Queen Consolidated – Walter Steele's Office
8:57 AM – The Next Morning
The office was quiet, the kind of quiet that had gravity to it. Walter Steele sat at his desk in rolled-up sleeves and a loosened tie, dark eyes fixed on the numbers flickering across his triple-monitor setup. The morning sun knifed through the blinds, casting slashes of white and gray across the brushed-steel surfaces. Everything in the room looked expensive, impersonal, and stress-tested—like its owner.
He didn't glance up when the door opened.
"You're early," he said, his voice low and rich, like velvet soaked in bourbon. "Or I've been here too long."
Moira Queen stepped inside with the smooth, slow grace of someone who knew how to own a room without ever raising her voice. She wore slate-gray silk, her heels a quiet click against the hardwood, her eyes sharp enough to peel paint.
"You skipped breakfast," she said. "I thought I'd catch you before you started mainlining espresso and paranoia."
Walter allowed a dry, sideways smile.
"Oh, we're doing concern this morning? I thought we were still on cool indifference."
Moira dropped her handbag onto the visitor's chair, uninvited but not unwelcome. "Only on Tuesdays. And funerals."
She moved closer, folding her arms as she looked down at the spreadsheets crowding his screens.
"You know," she said, "I'm fairly certain we employ at least six people whose entire job is doing exactly what you're doing right now. Only slower. And with less brooding."
"They're being singularly ineffective," Walter muttered, tapping a key hard enough to make it personal. "This discrepancy shouldn't even exist."
"I solved it," she said.
That got him. He looked up. Slowly. Like the sun through the blinds was being filtered through suspicion.
"Already?" he asked, eyebrow arching in that dangerous, deliberate way Idris Elba would have weaponized in a room full of liars.
"I know. I'm terrifyingly competent." Moira gave a delicate shrug. "The amount—two-point-six million—it rang a bell. That's what we invested in Jansen Ralston's biotech startup three years ago. It was routed through the Vancouver shell as a discretionary seed fund. Probably someone in Accounting forgot to tag it correctly. Or someone new opened a file they didn't understand and panicked."
Walter leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "That's a rather specific memory."
"I keep track of where my money goes," she said coolly.
"Doesn't show up on the formal asset register," he replied.
She tilted her head. "It was meant to be discreet. It's not the only one. The entire point was to anonymize strategic investments—let Ralston build without the press sniffing around a Queen Consolidated backing."
"And now Compliance thinks we're hemorrhaging money into the void."
"Only because they're looking at the void sideways."
Walter chuckled, deep and tired. "You always did have a poetic way of describing creative accounting."
"I prefer elegant obfuscation," she said.
He stared at her for a long moment. "You vouched for him."
"I still do," she said, firm. "The man's brilliant. His company's about to hit Series C. Valuation's through the roof. We'll make back that investment fivefold."
Walter reached for his phone. "Well. If you're right, I'll call Compliance, tell them to wrap it up, mark it as a clerical hiccup, and give whoever opened this can of worms a week of mandatory mindfulness seminars."
Moira smiled, the kind that belonged in a photo op or a hostage negotiation. "There. That wasn't so hard, was it?"
But his fingers paused on the keypad.
"You know what's funny?" he asked.
"No. But I'm guessing you're about to kill the mood."
"That an investment of that size never made it into our long-term risk disclosures. Not in the quarterly, not even in the archived ledger."
She turned toward the door with an elegant shrug. "It was discretionary. And we've done worse for less."
"But not recently," he said, watching her.
She looked back at him, lips twitching. "Walter, I'm not hiding a scandal. I'm cleaning up a paperwork mess."
He nodded slowly. "Sure."
Her eyes narrowed. "Is that your 'I believe you' face or your 'I'm calling my forensic accountant' face?"
"Yes."
She shook her head with a soft laugh. "You always did enjoy digging, even when someone handed you a map."
"And you always enjoyed maps with blank spots," he said, standing. "Moira—"
"I know," she said, already moving. "You think I'm wrong."
He didn't reply. Just picked up the phone and dialed.
As she reached the door, she paused, glancing back at him over her shoulder. "If you find something you weren't expecting," she said, "don't pretend you didn't enjoy the hunt."
Then she was gone.
Walter waited until the door clicked shut.
"Harriet," he said into the phone, voice shifting to steel. "Put a hold on the Vancouver internal review. No, don't close it. I want a deeper pull—backdated paperwork, routing logs, employee access timestamps. If anything's been touched in the last week, I want a list."
He paused.
"No. I don't think she's lying. I think someone wants her to think she's right."
He hung up.
The screen refreshed. His fingers danced across the keyboard. A moment later, an older file blinked open.
Vancouver Office – Holding Ledger Archive – 2012.
He scrolled. His eyes narrowed.
The Ralston investment was there.
Accessed last night.
Modified… two days ago.
Walter leaned back in his chair. Let out a breath. Smiled, just barely.
"Let's see who's rewriting history," he murmured.
And in the far corner of his screen, a small, blinking icon marked 'LEVEL 7 – OFF-BOOKS PAYROLL' flickered to life—quiet, unassuming.
Waiting.
—
Queen Consolidated – Walter Steele's Office
11:43 AM
The door burst open without a knock.
Not opened. Not pushed. Burst. Like the polite version of a SWAT raid.
Walter didn't even flinch. He merely looked up from the file in his hands with the slow precision of a man who had endured six finance summits and three board coups without once spilling his coffee. One brow arched—perfect, sharp, skeptical.
"I assume you're not here to redecorate my office through sheer force of will," he said, voice low and velvety, like an expensive jazz record played on Sunday whiskey.
Felicity Smoak stood in the doorway, already mid-sentence and five syllables ahead of herself.
"Okay, just so I'm super clear—and I'm not saying I'm paranoid, just, you know, preemptively aware—if this is about firing me, I should tell you upfront that I cry really unattractively. Like, not cute single-tear-down-the-cheek cry. I'm talking mascara apocalypse. Full-on Pixar-orphan sobbing."
Walter blinked once. "Ms. Smoak, I called you to my office. I didn't summon you to a medieval tribunal."
She blinked back, mid-bluster. "You… didn't?"
"No."
Felicity's arms fell to her sides in a slightly sheepish collapse. "Oh. Huh. Okay. That's… good. Because I was already planning to leave with my monitor. You know, the color-calibrated one? The only one that doesn't make my skin look like I moonlight as a Victorian ghost."
Walter set his file aside and leaned back, steepling his fingers like a man deciding whether to laugh or sigh.
"I'll make a note to replace all company monitors with ones that flatter the lighting in your selfies."
Felicity gave him a sheepish grin and edged inside, the door swinging shut behind her.
"I was also halfway through this whole impassioned argument about how I'm the most overqualified, underpaid, and definitely under-caffeinated person in the entire tech division," she added. "Including my supervisor. Who thinks 'VPN' stands for 'Very Personal Netflix.'"
Walter allowed a small, almost imperceptible smile. "And I'm sure your elevator audience was riveted."
"Oh, completely. I think I may have inspired someone to unionize."
He gestured to the chair opposite his desk. "You're not being fired, Felicity."
"Okay," she said, sinking into the chair with the energy of a deflating balloon. "That's excellent. That's—okay, wow, that's a full-body relief. I haven't unclenched like that since the last time I opened a spam email from my mother."
Walter opened a drawer and pulled out a folder, sliding it toward her.
"I actually need your help. Quietly. Discreetly."
Her eyes sparkled with caffeine and mischief. "Ooh. You want me to hack something."
"I want you," he said slowly, watching her reaction with a faint smirk, "to look into a transaction."
Felicity's breath caught—and not in the scandalized way he half-expected.
"Ohhh," she said, eyes narrowing with curiosity. "You mean that transaction."
Walter's brow lifted. "You're already aware?"
"Three years ago. Biotech startup. Vancouver shell company. Jansen Ralston. That discrepancy is the most whispered-about ghost story in Accounting. Office legend says it was Moira Queen's pet project. And I quote: 'Don't poke the bear unless you want to be reassigned to the cubicle next to Procurement.'"
Walter folded his arms, his tone dry. "We'll frame that quote and hang it in the motivational hallway."
Felicity leaned forward, lowering her voice with theatrical weight.
"There's also gossip that Ralston and Moira had a thing. Capital T. Like Montauk Beach House kind of thing. Which—okay, not my business, definitely not yours, and absolutely not something I should be saying out loud while still technically on payroll."
Walter fixed her with a patient stare. "Is there a point buried under all that gossip?"
She straightened. "Yes. The point is: I know about the investment. And I know it's weird that it doesn't show up in the risk disclosures or the formal asset register."
"It was accessed two nights ago," Walter said, tapping a key to bring up the relevant screen. "And edited. I don't know who or why, but I want to find out."
Felicity's eyes scanned the blinking icon at the bottom corner: LEVEL 7 – OFF-BOOKS PAYROLL. Encrypted. Partial. Last user: UNKNOWN.
She whistled. "Spooky. That's not just off-books, that's off-grid. Who approved Level 7 access?"
"That's the part I'm hoping you can tell me."
"Oh," she said brightly. "So I am hacking something."
"I need the original metadata. Routing logs. Authorization trails. Whatever's been edited, I want the version from before. Dig quietly. Make sure no one notices."
"I've got a dummy browser tab open labeled 'cat-shaped wedding cakes' just for emergencies like this," she said with a grin. "If anyone walks by, they'll think I'm planning an elaborate feline-themed bachelorette party."
"I don't want to know the contents of your Pinterest boards, Ms. Smoak."
Felicity straightened her spine, giving a smart, mock salute.
"I'm your girl."
Walter's eyebrow rose again.
"I mean—not like your girl girl," she added quickly, backpedaling. "Not that you're not—well, I mean, you're very distinguished, obviously, in a brooding Idris Elba sort of way—"
"Felicity."
"Right. Sorry. Mission parameters. Discreet search, no alerts, pull original data, pretend it's wedding cake time."
"Exactly," he said. Then, after a beat, "You have until tomorrow."
"Do I get overtime?"
"No."
"Company-provided snacks?"
"No."
"An espresso machine for my desk?"
"Definitely not."
She sighed. "I'll bring my own gummy bears."
She stood, already reaching for her phone, mind whirring a dozen miles ahead.
"Thanks for not firing me," she said over her shoulder as she reached the door. "Even though I kind of threw myself into your office like a human confetti cannon."
Walter didn't look up as he replied, "I'd say you landed with… precision."
Felicity beamed, then ducked out the door.
The office fell silent again.
Walter turned back to his screen. The blinking icon was still there.
LEVEL 7 – OFF-BOOKS PAYROLL.
Last Modified: Two Days Ago.
Accessed: Last Night.
User: UNKNOWN.
He leaned back in his chair, the shadows from the blinds cutting across his face like fractured lines of thought.
—
Big Belly Burger – Downtown Starling City
Late Afternoon
The place still smelled like a fryer filter had given up somewhere around 2008. The kind of deep-fried nostalgia that clung to your clothes and arteries. Diggle stepped inside and took it in with a quiet breath — same busted booths, same grease-stained ceiling tiles, same radio static playing Top 40 hits like it was still clinging to the idea of a good time.
And behind the counter?
Carly.
Hair pulled back, hoops in, sleeves rolled — the same no-nonsense, take-zero-crap expression she used to give him when he was five minutes late for dinner.
She turned, saw him, and froze for a heartbeat.
Then her mouth twitched into something halfway between a smirk and a warning.
"Well, well. John Diggle. Didn't expect to see you limping back to my fryer."
Diggle let out a low breath and tried not to smile. "Thought I'd risk cardiac arrest. Felt like living dangerously."
"Sure. Nothing says danger like a triple-patty combo with cheese fries," she said, handing off a tray to a teenager who looked like he barely knew which way was up. "You must really miss me."
"Your fries, mostly."
"Uh-huh." Her eyes drifted down to his left arm — stiff, favoring the right, and taped up beneath a too-tight jacket. "And what's this? Fashion statement? Or did the big, bad city finally land one on John Diggle?"
"Just the shoulder," he said, smooth as ever. "Pulled something."
Her brows arched. "Did that something happen to be a bullet?"
He gave her a look. Flat. Calm. "It's fine."
She leaned in a little, elbows on the counter, eyes sharp.
"You're a terrible liar, John."
"I'm not lying."
"You paused."
"No, I didn't."
"You always pause when you're lying. You did it when you said my meatloaf was your favorite."
"It was—"
"Diggle. It had raisins in it."
He grimaced. "Okay, that one's on you."
She smiled, but only for a second. Then her gaze dropped back to his arm.
"You really gonna stand there and tell me you just 'pulled something'? You show up all tight-lipped and bandaged like an off-duty Avenger, and I'm supposed to just keep flipping burgers like I don't see the red flags flying behind you?"
He exhaled. "Carly, it's not a big deal."
"John." Her voice dropped, low and firm now. "What are you into?"
"Nothing I can't handle."
She stepped around the counter and crossed her arms, blocking the path between him and the soda fountain like a five-foot-five hurricane.
"This about that Queen guy?" she asked. "Because I told you, the second you said his name, I smelled trouble. Rich kid attitude, haunted eyes, and a jawline that screams 'trust fund vigilante.'"
Diggle gave her a warning glance. "I never said this happened protecting Oliver."
"No," she said, tone sharp. "You didn't."
A beat.
She tilted her head.
"But if that's true… then what's he doing here?"
She pointed behind him.
Diggle turned.
And there he was.
Oliver Queen.
Wearing five thousand dollars' worth of uncomfortable guilt and a black wool coat like he was allergic to daylight. Behind him was his new bodyguard — blond, fresh-faced, and probably wondering how long he'd last before getting punched in the neck.
Oliver scanned the place like he was still surprised it didn't valet park your tray. His eyes found Diggle — and then Carly.
Carly's mouth tightened. Her eyes narrowed.
Then she looked at Diggle again. Slowly.
"Wow," she muttered. "Real subtle."
Diggle didn't move. He didn't flinch. But his jaw locked just a little tighter.
Carly leaned closer, voice lower, just for him.
"You're bleeding, John. And maybe you don't want to admit it, but I know the signs. And trust me — that guy?" she flicked her chin toward Oliver, "He's the kind of storm that doesn't care what it destroys on the way in."
She stepped back.
"You want your usual?" she asked, voice suddenly bright.
He nodded once.
"Yeah. Extra mustard."
She gave him a long look. Then turned on her heel and walked away.
Diggle stayed where he was.
He didn't look back at Oliver.
Didn't need to.
The silence said everything.
—
The smell hit first. Fry grease, overworked oil, and that faint trace of desperation that clung to every surface of a franchise one health inspection away from divine judgment.
Diggle settled into the booth like a soldier returning to enemy territory. Same cracked vinyl. Same jukebox frozen on mid-2000s pop. Same sigh rolling through his chest as he unwrapped his double cheeseburger with all the reverence of a man needing something familiar in a world that kept flipping the rules.
Oliver didn't touch the table. Just stood there, coat buttoned tight, like even the smell of the place offended his billionaire DNA.
"Area's secure, sir," Rob said, finishing his sweep. He looked like he'd been printed from a tactical gear catalog. Eager eyes. Fresh jawline. Probably thought 'urban recon' meant finding the Wi-Fi password in sketchy diners.
Carly snorted. Loud enough to be a warning.
Oliver turned to her, smooth and practiced. "You must be Carly. Diggle's sister-in-law."
Carly didn't even blink. She just tilted her head. "Oh, I know who you are."
Oliver smiled, faintly. "No. You really don't."
She folded her arms across her apron. "That supposed to sound mysterious? 'Cause all I'm hearing is 'trust fund with a body count.'"
Diggle cleared his throat. "It's fine, Carly."
Her eyes snapped to him. "No, John. It's not. This isn't one of your army buddies droppin' in for a beer. This is trouble. Wrapped in a five-thousand-dollar coat with vigilante hair."
"I said it's fine."
She stared at him for a long moment, then turned with a muttered, "You better believe I'm keepin' the fryer hot, just in case."
Oliver slid into the booth across from Diggle. He didn't fidget. Didn't squirm. Just stared out the window like he was waiting for the city to blink first.
"So," he said. "I noticed a distinct lack of police cars when I got home."
Diggle took a bite of his burger. "Supposed to be a thank-you?"
"No. Just means I knew you wouldn't drop a dime on me."
"You say that like it makes me feel better."
Oliver leaned forward slightly. "Have you considered my offer?"
Diggle let out a humorless laugh. "Hell of a way to describe your nightly hobby of shooting people with arrows."
"It's not a hobby."
"You got a name. A costume. A catchphrase, probably. Pretty sure that makes it a hobby."
Oliver reached into his coat and set a small, leather-bound book on the table. It looked like it had been through war, saltwater, and grief.
"This was my father's," he said. "Found it when I buried him."
Diggle frowned. "Thought he died when the yacht sank."
Oliver's voice dropped. "He didn't. We both made it to a life raft. No food. No water. He... made a choice. Shot himself."
Silence settled like ash.
"He gave me a chance to survive. But this book... I think it was also about atonement. His way of telling me to make it right."
Diggle wiped his mouth with a napkin, slow and deliberate. "So you go full Robin Hood. Save a few rich guys, scare some drug dealers. That it?"
"You joined the military to protect people. This is the same thing. Just... less paperwork."
Diggle's eyes narrowed. "You had every privilege. And now, after five years without catered brunch, you think you found God?"
"No," Oliver said. "But I found purpose."
He tapped the book.
"This city's being hollowed out by people like my father. People who built their empires by bleeding everyone else dry."
Diggle held his gaze. "And what, you fix that one arrow at a time?"
"If the courts won't. If the cops can't. Then yeah. I will."
Diggle leaned back. "What does any of this have to do with me?"
Oliver didn't blink. "Your brother. Andy."
Diggle froze.
"Careful, Queen."
"The shooter the cops never caught? He used curare-laced bullets. Same kind you got hit with two nights ago."
Diggle stared at him, jaw tightening. "You saying it was the same guy?"
Oliver nodded. "Name's Floyd Lawton. Alias: Deadshot. I had him in my sights. But it was him or you. I chose you."
Diggle looked down. One hand clenched into a slow, deliberate fist on the tabletop.
"You telling me you let my brother's killer walk?"
"I'm telling you I saved your life. And I'm offering you a way to make sure no one else goes through what you did."
Diggle was quiet. The weight of it all hung heavy.
"You remember when this city gave a damn?" Oliver said. "Because it doesn't anymore. The people in power made sure of that. And if no one's going to stop them?"
He stood.
"Then I will. And I want you with me."
He turned to Rob without waiting for a response.
"I'm hitting the restroom."
"Yes, sir."
Rob stayed posted by the door like a mall cop on his first mission.
Diggle watched Oliver disappear down the hallway.
Took a long pull from his soda.
Then looked up at Rob.
"You know that boy's already gone, right?"
Rob blinked. "What?"
Diggle pointed his thumb at the back exit.
"Magic trick. Classic. He ain't coming back. Already ten rooftops deep and probably halfway up a fire escape."
Rob frowned, stepped toward the hallway.
Diggle went back to his burger.
"Don't worry," he muttered. "He always disappears when the conversation gets hard."
—
CNRI Office
4:42 PM
Laurel Lance had barely made it through the first paragraph of the deposition transcript when a soft knock echoed — not on her door, but directly inside her skull.
Joanna de la Vega, espresso in one hand and a manila folder tucked under her arm like it personally offended her, strolled into the office without waiting for permission.
"Tell me something," she said, eyes narrowed in that way that usually came before either an intervention or a roast. "Is there a secret contest to see how little sleep a lawyer can survive on? Because if so, congrats — you're winning."
Laurel didn't look up. "Funny. I thought I was just losing patience."
"Right. Because nothing says work-life balance like single-handedly trying to save a convicted felon before your retinas detach."
Joanna leaned against the edge of the desk, ignoring Laurel's pointed silence as she scanned the chaotic sprawl of notes, printouts, and coffee rings.
"You've got more sticky notes on this case than you had on your bar exam flashcards. And those had color-coded anxiety."
Laurel finally lifted her eyes, just long enough to deadpan, "That's because the stakes are higher."
Joanna let out a small, theatrical gasp. "What? You mean the state wasn't scheduled to execute the bar exam?"
"Keep that up," Laurel muttered, "and I'll add your name to the defense strategy — as exhibit A for obstructing my last functioning nerve."
"Aw," Joanna said with a grin, "we're back to death threats. That's how I know you're still breathing."
She dropped the folder onto the desk, but didn't move away. Her smile softened, just slightly. "You really think Declan's innocent?"
Laurel's hands stilled over the keyboard. She hesitated, then said, "Someone does."
Joanna's eyebrows shot up. "There it is again. Someone. Mysterious. Vague. Possibly wearing a cape?"
She folded her arms. "Are we talking about an actual person here or are you channeling your inner Batman phase again?"
Laurel met her gaze squarely. "The guardian angel."
There was a beat — then another — and then Joanna blinked, her whole expression freezing.
"No," she said flatly. "You are not talking about—"
"I am."
Joanna stared like she was waiting for the punchline to land and realized, too late, it already had.
"Oh my God. Laurel." Her voice was a mixture of disbelief, exasperation, and something dangerously close to awe. "You're talking about him. The guy in the hood. The Robin-Hood-meets-Rambo guy. The one who zip-lines around town like Spider-Man's emotionally repressed cousin."
"He found me," Laurel said quietly, as if that made it less insane. "Told me to look into the case."
Joanna sat down hard, like gravity had been holding a grudge. "He told you. And you just said okay?"
"I didn't exactly have a choice."
"Laurel, I told you to get out there again. Meet someone. Maybe someone who doesn't list 'urban warfare' and 'creative interrogation techniques' under special interests."
Laurel's lips twitched. "Yeah. I remember."
"This is so not what I meant."
"I know."
Joanna let out a groan and dragged her hands down her face. "You're not scared? At all? That he's gonna show up one day with blood on his hands and decide you were one of the bad guys the whole time?"
Laurel looked past her, somewhere distant, her voice softening like it couldn't help itself. "No. I don't know why. I just... know he won't hurt me."
Joanna blinked. "That's comforting. Said every woman on Dateline right before the commercial break."
"He's saved people," Laurel said, tone sharpening. "He's saving someone now. Someone no one else will even bother to look twice at."
"Right," Joanna said, sarcasm thick now. "The man violates more laws per night than most people do in a lifetime, but we're just ignoring that because he's got good bone structure and a tragic backstory?"
"I'm not ignoring it."
"Then what are you doing, Laurel?" Joanna asked, voice suddenly quieter, tighter. "Because you're starting to sound like someone who's drinking the Kool-Aid."
Laurel stood, slowly. Her jaw was tight, but her voice was steady. "I'm doing what I became a lawyer to do. Make sure the law doesn't only serve the people who can afford it."
Joanna stared up at her, something unreadable in her eyes. She searched Laurel's face, looking for some crack in the resolve — something human beneath the armor.
"When I told you to meet someone," she said finally, quietly, "I meant someone who reminded you who you are. Not someone who challenges it."
Laurel's smile was brittle and sad. "Maybe I needed someone to do both."
She walked around the desk, Declan's folder tucked under her arm like a shield. Her heels clicked against the tile — loud, certain, relentless.
Joanna watched her go, leaning back in her chair like the fight had left her. Her voice, when it came, was almost a whisper.
"You sure he's not just saving other people so he doesn't have to fix himself?"
Laurel paused in the doorway.
"I don't know," she said. "But I think he sees something in me that I forgot was there."
And then she was gone.
Joanna sat in the silence she left behind, the ghost of a friend-shaped wildfire still flickering in the air. She didn't know what scared her more — that Laurel was falling for a man who broke the rules, or that she was becoming someone who understood why he did.
Not all guardian angels wore wings.
Some wore hoods.
And some didn't come to save your soul —
They came to remind you that you had one.
—
Castle Vladovich – The Sanctum of Coiled Tongues
Dawn – The Day of Aberystwyth
The Circle was robed and ready.
The inner sanctum pulsed with a slow, poisonous energy — a tension coiled tighter than the serpents etched into the walls. Every candle burned green, flickering unnaturally without smoke, as though the flames had long since forgotten how to obey the rules of this world. The floor was chalked in runes old enough to predate even the first goblin rebellions, their curves twitching like they were breathing — hungry, expectant.
Seven members stood in the ceremonial ring, each shrouded in layered silk and bone-laced regalia. Snake skulls adorned hoods, venom gems glinted in bracelets, and not one of them looked truly alive — not in any way that counted. They looked like history's mistakes held together by ritual and ambition.
At the head of the ring stood High Priest Murat Zoric, skeletal in frame but thunderous in presence, his voice a rasp of ancient vowels and misplaced faith.
"She is prepared?" he asked, not turning from the bowl of sacred ashes before him.
"She is," came the answer from the left — Vadim Krall, Keeper of Rites, who hadn't blinked since the last lunar eclipse. "She has taken the Draught of Silence. Her magical trace is obscured. Her blood is bound."
Zoric nodded, slowly. "And she has not run?"
There was a pause. Not long. Just long enough for discomfort to blink.
"No, High One," another voice lied. It came from a hooded figure with silver clasps across the collar — Irina Zoric, the High Priest's niece and enforcer. Her eyes were sharp enough to flay truth from bone.
"She kneels in the crypt," Irina continued, "and does not resist. Not anymore."
Zoric hummed. "Then we are close. So close, I feel his breath already on the wind."
A ripple of murmurs passed through the circle. Someone whispered, "The Dark Lord returns." Someone else whispered it again. And again. Until it wasn't words, but a rhythm. A drumbeat made of delusion and devotion.
Zoric raised his wand, which was carved from the rib of a thestral still in mourning. The tip burned with black flame.
"Gather your things," he said. "We portkey to Aberystwyth at noon. The eclipse aligns above the Stone, and her blood shall strike the blade before the final shadow falls."
A few of the priests bowed their heads. Others simply stood still — in awe, or perhaps terror.
The portkey — an ornate ouroboros statue forged from cursed bronze — lay in the center of the circle on a plinth. Its eyes glowed faintly, as though watching them. Waiting.
Irina stepped forward, flicking her wand and conjuring a string of runic sigils that hovered midair in green fire. "Coordinates confirmed. Ward barriers cleared. Anti-Auror tracers armed."
"And the child?" Zoric asked, turning for the first time. His face was carved from cruelty and candlelight. "Is she fully broken?"
Irina hesitated.
"She is… quiet."
"That is not the same."
"No," Irina admitted, voice thin, "but it will do."
From the far wall, a hooded novice coughed — a short, sharp sound. Nervous. New.
"What if she fights us?" he asked.
The entire chamber turned like a scythe on its hinge.
Zoric didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
"If she fights, she dies," he said, each word cold and exact. "And we extract her blood anyway. But she will not fight. She knows her purpose. She has accepted the prophecy."
Irina's jaw clenched. No one noticed. Or rather — they noticed and chose not to.
Another robed figure, elder and shaking, spoke up.
"Once he is returned... what then?"
Zoric turned back toward the altar, arms lifting slowly.
"Then we follow him to the ends of the world," he said. "And he will lead us past the edge."
—
Outside the Crypt – Upper Hallway
Unseen above, behind the lattice of an enchanted arch, a set of pale blue eyes watched the proceedings through a tiny mirrored coin — the kind you only received if you once trained with Vladovich's Shadow Legion.
Delphini.
Draped in the cloak of Nocturne's Shadow, her body folded into an alcove tight as a confession, she breathed so softly the air barely shifted.
They were preparing for victory.
But they were two days too late.
She touched the pendant at her throat — the black tourmaline now warm to the touch.
"You were wrong," she whispered. "I'm not broken. I'm bait."
She palmed the clockwork serpent Anastasia had given her. A quick twist of its tail, and the hidden portkey embedded in its fangs would activate. But not yet.
No.
She had one more thing to do before noon.
Burn the prophecy in its cradle.
—
Castle Vladovich – The Spiral Archives
Anastasia moved like smoke between shadows, the hood of her midnight robes drawn low, her presence no more noticeable than a passing chill.
The Spiral Archives were buried in the lower foundations of the castle, carved into bedrock and protected by some of the oldest wards in Eastern Europe. But they had never kept her out. Not when she was a child. Not now.
With a whisper and a flick, the door yielded.
Inside, tomes lined the walls like the bones of a dead god's library — heavy, cursed, half-sentient. She ignored most. She knew what she needed.
The Book of Serpent's Breath.
The Codex of Wandless Resurrection.
The Scroll of the Aberystwyth Eclipse.
She opened the last one.
The prophecy shimmered into view — ink that had never dried. Living. Waiting. Delusional.
"From the womb of madness and the blood of shadow, shall the Heir of Riddle rise as vessel and voice. Upon the eclipse of Aberystwyth, the Circle shall call the darkness forth, and the world shall bow once more to the flame of His return."
Anastasia stared at it for a long moment.
Then, calmly, she flicked her wand.
"Flamma muta."
The page ignited, not in fire — but in silence. A burn so absolute the ink screamed and no one heard it.
The words curled. Blackened. Died.
She smiled faintly.
"Let the darkness rise," she whispered. "We'll be waiting."
—
Final Beat — Just Before Noon
The ouroboros glowed brighter, humming with power.
One by one, the Circle laid their fingers on the statue.
Zoric, last of all, looked back toward the crypt — a faint smirk twitching the corner of his mouth.
"To destiny," he said.
They vanished.
And ten seconds later…
So did the prophecy.
And two traitors.
And an army's worth of revenge.
---
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