The war room inside Sin Rouge was a place almost no one ever entered.
It wasn't marked, decorated and it certainly wasn't comfortable.
Just a long steel table, cold lights, and the hum of Quill's devices layered under the walls like veins.
The inner circle filled the room in seconds.
Dreg leaned forward with arms crossed, muscles tense like coiled steel.
Rafe was flipping through reports faster than anyone could read.
Malerion remained standing.
Verosika leaned against the back wall close enough to hear everything, far enough not to interrupt.
She felt the shift in him again.
This wasn't the man who walked her to a helicopter.
Now he was the leader of Ouroboros.
A dangerous one.
Quill slammed the device on the table.
"Here. This is what we found."
Lines of data projected upward tangled threads of numbers, disrupted encryption, a pattern too clean to be random yet too subtle to be sloppy.
Doona squinted.
"…This looks like a trace echo."
Quill groaned.
"A PERFECT trace echo. Someone hit our system and left a footprint so faint I almost missed it."
Rafe adjusted his glasses.
"Who leaves a footprint that faint?"
"A professional," Liz murmured.
"No," Quill corrected, shaking his head.
"Someone BETTER. Someone who wanted us to know."
That silenced the room.
Verosika watched as Malerion stepped closer to the projection.
"What did they access?"
Quill swallowed.
"…They didn't take anything."
Dreg frowned.
"That makes no sense."
Quill continued, sweating.
"They didn't take, change or delete."
He pointed at the projection.
"They only touched one thing."
Malerion's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
Quill pressed a button.
The screen zoomed in
And a single symbol pulsed:
THE OUROBOROS SIGIL.
A perfect ring.
Serpent eating its tail.
The room froze.
"…They touched our crest?" Rafe whispered.
"Yes."
"Why?"
Quill's voice dropped to a whisper.
"To let us know they can."
Doona tapped her stylus nervously.
"So what you're telling us," she said, "is that a ghost with no identity, signature, and motive broke into the most secure system we have and just… poked us?"
Quill nodded miserably.
"Pretty much, yeah."
Liz exhaled, calm but sharp.
"That's not probing for weaknesses. That's dominance behavior."
Verosika raised a brow.
"Dominance?"
Liz looked at her.
"When a predator walks through another predator's territory and leaves a claw mark on a tree… it's not to hide."
Rafe finished:
"It's to warn."
Silence hit the table again.
Skit swallowed hard.
"Boss… should we assume they're hostile?"
Malerion finally spoke slow, measured.
"We should assume they are testing us."
His gaze hardened.
"And they want to see if we flinch."
Bit raised a trembling hand.
"W we traced the breach origin point before it vanished."
"Where?" Dreg asked.
Bit tapped his screen.
"Sixth Ring."
Verosika blinked.
"Envy?"
Rafe nodded darkly.
"The Envy markets are full of information brokers, contract thieves, identity smugglers… but this is beyond any of them."
Quill stepped forward.
"I checked every registry, every black syndicate, every informant line. Nothing matches. Whoever did this"
Malerion finished the sentence:
"doesn't want to be found."
Quill nodded.
"Or they want to be found, but on their terms."
Bit's tablet suddenly chimed.
Everyone tensed.
Bit flinched.
"…Uh… boss? We just got a physical package delivered "
Verosika frowned.
"How physical?"
A demon from the inner circle came in and left a package.
Bit held up a small box.
Black.
Unmarked.
Silent.
Delivered by no courier demon, and with no magical signature.
It simply… appeared.
Dreg instantly stepped between Malerion and the box.
"Could be trapped."
Liz shook her head.
"No aura, Hex or poison signature."
Quill scanned it.
"No tech Explosive and i not detected enchantment."
Malerion stepped forward.
"Open it."
Bit swallowed and lifted the lid.
Inside
A single piece of paper.
He handed it to Malerion with shaking hands.
Verosika leaned in slightly.
One sentence was written in clean black ink:
"If your serpent means to consume the rings,
You should learn who eats first in Envy."
No signature.
Symbol.
Just a second mark:
A small crescent carved into the corner.
Liz stiffened.
"…That mark. That's"
"I know," Malerion murmured.
His voice didn't rise.
It deepened.
Verosika shivered.
"What does it mean?"
Malerion folded the note slowly.
"It means someone powerful in Envy has been watching us longer than we realized."
Dreg growled.
"You want us to move on them?"
"No," Malerion said.
He tucked the note into his coat.
"We don't strike until we know their name."
Verosika swallowed.
"And when you do?"
Malerion's eyes burned with quiet, controlled power.
"Then Envy learns what Ouroboros really is."