I do succeed,” she asked softly, “will I finally be allowed to meet the Prophet once again?”

  The alley went quiet except for the distant noise of the city, and the serpent regarded her for a long moment before answering.

  “If you succeed, I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  Relief hit her so suddenly her breath stuttered. The serpent gave her one small nod, and then it turned and slithered back into the pipe, its tail dissolving into shadow until there was nothing left of it.

  She was about to stand when a metallic clang rang out to her right. She snapped her head towards the sound and instantly spotted the movement—a filthy man scrambled out from beneath a rotted crate, eyes wide with terror. He’d been listening. She knew that much was certain.

  He bolted for the alley’s exit, but she snatched a shard of broken glass from the ground and flicked it, watching it strike the base of his neck. He dropped without a sound.

  “… Obric, keep me, kingdom of stone,” she murmured. “Your veins remember, though I stand alone.”

  She stood up slowly, hoisting her sacks of materials over her shoulder and melting deeper into the alleys.

  Only one more black market vendor to visit.

  “Obric, keep me, kingdom of stone.

  “Your veins remember, though I stand alone.”

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