Word travels faster than steel.
By dawn, Bastion thrums with it. From high balconies where nobles sip morning wine to market alleys where bakers roll dough with floured fists, everyone whispers the same thing: the Abyssal Empress walked among them. Kael's assassins struck. She broke them like twigs and sent them home carrying her name in their mouths.
Some call it a miracle. Others call it proof of disaster. But none deny it happened.
Darius
The Kael manor is silent except for the drip of blood on marble.
Three assassins kneel before Darius Kael, faces hidden by gauze masks, their voices hoarse as they repeat the word I forced into them.
"Empress…"
The syllable sours the air. His retainers murmur uneasily, glances flicking between their lord and the kneeling men.
Darius rises from his chair with the grace of a predator. The firelight gilds his bronze hair, but his eyes are cold, gold gone to ice. He descends the steps slowly, savoring the tension that tightens the room.
"You failed," he says. Each word lands like a hammer. "You went to cut a shadow, and you came back giving it a crown."
He stops before the middle assassin—the one still clutching his ribs from my blow. The man trembles, sweat dripping from his brow.
"My lord, we tried—she—"
The knife whispers out of Darius's sheath. Its edge gleams against the man's throat. Darius's smile is thin as a blade.
"Did she spare you from mercy," he murmurs, "or from cruelty?"
The assassin stammers. The question was never meant for an answer.
The knife flashes. Blood arcs. The man topples, crimson spreading across the white marble. His brothers flinch, but do not move.
Darius wipes the blade clean with calm precision. "Remember this," he says, his voice smooth but venomous. "Fear is a seed. And if she waters hers, then I will water mine."
He turns his back on the corpses and the cowards alike, climbing the steps again. His smirk returns, sharp as ever. "If Bastion wants an Empress of shadows, let them see what a Kael does in the light."
Behind him, servants hurry to drag the body away. His followers watch in silence, their loyalty tempered by fear.
The Council
By midmorning, the Council chamber is thick with voices. Reports have arrived—Veyra's midnight walk, the ambush on the bridge, assassins left alive to spread her title.
"She flaunts herself openly!""She spreads terror faster than we can contain it.""She spares them deliberately—she wants the word to spread."
One slams his fist on the arm of his throne. "She undermines our authority. Every hour she walks free, the city bends further to her shadow."
The winter-haired Arcanist, standing at the chamber's heart, only smiles. He spins his staff slowly, the rings humming in contentment. "And yet," he says, "already she is legend. Tell me—when Bastion's enemies hear this tale, will they fear her or us?"
"Both," mutters the onyx-eyed councilor, lips curving into a hungry smile. "And fear is useful. Let it grow."
"Fear is unstable," counters another. "What if she turns on us?"
The eldest finally raises his hand. Silence falls like a curtain. His runed cloak flickers faintly, each symbol older than Bastion itself.
"She will be tested again," he decrees. "Not with conjured spirits. With men. Let us see what choices she makes when the blood spilled belongs to mortals, not shadows."
The chamber murmurs, some satisfied, others grim. But the decision holds.
Veyra
My chamber is cold when I return. The wards hum angrily, offended that I left them behind. They don't understand. Cages don't hold me.
The guards at the gate tried not to look at me when I passed. Tried—and failed. They'd heard. Everyone had.
The candle on the table is burned low. I sit on the narrow bed, shadows curling around me like restless hounds. My body still hums with power, but my thoughts linger on the bridge.
The assassins kneeling, their blades useless in my shadows.The whispers of "Empress" on their lips.And Cas—storm-gray eyes, smirk carved sharp, stepping into the fight without hesitation.
He unsettled me more than the knives. Not because he wasn't afraid—but because my shadows weren't. They let him close. They approved.
I press my palm to my chest. The hum inside responds, steady as a heartbeat, eager. Fear spreads through Bastion now like fire licking dry timber. Every whisper of my name feeds me. Every glare, every prayer, every curse.
The Tower will test me again. They will bring men, not spirits. They think it will bind me in choices.
I smile faintly, shadows rising like smoke.
Darius Kael waters his fear with blood. The Council waters theirs with schemes.
And I—I will make a garden of it.