Rain poured over the Reyes estate in heavy sheets, hammering slate roofs and soaked every banner until the colors almost blurred and bled into the night.
What should have been the usual glow of lanterns was drowned beneath sheets of rain, yet the city was not sleeping.
Every street leading toward the public teleportation square heaved with people.
Merchants dragged carts half-covered with tarpaulins, guildsmen clutched satchels of records, mothers clutched children in soaked shawls.
Soldiers of the Bahamut Legion, armor dripping, shouted orders to keep the lines from collapsing.
Vahan had declared the evacuation himself. The teleportation gate was the only structure capable of carrying thousands beyond the reach of the armies that now massed on Reyes' borders.
Yet his family remained behind. He had forbidden them from stepping into the square. The public array was state-controlled, monitored by the Royal Family.
If the Dukes had prepared a trap, it would be through the city's official channel. Sending his wife and children into it without certainty felt like throwing them into the maw of the beast.
Around the square, the architecture spoke of Reyes' power. Guildhouses stood shoulder to shoulder, their facades carved with the banners of trade leagues and mercenary companies.
City-states across the kingdom watched families like Reyes with a hawk's eye, for the balance of power was fragile.
The Dukes commanded armies, but merchants controlled grain, guilds controlled coin, and the adventurers' halls commanded warriors of their own.
If Vahan fell here, his enemies might march victorious, but the repercussions would spread through every deal, trade, and the chaos that came after. Unless a cover story was made, the Vessel houses of the Reyes family would be furious and might even rise in mutiny.
Figures dressed in plain merchant attire slipped among the crowds, blades piercing throats before guards could react.
Each kill was chosen to push the press of civilians toward the teleportation square.
Mothers tripped over corpses as they fled, children were pulled screaming through alleys, and the flood of people surged where the assassins wanted them to go.
From his vantage, Vahan's chest locked tight. He had prepared in the short time he got for legions, for magitech sieges engines, even for Ouroboros alchemists poisoning the wells.
But nobles cutting down civilians in plain view was madness.
Aurelian Draegor, Legate of the Adamant Guard, spat a curse, fury flashing in his eyes. "Damn them! They shame their own banners!" he roared.
He jabbed a gauntleted hand toward the chaos. "You two! Take your squads and cut those bastards down before they reach the gate!"
Aurelian's eyes burned as he watched the slaughter. "What the hell are those three fuckers planning? If a single person escapes, their honor as nobles will be dragged through the mud!"
Vahan's grip tightened on his spear. His instincts flared in grim answer. "They don't plan to let even civilians leave."
Beyond the walls, three armies advanced beneath three banners.
The Watchtower from the east, their banner a black tower crowned with golden flame, advanced in rigid formation. It was as if the whole army moved as one, shaking the ground with every stomp.
From the south surged the Crimson Tide, their warriors chanting an invocation that magnified every soldier's water manipulation.
From the west poured the Ouroboros, serpent banner shining in green and white, their magitech engines trailing smoke as alchemists prepared flasks of Cian's fire.
Inside the palace square, Valeria bent over the teleportation gate's foundation. To an untrained eye it was a black stone plinth inlaid with copper glowing lines, but the symbols etched across its surface burned with a network of glyphs now choked by the space seal.
She scraped her palm across a brass dial, pressing fresh blood into the grooves, then struck her stylus across the wet stone, carving counter-sigils that sparked under her touch.
Her Reservoir Node faltered as though her lungs had seized, her Crown Node burning with blinding light to anyone with Ykthir Vision.
Her face was pale, not from fear but from forcing her soul into work that shortened her years with every stroke.
"An anti-teleportation idrath," she muttered through clenched teeth. "Only the King can license such a thing. Either the Ministry is complicit, or…" Her words trailed, fury flashing in her eyes.
To Valeria, who had once been whispered of as the Faithless, the queen of thieves and spies, this betrayal was more unbearable than the storm or the assassins.
Her networks stretched across the kingdom and beyond, her ears in courts, guilds, and dens of shadow alike. For the Houses to move without her knowledge meant her web had been cut, or worse someone high up in the hierarchy betrayed her.
She jammed a cracked crystal into place and hissed as sparks leapt across her fingers, the conduits inside her own hands grinding against alien glyphs.
The sigil lines pulsed once, flickered, then steadied. Compassion warred with fury as her daughter whimpered at her side.
Every instinct urged Valeria to gather her children into her arms and comfort them, yet she forced herself to keep working, her hands steady on the glyphs.
Kaiser held the girl close while Reinhardt stood shield-broad before them.
The assassins pressed harder. Some shed their cloaks and revealed themselves as peasants armed with hidden blades, having walked with the crowd until now.
They lunged for the gate, seeking to plunge steel into the etched plates or crack the crystals before Valeria could override the blockade.
Aurelian cursed as he saw the mass. His eyes narrowed, thoughts racing. Sabotage from within the gate should have been impossible—unless someone carried a high‑grade relic.
The realization sent a chill through him. He turned toward Vahan, his voice low. "They act as if they know they can break it from inside. I think, they have a high-grade relic, Commander."
They lunged for the gate, seeking to plunge steel into the etched plates or crack the crystals before Valeria could override the blockade.
Adamant Guards met them shield-first, their formation bending to hold the line. Spears thrust in practiced rhythm, each strike aligned to amplify the effect of the Anchor Nodes that bound them together in resonance.
Sheilds bashed together, each strike angled to pin an attacker until the second wave of thrusts come.
Vahan caught a poisoned blade against his vambrace, twisted until the steel snapped, then rammed his knee into the man's chest and sent him sprawling, his Mantle Node hardening bone and steel as translucent veins lit beneath his skin.
His spear followed the motion upward, driving through a throat, then pivoted in one continuous arc to hook another assassin behind the knee. The mud slowed his footwork, but his footwork carried the momentum, each movement feeding the next.
Still, the tide did not thin. Assassins struck at civilians to keep the crowd surging. A merchant staggered with a dagger in his ribs, collapsing against the very steps of the gate.
A woman carrying two children screamed as a cloaked figure slashed her back, driving her forward with the others. The square became a storm of bodies, half seeking escape, half seeking sabotage.
Vahan turned sharply. His mind clicked through the angles—the assassins' cruelty, the Houses discarding their reputations, the swell of civilians herded not away from danger but toward the square.
He thought the King might have only sanctioned the attack, but now a darker thought struck: the King himself might have handed them one of the three high‑grade artifacts to make such sabotage possible.
He looked at Valeria, hunched in fury, her hands moving faster than his eyes could follow as she re-etched sigils. She had understood earlier than him.
The massacre was smoke for the true strike: saboteurs hidden among the terrified crowd, waiting to cripple the teleportation gate from within.
Vahan's breath came sharp through the rain. He raised his spear and pointed to the square. "Make two circles! Keep the line at the steps! Don't let anyone into the gate!" His voice boomed across the chaos, cutting through screams and thunder.
The Adamant Guard shifted, their shields locking to form a double wall before the gate. Soldiers pulled civilians aside where they could, dragging them into alleys, shouting for order, but the press only grew.
Valeria's voice carried, raw and steady. "I can override the seal, but if they breach the plates, nothing I do matters. Keep them from here, Vahan!"
He met her eyes across the square. Rain streaked her face, but he saw the fire there. She already knew the truth: tonight was not about victory, but survival long enough to wrench her family free of this deadly trap.