One cultist survives the sweep—a woman in gray robes, half-pinned under fallen shelving. I pull her upright.
“The focal point in the floor. The converging channels.” The questions scrape out rough and hot. “Who ordered it built?”
She stares at me with terror-wide eyes. The dragon’s authority compels truth, whether she wants to offer it or not.
“High Ritualist Threx.” The name tears out of her like a confession. “He sent the specifications himself. Came to our cell personally to oversee the foundation work. Preparing for a priority acquisition, he told us. A witch with Vireth blood.”
Priority acquisition.
They’re hunting her. Specifically. Deliberately. The High Ritualist himself is directing the effort.
“How many sites?”
“I only know about our cell—I swear?—”
I release her. She collapses against the wall, clutching her bruised throat. Corveth’s team will extract whatever additional intelligence she possesses. I need air. Need distance. Need to put space between myself and the knowledge that someone is actively building cages for Alerie.
SIXTEEN
IZAN
We hit the tenement building in the workers’ quarter at dawn, when shifts are changing and alertness is lowest.
Among the dead, we find documents.
I spread them across a table in the building’s ransacked common room, scanning contents by the light of my own incandescent eyes. Troop movements. Supply manifests. Communication protocols.
And a sketch.
The likeness is drawn from description rather than direct observation, but it’s recognizable. Unmistakably her.
Someone has been describing her to the Blood Regent’s artists. Someone has been providing enough detail to create this image. They know what she looks like. They’re distributing her description to their cells.
“Enforcer?” Corveth’s voice cuts through the haze. “We’ve secured a survivor from the upper floor. He claims to have intelligence about?—”
“Bring him.”
The survivor is a young man, barely past adolescence, his robes torn and bloody from the fighting. He kneels before mewith the trembling submission of someone who understands he’s about to die and hopes compliance might buy mercy.
It won’t.
I hold the sketch where he can see it. “This image. Who created it? Who distributed it?”
His eyes fix on the paper. “The High Ritualist’s orders.” His words shake. “He wants every cell to memorize her face. Primary target for the containment protocol.”
“Primary target.”
“She’s the only one who can break the oaths cleanly. He needs her.” The young man’s expression shifts, desperation bleeding into zealous conviction. “She’s the key to everything. Once we have her, the network becomes permanent. Unbreakable. She’ll?—”
He stops. Stares at my face. Whatever he sees there makes him go pale.
“She’s pretty.” He’s babbling now, fear stripping away his control. “The sketch doesn’t capture it, but the description mentioned she’s pretty. Worth keeping even after the ritual work is?—”
I burn him alive. The screaming doesn’t last long.
Corveth’s tone is carefully neutral when he breaks the silence. “The documents?—”
“Burn them. All of them except the tactical intelligence.” I don’t look at him. “No one else sees the sketch.”
