The rumble deepened as they rowed, turning into a tremor she could feel in her ribs.It wasn't the masked wolves.It was the canal itself.
Elena glanced over her shoulder — four shadows broke the water's glow, sleek and fast, cutting toward them.
"They're closing in," she said.
"I know," he replied, calm as if they weren't about to be ripped apart. "Which means they'll be exactly where I want them."
"Where's that—"
The canal widened into a low-ceilinged chamber. The glow stones here were sparse, leaving most of it in a suffocating darkness. But the sound — a grinding, wet roar — filled the space.
He steered them toward the centre, and she caught sight of two massive chains disappearing into the water on either side. The rumble was coming from below, from something that churned like a heartbeat turned to machinery.
The first wolf-mask burst from the water at the boat's stern, claws dragging on the wood. Elena turned, slashing with the hooked blade. The mask split, revealing eyes so pale they looked blind — yet they locked on her with a predator's clarity. He hissed, pulling back into the water.
Two more surfaced at the boat's flanks, tridents rising.
"Now," he said, and yanked a lever hidden in the side of the boat.
The chains groaned. The water beneath them shuddered. And then the floor of the canal — the entire floor — split open.
It was a grate, she realised too late, and whatever was below was not just machinery.A current seized the water, dragging it — and the masked wolves — downward. She caught a glimpse of something huge, scaled, and blacker than the dark, twisting beneath the surface like an eel the size of a train.
One attacker's trident caught the boat's edge, threatening to pull them down with him. Elena lunged, using the hook of her blade to wrench it free. The man vanished into the whirlpool, his mask tumbling after.
She looked at him — at the Alpha — but he was watching the water with something between calculation and respect.
"What is that?" she demanded over the roar.
"Old debt," he said. "Older than the city."
The last masked wolf tried to scramble aboard, water streaming off his shoulders. The Alpha moved with a swiftness that blurred — a hand to the man's throat, a blade to the side, and then nothing but ripples.
The grate clanged shut. The whirlpool vanished. The canal was calm again, as if nothing had happened.
He sat back, drawing a slow breath. "We have five minutes before the currents settle enough for another pursuit."
"Five minutes to get where?"
"To someone who owes me answers about why they dared send wolves into my waters."
He rowed them toward a narrow archway on the left. The glow stones thinned until the only light came from slits in the ceiling where the city's sounds bled through — bells, wheels, the faint hum of a marketplace.
The arch opened into another canal, this one lined with leaning houses whose windows glimmered faintly with oil lamps. He guided them to a small landing half-hidden behind crates of dried flowers and sacks of grain.
"This doesn't look like a war council," Elena said, stepping out.
"It isn't," he said. "It's worse."
He led her into the shadow of a building that smelled of spice and something bitterer. Inside, it was dim, every surface draped in silks faded from once-bright colours. At the far end of the room sat a woman with hair the colour of moonlight, her eyes a pale, unnatural gold.
She smiled without warmth. "You've brought me trouble."
"You've been breeding it," he said, and tossed one of the broken masks onto the table before her.
Her gaze shifted to Elena. "And you've brought me… something else."
The way she said it made the hair on Elena's arms rise.