Ark shifted uncomfortably in his seat, tugging at the heavy cowl that cloaked his features.

  His arrival in Deadacre had been swift — and for all that his movements had been impossible to hide in Grandbrook, his sense of honour did not mean he was a fool.

  Given the delicacy of a member of the reviled Onyx pursuing a group of children, he knew best to disguise his visit. It would be too notable otherwise — he was too well known, and word would spread too widely.

  Potentially, even into the ears of the boy he had once known: Old Yon.

  As a Hirgost, he had few options. The bony carapace surrounding his form was impossible to disguise to any real degree, and his stature made him stand out among the crowd. At least wrapped in his cloak, with his hood pulled low, he could pass as a large Bastion or Vanguard. Albeit, wrapping himself so tightly in such tepid weather was eye-catching in and of itself.

  How long would the Guild attendant take, he wondered?

  There were too many eyes on him. Even from beneath his hood, he could feel it. Early enough in the morning that most delvers were still sleeping, the half-dozen groups already present in the Guildhall eyed him with suspicion.

  For a moment, he wondered if he’d misstepped by not revealing his identity to the attendant.

  Arc clenched his jaw, suppressing his discomfort as he pulled his second tier Aura in as tight as he could. Even without his name, and hiding his strength, he thought the chance was good that the Guildmaster would investigate for himself. If only to see what a Hirgost was doing in his city.

  While he waited, his mind drifted to his journey through the streets of the city.

  Deadacre was different from what he was used to. There was tension in the air. It felt overcrowded, bursting at the seams as refugees spilled into tent camps that gathered in squares and littered alleyways.

  Grandbrook was similar, but not anywhere near as bad. At least his own city had the size; the capacity; the infrastructure. With Deadacre, the sudden influx of outlying villages seeking the safety of its walls had strained it beyond reason.

  That, and Deadacre lacked his presence. As the only, at least publicly facing, resident Peak Gold of the frontier, he had steadied Grandbrook. There was worry — but it wasn’t one that the city might fall.

  And yet, despite all that, the lives of Deadacre's citizens went on. That very tension seemed to have fuelled an almost manic approach to living.

  Perhaps it was only a matter of perspective. Most of his prior visits had been official: every movement attended by a dozen hangers-on as he was paraded through the cleanest and most polite districts.

  But he did not think so. This felt different. Something was in the air: a fire that incited change. Never in his life had he seen so many devote themselves so fully to training. The guard station’s yards had been filled to the bursting. The workers’ quarter rang with the sound of blades hammered on anvils, needles punching through beast hide, and boiling cauldrons — so much so he thought he could still hear them from here.

  At the gates, too, he had seen more than a few groups of townsfolk heading east to hunt the beasts that still lingered there. Old and young alike, some in groups that looked more desperate than skilled.

  Even the Guild’s mission board had been overflowing with requests — for guides; for escorts; for teams to keep people safe while they forced themselves to adjust to the new reality of danger. He could see them now — standing out starkly, so tightly packed that more than a few had fallen to the floor.

  That hadn’t happened in Grandbrook. At least, not to this extent.

  The people of the frontier had always been hardy, but the pressure of integration combined with Deadacre’s isolation seemed to be all they needed to rise to the occasion.

  Arc was shaken from his musings by approaching footsteps — a familiar pair of black boots with silver buckles.

  They stopped a long stride before him — the attendant returned once more. The woman still wore that confused, nervous look. If anything, it had worsened since meeting with the Guildmaster.

  Arc had assumed the tension he’d felt within the common room was just due to the increase in work and danger. Perhaps it wasn’t — but regardless, he would know soon.

  “He’ll see you now, if you’ll follow me,” the attendant said.

  Arc nodded and rose, following him out the back.

  ….

  The attendant led him swiftly — up several flights of stairs until they entered into a meeting room where Rieker and his right-hand woman, Ro, waited behind a large desk. Beside them sat another man Arc recognized only vaguely — Bronwyn, he assumed, judging by the silver aura of strength radiating from him.

  Arc lowered his hood.

  The guildmaster gave the attendant beside him a nod, and she left as silently as she had arrived.

  “Arc’theros. The Defender of Grandbrook. I haven’t seen you in years — what brings you to my city?” the Guildmaster said, his gravelly voice as curious as it was suspicious.

  Arc sighed in relief. Good — he had figured it out. Their last meeting had been in Grandbrook itself — the fellow Gold had just been passing through. While he didn’t exactly know the Wardog well, the man had his own sense of honour — he could be trusted to see the severity of his news.

  “This one greets you, Guildmaster,” Arc said, bowing slightly as was respectful. He turned to the other two, inclining his head. “The Quiet. Bronwyn.”

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  He paused, wondering how to begin. It was not easy to bring grave tidings, especially not ones such as these. It was impossible to know if the Guild was already aware — every hold had suffered losses — but the chances were better than most.

  The Onyx Temple would not target a young team unless they were promising — unless they had information worth taking. Exactly the kind of team whose importance a Guildhall would recognize.

  Regardless, he could see the slight frowns forming on his audience’s faces. Confusion, yes, but also frustration — as though they had been torn from something urgent.

  Especially the Quiet. He’d seen drakes with less bite.

  “This one brings grave tidings,” Arc began, frowning as his words came slowly. “This one recently received a letter attempting to call in an age-old life debt.”

  He paused for a moment, gathering his words. Nothing deft came, so he spoke simply.

  “The nature of the request was vile.”

  The Wardog and the Quiet both stiffened, eyes hardening. They had made assumptions — likely correct ones — judging by the tense look they shared.

  “That man might have saved my life once,” Arc grunted, “but my debt was void when he tried to use it in such an honourless way. As far as I am aware, he now calls himself Old Yon — he requested my help in securing a team of youths once they exited a delve, when his tracking curse would activate once more.”

  Rieker slammed his fist into the desk, hardwood splintering as a crack filled the room.

  “So the bastard is tracking them. You were right.” he looked to Ro.

  The Quiet only scowled, folding her arms.

  “More importantly, I assume you did not come all this way just to inform us of this, Defender?” Bronwyn said from the edge of the room. The Silver was far calmer than his superiors. Perhaps he hadn’t met the team directly? Regardless, the man was right.

  He hadn’t crossed a third of the Frontier to deliver a simple warning.

  Arc clenched his fist, his bone carapace grinding. Strength built over decades pressed against his restraint — challenging his control.

  “This one did not. This one’s honour does not allow such evil to pass unchallenged once it has entered their awareness — this debt’s stain can only be washed away in death. So this one has come to render assistance: to ensure that death is Old Yon’s, and to safeguard the youths he pursues.”

  Across from him, the Wardog smiled, bearing his fangs in a way that would have been a threat among Hirgost. After so many years among humans, Arc knew that here and now, in the current context, it was still a threat — just not one directed at him.

  The Wardog rose and thrust out his hand, “Well, that’s just grand — exactly the kind of good news we needed. Come, let us share what we know.”

  Arc stepped forward and clasped the offered limb, though he wished he had more to share. Old Yon was not so much a fool as to spill the details of his plan in an unguarded letter — not even to him.

  ….

  Cronte did his best to bury himself in a book, using its pages to hide the tension in his jaw as he sat in his bunk.

  It was utterly ridiculous that he didn’t have his own room. Hidden bunker or not, he was a gods-damned Silver — there was a minimum level of respect he deserved, and this wasn’t it.

  The words blurred past his eyes. Some historiographic treatise from the native peoples of the western Vaastivarian coast. It was hard to pay attention, not to when he could feel the scornful gaze of the rogue across from him, parked at the table with their own book — one they ignored.

  The help Old Yon called in had trickled in over the last few weeks. Rogues and skirmishers; rangers and vanguards; bastions and brawlers — even a bloody Spire-trained Mirror mage, to match the control and binding mage from the Roanwheat delver team he’d pulled in.

  He hadn’t bothered to learn their names. Hired help and washouts Old Yon had put under his thumb decades ago. Frankly, with the sheer number of Silvers they now had in one place, you’d think they were preparing for a dragon hunt — not to take down a wayward pack of Steels.

  Cronte absently scratched at his left arm, flushing with shame as he remembered how much it had cost him for a draft of regeneration.

  Regardless of how powerful that team was, they were still only Steels. Even with a couple of months in the Depths, the delve they must have entered would have been a low-level one — they couldn’t have gained too much. Eleven Silvers — more than enough. Hells, with a Mirror Mage, they would shut down the team’s solar caster entirely.

  And yet…he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was only reassuring himself.

  He remembered those eyes.

  He’d kept that boy locked up for months — tortured him every day — and not once had Kaius shown so much as a flicker of emotion beyond disdain and hate.

  Oh, he’d seen pain, but that was it. They should have cracked. They always cracked!

  Sometimes the hard ones took months — even years — but you could always see it, the slow grind wearing them down; the effort it took to suppress their responses as it became harder with each day of pain.

  Yet that boy had shown none of it. Only contempt, as he’d been flayed alive. It wasn’t natural.

  Old Yon didn’t understand — that boy had been cast from adamant. The only time Cronte had seen something light up in those green-and-gold eyes was the look of righteous fury and battle-hunger plastered over his face as he’d torn through men by the dozen.

  As he’d hacked off Cronte’s arm while outnumbered, surrounded, and weakened from months under the knife.

  That was not the action of a Steel.

  For all he was detestable, Torrin had understood. They hadn’t had the chance to speak in private, but Cronte could see it — the wariness within the hunter, a mirror to his own. Their new ‘comrades’, the ones he hadn’t bothered learning the names of, thought them weak for being bested by those half their level.

  That was a mistake.

  They shouldn’t have been asking ‘what kind of Silvers lose to Steels?’, they should have been asking ‘how strong must a Steel be to best a Silver?’

  Flicking another page just to keep up the pretense of reading, Cronte pondered the battle ahead.

  That team needed to die. So he could bury his shame, but more importantly because if they lived, they would be enemies for life — and they had the kind of talent to climb further than he ever could.

  Months of quiet reflection, with nothing but sneers for company, had made him admit that he might have misjudged. He would not flee — not at first.

  Eleven Silvers should be more than enough.

  But if it wasn’t, nine should last long enough to buy him some time.

  Nine, because there was no doubt in his mind that Torrin was thinking the same thing.

  He had been tempted to sell the hunter out at first, to curry some favour. Yet in this dark hole, their mutual shame had become an unspoken alliance. An awareness of how precarious their situation truly was.

  The Guild raid had been the turning point, but now he was certain: this was beyond fucked — all he wanted now was to salvage what he could.

  Cronte suppressed a sigh, rubbing at the tension that ached behind his forehead.

  Unfortunately, they were forced simply to wait until the team reappeared. Gods, how he hated brushing shoulders with those who despised him. But wait he would.

  Until an opportunity arose — one way or another.

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