A cold draft curled through the far alcove.
A flash of movement. The sound of glass shattering.
“Down!” Auryn shouted, throwing her hand toward the nearest row of tables. A shield flared into place as a hail of arrows slammed against it, shattering on impact and spraying mana across the floor like fire.
Auryn’s Reskala moved with the speed of a sound wave. One lunged toward the source of the arrows, the other drawing a greatsword in a gleam of runelight. Lu’ma gasped as a second arrow zipped past her shawl and buried itself in a spool of silk. Auryn grabbed her arm and pulled her flush against her own body, wrapping both of them in a flame ward.
Two more figures, robed in grey and crimson, burst from behind the curtained storage shelves, weapons gleaming, hoods soaked with mana glyphs. Solutus. Their ivory masks marked them as rebels, along with the horns on their belts. She hadn't seen many of them, but Kailorien had often spoken about what they wore.
The Crafters shrieked, diving for cover. Auryn spun, casting a second shield between them and the attackers.
A blurred shape appeared some distance away. A third figure—slimmer, faster—ran across the back hall, cradling something wrapped in deep gray cloth. A bundle. No, a package. Not attacking or casting.Running.
Auryn pushed Lu’ma down into a crouch, wound the ward tight around her body, then broke into a sprint, breath catching in her throat, fever forgotten as adrenaline pounded in her veins.
“Stop!” she shouted, throwing a chain of lightning at his heels.
It hit the tile beneath his feet, and he lurched sideways, rolling to his feet. Auryn gritted her teeth, raising her hand to fire off another spell, but she was a split second too slow.
She wasn’t trained to fight like this. Though she spent endless hours studying magic, reading about it, and learning its shape, she had no combat expertise. Her casts were powerful, but drained her quickly. Already, she was breathless; dizzy.
Her next cast sputtered.
Weaving answered her call in its place.
She wound strings of light around the man’s feet. He fell with a scream, slamming his head into the floor. Her Reskala were on him in a flash—restraining him—and as Auryn skidded to a halt in front of him, he spat red blood at her feet.
“Sokâr,” he snarled. His porcelain mask had cracked, showing bloodied teeth. “You call yourself Radiant, but you are nothing but anotherEnslaver.”
The shock of himspeakingstaggered her just enough to hesitate. He had no choker on his neck. No Batcher.
"Why come here?" she asked, her voice tight. "Why risk your life to steal gowns and break looms?"
"You bathe in the blood of those beneath you," he spat. "Spectacle! All of it a spectacle! We will strip you bare, Enslaver. We will take everything from you. The Resh'Agar will be free of your vile light!"
Only those of Holy Blood were allowed a free voice in Krystopolis. That this man spoke so clearly implied something worse than any of them had suspected about the Solutus rebellion. How many others were there that broke Doctrine like this? How had they managed to subvert the will of the Flaeme?
She should have ordered him captured. Arrested. Contained for interrogation. But before Auryn could act, one of her Reskala swung his greatsword with a feral growl and cleaved his head from his body.
It rolled.
And rolled.
Stopping at her feet.
Bumping into her toes.
Blood seeped hot into her silk shoes.
The man’s face looked up at her, set in an eternal grimace.
Auryn stood frozen in time. The very air seemed to throb and pulse. The floor tilted up and down. Her heart thundered in her throat.
The package fell to the floor from the body’s limp hands, more crimson blooming beneath it. Lu’ma crept forward, reaching toward it.
Auryn caught her wrist.
“No,” she said sharply. “Do not touch that.”
