The air in the catacombs shifted. It wasn't the draft of the explosion, but a subtle change in the wind—a ripple in the "Old Magic" that saturated the Holy See.
"Hagar, extinguish the lantern," Priscilla commanded.
"But My Lady, we can't see—"
"Do it."
The room plunged into a suffocating blackness. Priscilla closed her eyes, letting her other senses take over. Years of training in the underground rings of her past life had taught her that sight was a luxury, but sound was a map.
Rustle. A sound like silk on stone. From the shadows of a row of martyrs, a figure moved. It was a Zephyros spy, a "Wind-Dancer" of the East, sent by Lyra Zephyros to investigate the "unnatural void" in the cathedral's spirit-flow.
The spy lunged, a silver dagger shimmering with blue magical light. She moved with a speed that defied human biology, her feet barely touching the floor.
Priscilla didn't draw a weapon. She stepped into the attack.
She caught the spy's wrist with a "V" grip, utilizing the girl's own momentum. With a sharp, mechanical pivot of her hips, Priscilla executed a perfect shoulder throw. The spy hit the stone floor with a bone-shaking thud. Before the girl could inhale to cast a spell, Priscilla's boot was on her throat.
"The East values the wind because it's hard to catch," Priscilla whispered into the dark. "But the North values iron because it stays where you put it. And right now, I'm putting you in the dirt."
"You... you are a void," the spy wheezed, her silver eyes wide with terror. "There is no spirit in you. Only... cold, dead machinery."
"Spirit is a luxury for those who don't know how to fight," Priscilla replied. She increased the pressure on the girl's windpipe, watching the light fade from her eyes. "Tell me, does Lyra know you're here, or are you just a curious ghost?"
The spy reached for a vial at her belt—a flash-bang of magical energy—but Priscilla was faster. She snapped the girl's wrist with a clinical pop and took the vial.
"Hagar, bring the heavy chains," Priscilla said, her voice echoing off the skulls. "We have a guest for the Vane-Crest coal cellar. It seems the East wants to see my work. I think I'll make them wait for the grand opening."
As she dragged the unconscious spy toward the hidden exit, she felt a familiar, cold gaze. She looked up toward the ventilation grate. High above, the glint of spectacles caught the moonlight.
Alistair.
He had been watching. He didn't intervene. He didn't call the guards. He just watched her, his notebook open, recording the death of his sister and the birth of a monster. Priscilla offered him a mocking salute with her blood-stained hand and vanished into the fog.
———
The day of the Great Summit arrived under a sky the color of bruised iron. The Holy See was a pressure cooker of geopolitical tension.
In the courtyards, the obsidian-armored soldiers of the West practiced their drills, their blades ringing in the air. In the gardens, the mages of the East meditated, the air shimmering with the heat of their collective mana.
Priscilla spent the afternoon in the Vane-Crest archives, but she wasn't reading history. She was writing the future.
She had designed a "demonstration" for the evening—a massive iron tube, twelve feet long and reinforced with nickel-steel, sat under a tarp in the central plaza. The nobles called it "Priscilla's Telescope." They laughed, thinking the North had finally lost its mind, trying to peer into the heavens while their mines were collapsing.