The mountain passes northeast of the Freedmen Realm were narrow and cold. Pines rose tall on both sides, their branches weighed down by frost. The paths were used by smugglers and deserters, not meant for retreating spies.
Drevi moved in front, but the man wasn't Drevi. Nivak wore his skin and voice like a uniform. Behind him, Vaeyra kept her bow ready. Nask limped after them, still wearing a blood-caked bandage from the arena. Three others followed, Dazhum agents who had seen too much and lost more.
They moved fast, without formation. At the ridgeline, Vaeyra stopped and signaled. Drevi moved beside her without a word. She pointed. A cloud of dust was rising across the hills. Not smoke. Not wind. Riders.
The group gathered in silence. Veilrix watched the horizon.
"We won't outrun them."
Drevi waited.
"I'll stay," Veilrix said quietly. "Four of my team will stay too. We'll buy you time."
Nask's jaw tightened. "That's a death call."
Veilrix didn't flinch. "We failed because I didn't see it. I didn't see that Rhak was a spy. He shattered the Empire's plan, and I let it happen. Let this be my redemption. We stand here."
Vaeyra stepped forward, unclasped a worn bronze medallion from around her neck, and placed it in Drevi's hand.
"Give this to my father and mother," she said. "Tell them I didn't die a coward. Tell them I gave my life for the Dazhum Empire."
Drevi closed her fingers around it. "I will."
Vaeyra gave a short nod and stepped back.
Drevi met Veilrix's eyes for a breath. "Go."
Veilrix gave a slight nod. "We'll end what we failed to."
Before nightfall, five agents broke away. They carried no food. Only weapons.
Drevi and the others continued east.
Kareth Cliffs
The riders reached the gorge before dawn. Ten Stormrider cavalry, armored and alert, moved in tight formation. One rode apart, wrapped in dull veilsteel that drank the moonlight. Qorjin Ke. His presence turned the air colder.
They dismounted before reaching the narrowest point of the gorge. Veilrix's plan had been to strike at the bend, where the slope narrowed the path. But the Stormriders stopped early. They spread apart.
The Veilguard was already climbing the ridge, scanning for prints.
Stopped and calmly said. "Ambush,"
The Stormriders nodded, weapons drawn and readied for the attack.
Veilrix and her team struck from the rocks above.
Veilrix dropped between two soldiers and drove her shortblade into the gap beneath the first one's arm, feeling the steel tear through flesh. Blood sprayed across her forearm as he collapsed. She pivoted, slashed the second across the thigh just as he turned, and ducked beneath the wild counterstrike.
Another agent burst from behind a cluster of moss-covered boulders and lunged forward, driving a spear into a Stormrider's chest with a brutal yell. A fourth was caught turning to react but never made it, taken down with a clean thrust to the throat.
The ambush hit fast and hard, but only two Stormriders fell in those opening seconds. The rest had already begun to close ranks, weapons raised, movements precise.
But it ended there.
The remaining Stormriders closed ranks fast. They fought with ruthless discipline. One turned and cut down an agent with a rising glaive sweep. Another bashed a skull against rock. The veilsteel-clad Qorjin Ke did not move yet. He watched.
Veilrix charged again but a net of stormcords struck her from the side. She fell, bound before she could recover.
Around her, the last of her agents were cut down in brutal succession, holding their ground until the end. Not a single one attempted to flee. Though they struck hard and true. In the end, only two Stormriders fell. Eight survived the clash.
Only two captives remained. Veilrix and one other agent.
They were forced to their knees, wrists bound behind their backs, stormcord threads woven so tight they numbed the skin. Even blinking felt sluggish.
The Qorjin Ke finally moved. He approached on foot, slow and silent, stopping before the other captive. He said nothing. His presence was suffocating. The veilsteel covering his body made it impossible to read his expression, if there even was one.
From the center of his palm, a small black shape emerged. It unfolded slowly, legs clicking against metal. A beetle, sleek, mechanical, and alive in a way that defied simple logic. It crawled down his wrist and onto the captive's chest.
Veilrix watched as it crept up the agent's face. It moved with deliberate intent, ignoring the restrained man's tremors. It paused at the eye, then shifted, finding the nostril and forcing its way inside.
The agent stiffened immediately. His body convulsed, spine arched, and his breathing stopped. Veins darkened across his face. Then his jaw unhinged, and from the back of his throat, a pale sphere began to rise. Smooth and translucent, it floated upward like breath made solid.
The beetle emerged from the nostril and retrieved it. Without hesitation, it returned to the Qorjin Ke's palm. The sphere rested in his blood-slicked fingers only for a second before he swallowed it.
His posture shifted. He knelt, took a blade from his belt, and drew it across his own palm. Blood flowed freely as he sat cross-legged in the dirt. He began to write on the ground, careful and precise, tracing symbols, names, and numbers into the sand. Each stroke drawn from the captive's mind, now consumed and transferred into his own.
Veilrix remained still. She watched in horror, unable to turn away, forced to witness the Stormrider's method of extraction. It was not torture. It was not persuasion. It was something far colder, something engineered to bypass pain and fear entirely. The mind was nothing more than a vault to be opened, its contents consumed and discarded.
In that moment, she understood. The Qorjin Ke had shown her the secret. That alone was enough to seal her fate. She had seen what was never meant to be seen. There would be no interrogation, no bargain for her life. She would not be taken to a black cell. She would not be questioned.
She would die. That was certain now.
When the Qorjin Ke finished, he rose slowly. His bloodstained fingers hung at his side. The writing glistened faintly in the rising light.
He turned his gaze to Veilrix.
Then he began walking toward her.
Later, the Qorjin Ke gave a short, sharp whistle that echoed through the gorge. A shadow circled above. Wings cut the morning wind. Moments later, a hawk descended from the clouds and landed on his armored forearm without hesitation. Its talons gripped the veilsteel bracer like it belonged there.
He tied a scroll to its leg, sealed in stormcord thread.
"Fly," he said.
The hawk launched into the sky, wings catching the draft as it rose and vanished north into the cloudbank.
He turned to one of the Veilguard scouts now moving among the corpses.
"Check all bodies. Make sure they are dead."
The Stormrider nodded once and moved down the slope. Blades were drawn. Throats opened again. The dead would not be left to chance.
Within the week, Stormguard units swept through the east. Doors shattered. Hidden rooms burned. Names disappeared.
And in every raid, a beetle would crawl out again.