Ray stepped back, wiping his hands.

  "We need a way out. The hall outside is still swarmed with Gilded Wolves. The window is a three-story drop into a courtyard full of Wolves."

  He looked down at his shadow.

  ‘Nox. Wake up. I need eyes.’

  Ray commanded mentally, he summoned the void-malkin.

  Usually, Nox would flow out like liquid ink. But this time, the shadow merely flickered. It spasmed, forming a translucent, distorted shape of a cat that couldn't seem to hold its edges. It looked like a glitch in reality.

  Nox let out a high-pitched, static whine in Ray’s mind and dissipated back into nothingness.

  [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

  [Entity: Nox (Shadow Familiar)]

  [Status: DESTABILIZED]

  [Cause: Direct exposure to Void Ore saturation & Physical Trauma.]

  [Recovery Time: 12-24 Hours]

  [Summoning Unavailable.]

  "Damn it."

  Ray cursed under his breath.

  "What is it?"

  Svane asked.

  "Nox is out, the Void Ore and his injury from Rogal’s attack has affected it greatly. We are blind."

  Ray said grimly.

  The situation was deteriorating. No scout. No magic support from the shadow. A wounded VIP. And the Wolves circling around them trying to find their scent.

  Titus sat up on the desk, swaying slightly. He looked at Ray, then at where the door used to be.

  "I can help you navigate my manor. I built this place to hide things."

  Titus rasped.

  He slid off the desk, his legs shaky but finding purchase. He walked to the corner of the room, near a heavy bust of the first King of Eldoria. He didn't touch the bust. He knelt down and pulled back the edge of the rug.

  Underneath, the floorboards looked seamless. But Titus pressed his thumb into a knot in the wood.

  Click.

  A section of the floor, about four feet wide, popped up. It revealed a dark, dusty crawlspace.

  "A panic tunnel?"

  Rina asked.

  "A Smuggler's Chute,"

  Titus corrected, a faint glimmer of his old pride returning.

  "I didn't start as a Lord, my child. Before I bought this title, I moved restricted goods. When I built the manor, I had the architects install... arteries."

  He pointed into the dark hole.

  "This runs between the walls of the East Wing. It bypasses the main stairwell and dumps out into the old drainage culvert by the sea wall."

  "Does the Argent Hand know about this?"

  Ray asked.

  "No, I gave them the basement. I kept the walls for myself."

  Titus said firmly.

  "Rina, your first, Titus, middle. Svane, rear guard."

  Ray ordered.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  They lowered themselves into the chute.

  It was tight. Claustrophobic. The air smelled of dry rot, old dust, and the sharp tang of smoke seeping in from the lower levels. There was barely enough room to crawl on hands and knees.

  They moved in silence.

  Ray could hear the house living around them. To his left, through the walls, he heard the heavy boots of Gilded Wolves running down the hallway..

  “Hold.”

  Ray whispered.

  They stopped at a junction. Rina froze.

  Through the walls, voices can be heard. They were crawling directly behind the guest parlor.

  "Check the walls! The blueprint shows a discrepancy here!"

  A voice shouted.

  Ray stopped breathing.

  Thud.

  Something slammed against the wall inches from Rina’s face. The wall cracked.

  Thud.

  "It sounds hollow!"

  The voice yelled.

  CRUNCH.

  A spear tip punched through the plasterboard, missing Rina’s shoulder by a fraction of an inch. A beam of light from the room sliced into their dark tunnel, illuminating the dust motes.

  Rina scrambled forward, stifling a gasp.

  "Hey! Forget the walls! We need to burn this manor down now, we are already late as it is. We have already secured the last shipment."

  Another voice shouted from the room.

  "Damn it! Start the fire!"

  The spear was withdrawn. The footsteps hurried away.

  Ray let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He pushed Titus forward.

  "Go. Before they change their minds."

  They crawled for what felt like an hour, though it was likely only ten minutes. The heat grew intense as they passed near the kitchen chimney, then faded into a damp chill.

  Finally, the tunnel sloped sharply downward. At the end of the tunnel they found a loose grate.

  Rina kicked a grate at the end of the passage.

  They tumbled out of the hole, splashing into ankle-deep water.

  They were in a stone culvert, a drainage pipe that smelled of brine and algae. Above them, through a rusted iron grate, they could see the night sky and the glow of the fire reflecting off the smoke.

  They were outside the manor walls.

  "Clear."

  Svane rumbled, checking the tunnel mouth.

  Ray helped Titus to his feet. The merchant was shivering, his fine clothes ruined, soaked in muck and blood.

  "We made it out."

  Kaelen whispered, looking back at the fortress looming above them. Smoke was pouring from the East Wing now. The fire Rogal had started in the basement was consuming the house.

  "Not yet, we need to get to the rendezvous point. Our carriage is waiting there."

  Ray said, checking his pocket watch.

  He looked at Titus.

  "Can you walk?"

  Titus straightened his coat. He wiped the blood from his eye.

  "I walked out of the slums of Solara with nothing but a copper coin and a knife,"

  Titus said, his voice surprisingly steady.

  "I can walk to a carriage."

  Ray nodded. He led the way into the darkness of the tree line, leaving the burning legacy of House Thorne behind them.

  After some time, they emerged from the treeline. They were standing on a ridge overlooking the sprawling, soot-stained expanse of the. Iron-Wake City.

  The view was apocalyptic.

  The manor was burning. The West Wing, where they escaped from, had collapsed into a fiery crater, dragging the central tower down with it. The flames were so intense they painted the low-hanging clouds in violent shades of orange and blood-red.

  But it wasn't just the manor burning.

  Sparks, carried on the wind rising from the collapsed mine shafts, rained down on the shantytowns below. The dry timber roofs of the miners’ barracks were catching fire. Ray could hear the distant, panicked screams of families waking up to an inferno. The Gilded Wolves weren't helping evacuate; they were setting up perimeters, sealing the districts off, turning the slums into a kill box to ensure their target didn't escape.

  Titus Thorne stopped. He leaned heavily against a tree, his breath rattling in his chest. He watched the destruction he had wrought.

  "Gods above, they aren't just burning the manor. They're burning the whole city."

  Titus whispered, his hand going to the bandage on his head.

  "They're flushing the area, they know you're gone. They're going to tear the city apart until they find you, or until there's no one left to ask."

  Svane said grimly, watching a squad of mercenaries kick down the door of a tenement building below.

  Kaelen gripped her father’s arm.

  "We have to hurry. The meeting point with the carriage is just ahead."

  Titus didn't move. He just stared at the fires consuming the homes of the people who dug his fortune out of the ground.

  Ray led them down a narrow deer trail to an old logging road. The carriage and the carriage driver was there, tucked back into the shadows. The horses suddenly panicked, stamping their hooves and tossing their heads at the smell of smoke. The driver, a thin man Ray had hired back in Eldoria, looked ready to bolt on foot.

  "You're late! The whole city is burning! We have to go!"

  The driver hissed, struggling to hold the reins.

  Ray didn't waste time with apologies. He yanked the carriage door open.

  "Rina, Svane, inside. Kaelen, go."

  Rina helped Kaelen up the metal steps. Kaelen turned, reaching back for her father.

  "Father, come on! We made it!"

  Titus Thorne stood at the bottom of the steps. The orange light of the burning city illuminated one side of his face, casting the other into deep shadow. The fine velvet of his coat was ruined, stained with blood and sewage. He looked like a beggar king.

  He didn't move toward the door.

  "Lord Thorne, we have a narrow window before they lock down the highways. Get in."

  Ray said, his voice low and urgent.

  "No."

  Titus shook his head slowly.

  Kaelen froze.

  "What? Father, what are you saying? We have to go!"

  "If I get in that carriage, Kaelen, I leave a massacre behind me."

  Titus said, his voice rough with smoke and emotion

  He gestured back toward the burning slums.

  "The Hand doesn't care about those people. They are just obstacles to them. If the Gilded Wolves think I'm still in the city, they will burn every hovel and interrogate every miner until they find me. Thousands will die because I ran away."

  He looked at his daughter, his eyes clear for the first time in years.

  "I spent twenty years taking from this land. I bled it dry to build a tower that is now ashes. Tonight, I have to pay it back."

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