The Vane-Crest wing of the Holy See did not smell of incense that night. It smelled of lamp oil, pitch, and the heavy, suffocating scent of impending combustion.
Outside the mahogany doors of the grand foyer, the rhythm of the Iron-Hounds was unmistakable—the heavy, synchronised clomp of obsidian-shod boots. They moved with the efficiency of a slaughterhouse crew. They didn't announce their presence with a challenge; they simply began smashing the clay jars of liquid fire against the base of the tapestries.
Inside the wing, the Duke was a sobbing mess of velvet and lace, but the rest of the Vane-Crests were moving with a chilling, synchronized lethality.
Duchess Elara stood at the center of the drawing-room, her black iron cane replaced by a long, slender rapier of Northern steel. She didn't look like a woman under siege; she looked like a queen presiding over a particularly dull execution.
"Silas," she said, her voice cutting through the distant sound of shattering glass. "The West has forgotten their manners. Remind them that the North does not welcome uninvited guests."
Silas stood by the window, a silver-handled revolver in each hand. He was whistling a low, jaunty tune, his eyes tracking the shadows of the soldiers outside. "With pleasure, Mother. I've always found that fire is best extinguished with a lead stopper."
Alistair was in the corner, but he wasn't hiding. He had opened his surgical kit on a marble table. He was filling glass syringes with a viscous, emerald-colored fluid—a paralytic toxin derived from Southern vipers. "I've mapped the gaps in their obsidian plate," Alistair muttered, his clinical detachment now bordering on the psychopathic. "One prick to the femoral artery, and they'll be wide awake while their lungs stop moving. It's... efficient."
Suddenly, the floorboards groaned. A hissing sound, like a thousand vipers, began to rise from the ornate brass heating grates.
"What is that?" the Duke gasped, clutching a bottle of brandy.
"That," Elara said, a terrifying smile touching her lips, "is my daughter. She told me to wait for the steam."
Beneath the wing, in the sweltering dark of the service tunnels, Priscilla stood at the primary pressure manifold. Her duster was off, her skin glistening with sweat and grease. Beside her, Kelvin watched in a mix of horror and awe as she slammed a series of heavy iron levers.
"I'm diverting the bypass from the thermal springs," Priscilla hissed, her eyes fixed on the pressure gauge as the needle climbed into the red zone. "The Iron-Hounds think they're trapping us in a fire? I'm turning the entire wing into a pressurized boiler."
"Priscilla, the stone will crack!" Kelvin shouted over the roar of the steam.
"Then the stone will crack," she replied, her voice an absolute, unyielding hammer. "Jax! Open the vents in the Western corridor!"
Back in the High Hall, the Iron-Hounds had breached the doors. They entered in a phalanx, their obsidian shields raised, torches held high. The room was already hazy with smoke from the fires they had set in the outer hallways.
"By order of King Valerius!" the lead Captain roared. "The Vane-Crest line ends—"
He never finished.
With a sound like a thunderclap, the brass grates in the floor exploded upward. A wall of super-heated, high-pressure steam, reaching temperatures that would melt wax in seconds, erupted into the room. It wasn't just a cloud; it was a physical force, a white-hot hammer that struck the Iron-Hounds head-on.
The obsidian armor, designed to deflect blades and magic, became a liability. Obsidian is a volcanic glass; it absorbs heat. Within seconds, the soldiers were trapped inside suits of glowing, searing black stone.
The screams were short-lived. The steam didn't just burn; it cooked the air in their lungs.
Silas moved through the white-out like a wraith. He didn't even need to aim. He walked up to the staggering, blinded soldiers and placed a silver barrel against the gaps in their helmets.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
"Terribly loud, isn't it?" Silas remarked to a dying Captain, his voice a playful whisper through the fog. "But then again, progress is rarely quiet."
Elara stepped forward, her rapier flashing through the steam to pierce the throat of a soldier who had managed to crawl toward the exit. She looked down at him with a gaze so cold it seemed to condense the vapor around her. "You came to burn my house," she whispered. "Instead, you've provided the heat for my daughter's next project. I suppose I should thank you."
Alistair moved among the fallen, his syringes flashing. He wasn't killing them—not yet. He was preserving them. "The neural damage from the heat is fascinating," he muttered, his eyes wide behind his spectacles. "Priscilla will want to see how the nervous system reacts to thermal trauma. Such... rich data."
When the steam finally began to dissipate, the Vane-Crest wing was a tomb of white mist and scorched obsidian. Not a single Western soldier remained standing.
The doors at the far end of the hall swung open. Priscilla stepped through the fog, her hand-cannon holstered, her golden eyes scanning the carnage with the indifference of a master architect inspecting a job well done. Kelvin followed her, his sword drawn but lowered, his face pale as he looked at the charred remains of his father's elite guard.
"Mother," Priscilla said, her voice steady. "The fire has been extinguished."
Elara wiped a speck of blood from her cheek with a lace handkerchief and looked at her daughter. For the first time, the Matriarch bowed her head—not out of submission, but in recognition of an equal.
"So it has," Elara said. "And now, I believe we owe the King of the West a response. Silas, fetch the heads. Alistair, fetch your tools. Priscilla..."
"I know," Priscilla said, her baddie smirk returning with a lethal edge. "I'll get the batteries."