"Don't drink the water."
Ciro's whisper was barely audible over the hum of the ancient turbine, but to Elara, it sounded like a thunderclap.
She froze, the tin cup Grom had offered her hovering inches from her lips. The water inside looked clear, inviting, and impossibly precious. Her throat was a dry desert screaming for moisture.
But she didn't drink. She slowly lowered the cup to the metal table.
Across from them, Grom's smile faltered. The Rat King of the South Sector wiped a bead of sweat from his greasy forehead with a trembling hand.
"Is something wrong, Lord Wolf?" Grom asked, his voice pitching slightly higher. "It's filtered. Top quality. A peace offering for old times' sake."
Ciro didn't answer immediately. He stepped away from the shadows of the machinery, his boots clanking softly on the metal grate floor. He moved with a predator's lazy grace, ignoring the throb of infection in his shoulder.
He walked past Elara, past the table, and stopped directly in front of the poster pinned to the rusted wall.
He traced the sketch of Elara's face with a gloved finger.
"Citizenship," Ciro read aloud, his tone conversational yet terrifying. "Full pardon. A house in the Upper District. access to the Royal Granaries."
He turned to face Grom. The painted smile on Ciro's face was gone, replaced by a look of profound disappointment.
"That is a very high price for two corpses, Grom. King Valerius must be desperate."
Grom's eyes darted to the heavy canvas curtain at the entrance. "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't put that up. One of my boys must have found it—"
"You're lying," Elara said.
Grom snapped his head toward her.
Elara stood by the table, her hand resting on the hilt of her dagger. Her eyes were fixed on Grom's hands.
"Your fingers," Elara stated coldly. "You're tapping them on your thigh. Three taps. Pause. Three taps. You're signaling someone under the floorboards."
Grom's face went slack with shock. He hadn't expected the Princess to know the thieves' cant.
"She learns fast," Ciro murmured, drawing his short sword. "Faster than you, it seems."
CLICK.
The sound of a latch engaging echoed from beneath the metal grate floor.
"Kill them!" Grom shrieked, diving behind his scrap-metal throne.
HISSSSSS!
Steam erupted from the floor vents. The room was instantly filled with blinding, scalding white vapor. It was a trap designed to boil intruders alive or force them into blind panic.
"Down!" Ciro roared.
He tackled Elara, driving them both to the floor just as crossbow bolts whistled through the space where their heads had been a second ago.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The bolts embedded themselves in the rusted machinery.
"They're in the vents!" Ciro shouted over the roar of the steam. "Stay low!"
Three figures burst from the maintenance hatches in the floor—Grom's personal guards, wearing gas masks and wielding serrated machetes. They moved confidently through the steam, protected by their gear.
Ciro didn't have a mask. He didn't have armor. He had a fever-weakened body and a borrowed sword.
But he was the Wolf.
The first guard lunged at Ciro through the white haze. Ciro didn't parry; he rolled forward, under the swing, and slashed the back of the guard's knee.
The guard screamed as his hamstring severed. He fell, and Ciro silenced him with a brutal stomp to the neck.
One.
"Elara, the valve!" Ciro yelled, coughing as the sulfurous steam burned his lungs. "Red wheel! Right wall!"
Elara scrambled on her hands and knees. The heat was suffocating. She couldn't see more than two feet in front of her. She felt the vibration of heavy boots approaching her.
A guard loomed out of the mist, raising a heavy wrench to crush her skull.
Elara didn't freeze. She remembered the dog. She remembered the Ranger.
Use what you have.
She grabbed the tin cup of "peace offering" water from the table—the water Grom had poisoned or drugged—and splashed it directly into the guard's mask filters.
The guard gasped, inhaling the liquid. Whatever was in that water, it was potent. He choked, clawing at his throat, his swing going wide and hitting a pipe with a deafening CLANG.
Elara scrambled past him and found the red wheel. It was hot to the touch. She wrapped her tunic sleeve around her hands and turned it with all her strength.
SCREECH.
The steam vents slammed shut. The roaring hiss died down, leaving only the heavy panting of the combatants and the dissipating fog.
Ciro was standing over the second guard, his sword dripping.
The third guard—the one Elara had splashed—was on his knees, foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head.
"Sedative," Ciro noted, kicking the man's weapon away. "High dose. Probably meant to knock us out so he could ship us back in a crate."
He turned his gaze to the scrap-metal throne.
Grom was cowering behind it, clutching a repeating crossbow. His hands were shaking too hard to aim.
Ciro walked toward him. He didn't rush. He walked with the slow, inevitable cadence of death.
"Stay back!" Grom squealed, firing a bolt wild. It sparked harmlessly off a turbine. "I have more men! The whole market is looking for you!"
Ciro reached the throne. He slapped the crossbow out of Grom's hands as if it were a toy. Then, he grabbed Grom by his greasy collar and hauled him up, slamming him against the wall right next to the bounty poster.
"Then you should have called them," Ciro whispered, pressing his forearm against Grom's windpipe. "Instead, you got greedy. You wanted the reward all for yourself."
"Mercy, Ciro! Mercy!" Grom gagged, his feet kicking uselessly in the air. "We go back years! I... I was desperate! The water filters are failing! We're all dying down here!"
"Everybody is dying, Grom. That's what life is. A slow death."
Ciro increased the pressure. Grom's face turned purple.
"The map," Ciro demanded. "And the stash."
"Safe... under... the floor..." Grom wheezed, pointing a shaking finger to a loose grate.
"Elara," Ciro commanded.
Elara moved to the grate. She pried it open. Inside was a small, waterproof box. She opened it.
"Six flasks of clean water," she counted, her voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through her. "Dried rations. And... a datapad."
She held up a rectangular device made of cracked glass and brass—relic technology from the Old Kings. It flickered with faint green light.
"That's it," Grom choked out. "That's the layout of the Deadlands. The safe zones. The monster nests. It's worth more than gold. Take it! Just let me go!"
Ciro looked at the datapad, then at Grom.
He released the Rat King. Grom slumped to the floor, gasping for air, massaging his bruised throat.
"Thank you... thank you, Wolf..." Grom wept. "I swear, I won't tell a soul. I'll—"
Ciro stepped on Grom's hand. Hard.
CRUNCH.
Grom screamed, a high-pitched wail that echoed in the metal chamber.
"You won't tell anyone because you won't be able to pay for the message," Ciro said coldly. He gestured to Elara. "Take everything. The water. The food. The weapons. Even his boots."
"Ciro?" Elara hesitated.
"Take them," Ciro snapped. "In the Ashlands, a man without boots is a dead man walking. He tried to sell us, Elara. We are leaving him with exactly what he offered us: Nothing."
Elara looked at Grom, sobbing on the floor, clutching his broken hand. Then she looked at the bounty poster—at the sketch of her own face.
She hardened her heart.
She took the supplies. She took the crossbow. She even took the heavy boots from Grom's feet.
They left the Rat King shivering on the cold metal floor of his turbine room, surrounded by his unconscious guards and the dissipating steam.
As they stepped back out into the bustling, noisy market, Ciro pulled his face covering back up. He leaned close to Elara.
"You did well with the steam," he murmured. "But next time, don't hesitate to use the knife."
"I used the water," Elara whispered back, clutching the datapad against her chest. "It seemed more poetic."
Ciro looked at her. Beneath the mask, the corner of his mouth quirked up.
"Poetic justice," Ciro mused. "I can work with that."
He checked the datapad. The screen flickered, showing a jagged, glowing line cutting through the grey wastes of the map. A path.
"We have the route," Ciro said. "But we have a bigger problem."
"What?"
Ciro nodded toward the main thoroughfare of the market.
People were gathering. Whispering. Pointing at the large screens that usually displayed water prices.
The screens had changed.
They were now broadcasting a live feed from the Capital. A man in golden armor was standing on the balcony of Morvath Castle, holding a microphone that amplified his voice across the miles.
Prince Kaelen.
His voice boomed through the Exile's Market, distorted by static but unmistakable in its arrogance.
"Citizens of the Ash," Kaelen's voice sneered. "I know the Jester is among you. Bring him to me. Alive. If you do, I will open the dam. I will give the Ashlands water for a year."
The market went silent.
Every head turned. Every eye went wide.
Water for a year.
It wasn't just a bounty anymore. It was a salvation.
Ciro felt the shift in the atmosphere instantly. The air grew heavy with a thousand hungry gazes. The fear of the "Iron Kennel" was strong, but the thirst was stronger.
"Run," Ciro whispered.
And for the second time in her life, Elara ran for her life, not from monsters, but from the desperate hope of starving men.