Morazin whimpers. “This is insane.”
“You’re describing my week,” I say.
We start moving through the submerged passage. Water sloshes loud, echoing. Every splash feels like an announcement. My senses strain—listening for pursuit, for the scrape of boots, for any hint the Nine has eyes on this route too.
Behind us, the safehouse above erupts again—an explosion muffled by layers of concrete and water. The sound rolls through the tunnel like thunder.
Then comes a scream.
Not Morazin.
One of mine. A loyalist.
The scream cuts off abruptly, replaced by the static hiss of comm failure.
My chest tightens.
Rook’s voice comes through, ragged. “Lonari—we’re—”static“—lost Venn. He’s?—”
Venn.
A name hits me like a fist. Venn was old-guard. Quiet. The kind of loyalist who never asked for credit. The kind of loyalist who dies because he stands in a doorway and decides his body is the price for someone else’s seconds.
I keep moving. I keep my face still. But inside, something tears.
Truth over vengeance.
That’s the choice.
And it costs blood every time.
Fyr’s voice is low behind me, rough. “We just lost Venn for this.”
I don’t look back. “I know.”
Morazin murmurs, almost smug through fear, “Your people die for my breath.”
I stop so suddenly the water sloshes hard. I turn, looming over him in the narrow tunnel.
Morazin flinches.
“You think you’re special?” I whisper, voice like gravel. “You’re not. You’re a ledger entry. The only reason you still inhale is because your death would make powerful people comfortable.”
Morazin swallows. “You need me.”
“I need your testimony,” I correct. “Don’t confuse that with respect.”
He shuts up.
We push forward until the tunnel slopes upward. A ladder rises into a maintenance chamber that smells less like sewage and more like oil—still disgusting, but an improvement. I shove the hatch above us open and climb out, hauling Morazin up after me like a sack of bones.
Fyr drags himself out last, breathing hard, sweat slick on his scales despite the cold.
The chamber is dim, lit by a single emergency lamp. Pipes run along the ceiling, dripping. The air is heavy with industrial heat.
I hear distant sirens—city security responding to gunfire, too late and too corrupt to matter.
Jordan’s voice crackles in my ear suddenly, tight and shaken. “Lonari—are you alive?”
