At sundown, Karatash finally became what it’d been waiting to be for the entire week.

  Every tier of the city was lit and loud. Ribbons the color of mud snapped from streetlamps. Drumlines rolled along the lower rings like thunder traveling up through the rock, while every transport minecart had gone still, the rails left empty in deference to the procession. The streets were so full of bodies that the city looked packed with hundreds of thousand ants from above. Every tavern door stood open. Every stall-owner shouted like their throat was a bell, and all of it fed into one artery: the main ascent on the main street.

  Down at the very bottom ring, ten grand carriages had gathered like a moving troupe. The Grand Minelord’s was impossible to miss even from far above. It was a rolling beast of etched stone and reinforced timber plated in iron, mounted with the carved head of a Stonecrest Ram. Dain could easily see it repurposed into a war machine. Still, guards surrounded it in layers: royal soldiers in cuirasses, mercenaries and adventurers with varied gear, and probably about half the city’s contracted assassins blending in with the crowd.

  Though the Grand Minelord and his eldest daughter were standing atop the main carriage and waving to the crowd, pausing every now and then to give a speech and bask in the cheers, they were probably still the safest two people in the entire country right now. Dain couldn’t even imagine how many relics were secretly active down there, warding off arrows and poison and any projectiles that might be flung at the Grand Minelord from the crowd.

  Dain could see all of it, but he wasn’t there.

  He sat on the roof of a tall building near the upper tier of the city with the failure four, and he was borrowing his silverplume owl’s vision. So as not to lose his orientation, he sat on the slanted roof tiles as his silverplume owl soared above the festivities, flying in circles around Fortress Karatash.

  That was the only real reason they’d picked this roof in particular. That, and the fact that it was also the closest building to the base of the fortress. This building probably belonged to someone rich and powerful who’d hate to let five strangers in on the day of festivities, so they’d scaled the walls without asking for permission and hoped they wouldn’t be caught. If they did… well, they’d just have to apologize.

  Now they crouched and sat among roof tiles and chimney stacks with a great view of the fortress at the mountain’s crown.

  Fortress Karatash, as its name suggested, was the single largest fortress in the entire country. Its walls were thick and tall enough to shame a city gate. Its many guardtowers around the tip of the mountain rose like daggers piercing the clouds, and the stonework, even on the exterior, was so ornate it bordered on arrogance. Ram-head statues stared out by every window, and wherever banners could fly, they did with a glitter of mud red and golden threads that anyone could see from the city.

  Now, the main gates were accessible from the main street, but Stonewraith wasn’t going to infiltrate the fortress through that path. Even if most of the guards had been called out of the fortress, the gates themselves were still well-guarded by twenty men all armed to the teeth. That was why his owl flew in wide circles above the walls, scanning for anything that moved.

  What’s it gonna be, Stonewraith?

  A scaling rope? A hole-boring relic?

  As far as he recalled from the memories of Stonewraith during her time in the Ironshade Corps, their preferred method of infiltration was ‘right under the enemies’ noses’. Not often did they go for anything too unconventional. If there was a window, they’d climb right through it, and if there was a wall, they’d scale it in plain daylight. The more fortified a location, the less eyes would be on it, and combined with Stonewraith’s mantle allowing her to camouflage and almost fully blend in with any earth-based material she was in contact with, it was very likely she was going to simply scale the wall.

  Question was, when and where?

  As he kept half his vision focused, Rena nudged a wooden bowl into his hand, pulling the other half of him out of the owl’s eyes for a moment.

  “Dinner,” she said.

  He glanced down into the bowl. Stew, mostly. There were cheap root vegetables, some shredded meat that looked like lamb, and enough salt to make it smell like a meal.

  “Where’d you get the money?” he asked without looking away for too long. He slipped back into his owl’s eyes, kept the fortress in view, and carefully lifted the bowl to his mouth. “I thought you guys spent all of it already.”

  “Odd work,” she said casually. “I carried a few crates for a tanner. I also helped a midwife find her way through a crowd. People are more generous when they think you’ve performed a small miracle.”

  Dain huffed. “And the other three? They earned their stew, too?”

  Both of them glanced around at the others. Sahlir, Ilvaren, and Kargun were sitting lower on the slanted roof tiles, bickering about something that couldn’t possibly matter with steaming bowls in their hands.

  “... Don’t underestimate how hard-working the three of them can be when they’re hungry. Desperation makes even idiots efficient,” Rena said.

  “Hey,” Ilvaren snapped without looking up. “I heard that.”

  Rena’s eyes drifted back to him. “Well, the four of us have some money to spare now, so we can at least afford another room tonight. After this all blows over, though, we will expect payment from you and Anisa.”

  “Right,” he muttered. “I hope I’ll get paid, too.”

  He turned back to the fortress and focused. The stew was good, but it’d be even better if he had a Cursed Manabrew Potion, since his mana regeneration was currently point-three per hour. It wasn’t good. Unfortunately, even though he hadn't had a single potion in two weeks, he had neither the money to buy any magic materials nor the time to hunt any magic beasts after leaving the Sweet Dreamer’s shop, so he’d just have to deal with it.

  … His owl’s eyes finally caught something that made the hair on his arms rise.

  A shadow.

  He sat up so sharply his bowl tipped, stew sloshing hot against his fingers. Near the eastern end of the fortress, where the base of the wall met with the highest civilian buildings in the upper district, a shadow blurred upward. She was a thin cut-out against the wall’s pale stone, blending in almost seamlessly, but he recognized that movement. He recognized that kind of confidence. She ran right up the wall, and earthspikes erupted where her shoes touched, creating footholds for her to keep going up.

  It was almost comical how easy it was for her to scale the wall. Every spike was made of the same stone as the wall, so they weren’t even easy to spot from afar. He watched as she cleared ten meters up in a blink. Then twenty. Then thirty. Within a minute she’d cleared all fifty meters of the giant wall and reached the ramparts, and there was nobody there to catch her. There were a few guards patrolling other sections of the ramparts, but not the one she picked.

  He watched as she vaulted over the parapet, dropped onto the walkway, and vanished into the nearest guardtower doorway.

  Dain pulled his mind out of the owl’s eyes and looked at the others, who were also already sitting upright.

  “She’s in,” he whispered.

  The failure four’s expressions shifted in different directions at once. Ilvaren’s face sharpened with violent excitement. Kargun’s jaw set like he was biting down on a nail. Sahlir’s eyes narrowed with simple, predatory focus, while Rena dipped her head, picking up his cane and holding it out to him.

  “No fuckin’ way,” Kargun mumbled. “Ye found her?”

  “That easy?” Ilvaren said.

  “Maybe… trap?” Sahlir offered. “To lure you in?”

  “Maybe.” He stood, snatched his cane, and tightened the strap of his satchel. “Just do your part. “Delay the Grand Minelord as long as possible, and don’t get yourselves killed. If you do, I’m not paying you back.”

  Ilvaren bared her teeth. “I’m gonna fight them if I have to.”

  “Please don’t.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Aye, I’ll throw myself out there and clog the road like a cart full o’ broken stones,” Kargun announced.

  “They’ll probably kill you if you make it that obvious.”

  “I have birds,” Sahlir said simply.

  “O… kay?”

  Rena’s gaze held Dain’s for a moment longer than the rest. There was something in it that made him feel like he’d been seen through—like she could already picture what might happen after tonight.

  “We’ll buy you at least twenty more minutes,” she said. “Beat the living lights out of her for us, will you?”

  “... I will.”

  Then he moved.

  He hopped from roof to roof, sprinting across the tiles while the festival below drowned in noise, completely oblivious. Lanternlight flashed by him in quick, warm pulses. Distant horns announced the parade’s continued ascent. He was grateful for the additional swiftness his upgraded wingcloak gave him, because within just a minute, he reached the shadowed lane at the base of the eastern wall.

  The fortress loomed overhead. Looking straight up at it, the stone spikes Stonewraith had left behind were much more obvious, jutting from the wall like a grotesque ladder… but they hadn’t crumbled yet.

  It was a clean path up.

  He gauged the height, muttered a prayer under his breath, and took the first leap. The first spike was three meters above ground. His wingcloak beat once to give him the additional lift, and the moment he landed on the spike, he held his arms out precariously to balance himself.

  Thankfully, his gravepoise skill helped him keep his balance.

  Good.

  Now, just keep going.

  He jumped again. Second spike. Third. Fourth. He never let his legs fully relax, and he never looked down. Fortress Karatash was already several hundred meters above ground level. Now that he was hopping up spikes jutting out the wall, he was sure to lose his nerve if he looked down.

  He just kept climbing.

  Five minutes passed like a slow punishment. His calves burned. His wingcloak’s feathers stirred whenever the wind shifted, as if the fortress itself was breathing against him—and to think Stonewraith had made this entire climb in under a minute.

  But at least, he reached the final spike—just a few good meters beneath the parapets—and he had to stop. Half his vision was still linked with his owl, so he cursed under his breath as he spotted a few guards patrolling over his section of the ramparts.

  Come on, come on.

  Just leave already and go watch the parade down there.

  He waited five more minutes, and each minute pushed up against the wall was pure agony, just thinking about how far Stonewraith might already be from him. The instant the guards left, he hauled himself over the edge with a grunt and knelt on the parapet.

  For a single, stolen moment, he looked out at the world and let himself breathe.

  The sun was already halfway under the horizon, and Karatash—rowdy, bright, and loud—spread beneath him in tiers that looked almost puny from this height. Up here, Obric was his. He could see the roads and rivers past the city, the jagged spine of mountains to the north, and to the west, he saw where the horizon dimmed into the suggestion of the far western shoreline.

  He couldn’t see the sea from up here, but he could imagine the island Anisa and Yasmine were heading towards just off the shore. Stormearth Serenity. They should be there right this instant, talking to crowns and bishops and whoever else ran peace in the world. If they did their part, then this whole night would mean something more than just him climbing a fortress wall chasing a ghost.

  … Alright.

  Now to kill an assassin.

  He slid off the parapet and moved, darting across the rampart towards the guardtower doorway Stonewraith had vanished into. The interior was dim and the lanternlight was weak, but he immediately found what he needed: faint footprints heading down the stairwell.

  Stonewraith.

  He descended. The stairwell spiraled down into the fortress proper, it didn’t take him long to eventually emerge into a vast hall at the base of the stairs, the ceiling high enough to make even his owl’s wings look small when it fluttered after him.

  But where were the guards?

  He slowed without meaning to, squinting around the dim hall. Even if the parade had pulled most of the guards out onto the streets, there should still be a few men inside the fortress like there were a few men guarding the wall outside. Honestly, he’d expected to dodge patrols and duck behind pillars like a thief, but instead… nobody was here.

  That made his skin prickle under his new clothes.

  This feels wrong, but…

  He whistled and pointed forward, signalling his owl to fly ahead and give him more visual information. His high clarity level meant he almost immediately spotted more faint tread marks leading into a side corridor.

  There.

  He followed the tread marks at once, slipping deeper into the fortress with his silverplume owl gliding ahead of him like a living shadow. The construct barely disturbed the air, scouting corners and crossings before he reached them. He himself moved at a measured pace, fast enough to keep pressure, but slow enough not to announce himself to any guards who might be patrolling around the vast halls.

  The deeper he went, the heavier the metallic tinge in the air. After all, Fortress Karatash also functioned as the mine for the Grand Argent Vein—the single most metal-abundant vein on the entire continent—so overhead, webs of minecart rails ran like steam pipes, bolted directly into the wall and ceilings. The interior layout of the fortress was labyrinthian, to say the least. In several vast chambers he passed, he even spotted transport rooms filled with minecarts sitting on the overhead rails. By jumping into the right one and picking the right lever to pull, it was probably possible for people to ride minecarts from one end of the fortress to another without ever taking a step themselves.

  … And still there were no guards.

  At first, he chalked it up to fortuitous timing—patrols missing him by seconds—but the further he followed Stonewraith’s dirty footprints, the more obvious it became that there were signs of recent guard presence in the hallways he ran through. Lanterns were left burning on the ground unattended, a few doors weren’t quite shut, and there were wrinkles in the red carpets here and there as if someone had been standing there just recently. They just weren’t here now.

  His grip tightened on his cane.

  What’s really going on here?

  He slowed out of caution, then slowed again until even his breathing felt too loud. That was when he finally heard a soft rustling sound ahead of him, like someone sorting through objects in a box.

  Weak lanternlight spilled from a doorway farther down the corridor, casting a thin amber stripe across the floor.

  Lifting a clenched fist, he stilled his owl and pointed at the wall near the ceiling, trying to get it to go there. It read his mind. Its feathers flattened as it became nothing more than a pale silhouette against rock, and with it staying perfectly still, he approached the door as quietly as he could.

  He reached the doorframe and leaned just enough to peer inside.

  An armory. Functional and plain, stocked for war rather than ceremony. Racks of spears and crossbows lined the walls and crates of arrows were stacked in neat columns. On the floor near the center of the room, though, several heavy boxes had been dragged out from the shelves and pried open.

  Stonewraith knelt before them, back turned towards him.

  There you are.

  Her stonescale mantle rippled as she rummaged through the boxes for… something. He scowled and leaned in a bit closer to get a better look. Inside the boxes were compact iron devices with reinforced shells and wax-sealed seams. Hell if he knew what exactly they were, but if he had to guess by the sulfuric smell in the air… explosives. Tunnel charges for blast mining. It only made sense of the fortress to keep a few on hand.

  She lifted an explosive, weighed it in her palm, then slipped it into the satchel at her side before rummaging for another.

  For a heartbeat, hope flickered. If she truly believed him dead, then this was his opening. One clean shot. One devastating windsphere into her back before she could react, and he’d win right here and now.

  He raised his prosthetic arm quietly, preparing to pour as much mana as he could into it—and then he stopped.

  Something just didn’t feel right.

  … Does she really not know I’m here?

  The one-eyed weren’t careless. Stonewraith had seen Anisa back in that abandoned stone town, and there was no way someone from a cult as shadowy as hers didn’t recognize the Second Princess of Obric. She’d know Anisa had a revival amulet, so she had to realize, no matter how slight, that there was a chance he hadn’t stayed dead after she killed him.

  And if she even so much as suspected he was still alive, then she would expect him to come after her and make appropriate preparations.

  Wasn’t that why he hadn’t seen any guards so far inside the fortress?

  He focused harder, forcing his clarity to catch every detail of her silhouette. There had to be something he was missing. Something he wasn’t seeing. She…

  She was rummaging through the box of explosives with one arm.

  Her stone prosthetic right arm—normally mounted at her shoulder—was missing completely.

  Ah.

  A trap.

  The warning hit him a breath later. If it weren’t for hollowbreath, he wouldn’t have detected the movement behind him and spun, firelight oreblade slashing at the prosthetic stone arm trying to impale him from the back.

  Steel met stone with a sharp, ringing crack as he deflected it, and sparks skittered across the wall. The arm rebounded, twisting in the air like a living thing. At the same time, Stonewraith lunged at him from inside the armory, a simple knife flashing in her left hand.

  No wasted motion. He stepped forward and caught the knife with his prosthetic hand, metal biting into metal as their momentum locked them together for a split second.

  “Got you,” he growled—and released the windsphere.

  The swirling windsphere detonated between them. Realizing she couldn’t save her knife, Stonewraith hurled herself down the corridor as he shredded her weapon and tossed the shards away. Her floating prosthetic quickly snapped back onto her shoulder while he cracked his neck, drawing his firelight oreblade in.

  Now they faced each other across the corridor, mask to mask, one-eyed to three-eyed.

  “Hey, Stonewraith,” he said.

  She stiffened just a fraction—because she’d never told him her codename—and with that, the single eye on her mask seemed that much more murderous in intent.

  “... I knew you were alive,” she whispered. “Are you here to die again, Defiler?”