Earlier, as the archer and the Noohrikane made their way along the small road that wound between crumbling walls leading to the mine, the boy's gaze was drawn to a steep ridge to the northwest. There stood a ruined watchtower, its stones eroded by centuries of corrosive wind. This dominant position overlooked both the mine entrance and the city — an ideal observation post.

  "Perfect," he said with enthusiasm, a confident smile lighting his young face.

  He turned toward Mei, whose hood barely concealed her dark eyes, and pointed to the ridge.

  "I'll climb up there for an overview. Once you're inside those tunnels, I won't be able to watch over you anymore."

  Mei tilted her head, an ironic smile brushing her lips.

  "You're worried about me, kid?" she asked in a soft but amused voice.

  "About you?" he retorted, furrowing his brow before beginning his climb. "It's just that if you have to die, I'd rather it be by one of my arrows. No point leaving that pleasure to someone else... old woman."

  A silent burst of laughter lit the spectre's eyes at this impertinence.

  "You'd still have to be able to hit me, my young Desrosiers," she said, moving away toward the mine, her silhouette gradually melting into the surrounding vapours and shadows, as the archer began his ascent.

  Still irritated and muttering insults about the warrior, R?chard scaled the rocky face with feline agility. His boots instinctively found footholds in the anthracite stone while his seasoned fingers gripped the finest protrusions. Every movement was calculated, economical — the fruit of years of training on the heights of the High City's buildings. Reaching the summit, he slipped into the ruins of the watchtower as though he were part of it, his body naturally conforming to the broken contours of the collapsed stone blocks. Plume came to perch beside him, her piercing eyes already scanning the surroundings.

  From this strategic vantage point, the archer had an unobstructed view of the mine entrance situated to the southeast of his position. This monstrous gaping maw, carved into the hillside, seemed to swallow the raw light of the zenith. Its irregular walls, bristling with blackened beams like twisted fangs, opened onto an abyss from which dull rumblings and plumes of acrid steam escaped.

  Activity was in full swing before this titanic entrance. Carts creaked under the weight of glittering whiteiron, drawn by teams of hornedoxen and druskals whose hooves hammered the dusty ground. Miners worked with mechanical cadence, loading the convoys, their pickaxes ringing against blocks of ore. Foremen in blackened cuirasses barked their orders above the din of winches and the whistling of wind laden with metallic particles.

  The young archer watched this laborious ballet attentively with a predator's patience, his trained eye hunting the slightest suspicious detail. Nothing abnormal for now — no secret huddles, no furtive exchanges. Just the normal activity of a mining operation under the supervision of authoritarian foremen. Suddenly, a familiar silhouette caught his attention: Mei, hood drawn down, was advancing with supernatural discretion toward the mine entrance. Taking advantage of a thick plume of steam escaping from the depths, she slipped between the workers absorbed in their tasks. With a skilful gesture, she tossed a handful of gravel into a pile of scrap metal on the opposite side, provoking a metallic crash that instantly drew the attention of the nearest miners.

  While they turned toward the source of the noise, the Noohrikane seized the moment and literally disappeared into the darkness of the mine, her passage as imperceptible as that of a shadow.

  "That old woman knows her craft, I'll admit," he whispered to Plume with an admiration he could not hide. "I may have seen her do it a hundred times, but it never stops being impressive."

  Nearly a full hour passed without notable incident. The archer maintained his surveillance, his body perfectly still in the ruins, having become a natural extension of the rocky landscape. Then suddenly, the golden-beak emitted a sharp trill from her perch, her eyes fixed on the entrance to Shadow Fort's castle.

  Following the raptor's gaze, he spotted Juuh'ma in the company of a hooded man he guessed to be his leader, surging from the city, their rapid strides and tense bearing betraying an unusual urgency. Something had clearly gone wrong.

  Without wasting a moment, he scrawled a message on a scrap of parchment — Northwest ridge, ruined tower — and attached it to an arrow. His bow drawn, he carefully aimed at a clear space near the two warriors and released. The arrow whistled through the air and planted itself at Siegfried's feet, the parchment trembling in the wind.

  The two brothers, alerted by the projectile, looked up toward the ridge. The Green-Gaze made a broad gesture with his hand, clearly signalling him to come down and join them. The boy nodded, gathered his equipment, and began his descent with the same agility as the climb, Plume wheeling above him.

  Once level with his companions, he had no time to ask questions. Siegfried's face, marked by an unusual tension, and his blood-soaked veil told him everything he needed to know.

  "Mei is in danger," the knight stated simply, his green eyes burning with cold determination.

  The effect was instant. The habitual smile the boy wore vanished at once, replaced by an expression the paladin had rarely seen on his archer's face. Every trace of malice disappeared from his features, giving way to a deep and sincere concern. Despite their perpetual bickering, despite his jokes about wanting to kill her with his own arrows, the genuine attachment he held for the Noohrikane now showed in every line of his taut face.

  "Then what are we waiting for?" he said simply, his voice stripped of all irony, replacing his bow on his shoulder with precise, determined movements.

  Without further explanation, they set off toward the mine entrance, their steps resonating drearily on the hardened earth as R?chard made his report to his leader. As they approached, they crossed a group of miners leaving their shift, their faces marked by fatigue and soot, tools over their shoulders. Simple workers exhausted by a day's labour, who barely spared them a glance before continuing their way toward the city.

  The three knights entered the gaping maw of the mine, the darkness gradually engulfing them. The mine, lung of the kingdom, opened into a disproportionate chasm — an abyss plunging into the bowels of the earth. The main tunnel sank so deeply that even the ingenious system of polished mirrors, fixed to the walls to capture and redirect daylight, managed only to create trembling reflections in the darkness. These flashes of light, dispersed from one reflective surface to the next, offered a clarity superior to traditional torches, yet darkness remained sovereign in these depths.

  Arriving at the edge of the central shaft, they discovered the truly vertiginous abyss plunging into the shadows. Even here, mirrors had been hung along the shaft walls, creating a chain of reflections descending toward the invisible tunnels at the bottom, but their glimmers only underscored the immensity of the surrounding darkness.

  There, Siegfried took a deep breath, cupped both hands around his mouth, and shouted with all his strength.

  "MEIIIIIIIII!"

  His voice shattered against the rocky walls and reverberated in multiple echoes that descended into the depths like a sonic cascade. Juuh'ma and R?chard imitated him at once.

  "MEIIIIIIIII!"

  Their combined calls created a symphony of echoes that resonated against the shaft walls, multiplying and distorting as they descended toward the invisible bowels of the mine. The warrior's name bounced from gallery to gallery, level to level, creating a muffled rumour that seemed never to want to fade — as though the earth itself were crying the name of the Noohrikane lost in its obscure depths.

  Some time earlier, long before her brothers-in-arms' cries echoed through the tunnels, Mei had completed her infiltration. In the shadow of a rust-eaten winch, she waited, her breath suspended, her eyes fixed on the colossal elevator. The whiteiron cage, vast enough to swallow fifty miners, swayed in the grip of thick cables, its creaking resonating in the void. She watched the miners descending back into the mine's bowels after their brief breaks, their silhouettes weighed down by exhaustion but resolute, ready to resume their gruelling labour in the dark and oppressive galleries.

  Beneath the wavering reflections of the polished mirrors, she studied the elevator mechanism and its operator — a man absorbed by his levers. Despite these beams of light, darkness still reigned as mistress, offering her the cloak of invisibility she needed.

  As soon as the man lowered his eyes to check his instruments while the cage descended back toward the depths, the warrior adjusted her mask and gauntlets and ran as fast as she could. Swift as the spectre she was, she sprinted and launched herself into the void with all the force of her seasoned legs. The colossal width of the shaft forced her into a glide above the gaping abyss. For an infinitesimal instant that seemed to last an eternity, she soared in the darkness, her arms outstretched toward the greasy cable swaying just out of reach, the immense void pulling her body toward the invisible depths below. At last, with a controlled gesture, her gloved fingers managed to seize the cold metal of the cable, and her palms slid slightly on the oily surface before her grip tightened, brutally halting her vertiginous fall.

  As she descended along the cable, she gradually discovered the titanic structure of the mine unfolding before her eyes. Four levels took shape in the half-darkness, each marked by a circular platform from which eight tunnels opened, perfectly aligned according to the cardinal points and their subdivisions. Each gallery, wide enough to allow the passage of several rows of cart rails, formed a network of thirty-two main tunnels — an underground labyrinth on a scale that defied imagination. The dark rock walls, veined with glittering whiteiron seams that faintly caught the reflections of the suspended mirrors, exhaled an intoxicating smell of molten metal and sulphur.

  As she neared the bottom, she slowed her descent with perfect mastery, patiently waiting for the elevator to empty of its occupants before landing softly on its metal roof. The last miners of the shift moved away toward their respective posts, their voices fading into the galleries. Crouching in the shadow of the machinery, she strained her ears and scrutinised the surrounding darkness with a Noohrikane's acuity. The subterranean symphony enveloped her: the rhythmic clinking of pickaxes against rock, the rumbling of carts, weary murmurs mingling with the groaning of winches. Among these familiar echoes, one tunnel drew her attention. The southeast one resonated with a more sustained activity — a hum of voices that cut sharply against the monotonous labour of the other galleries. Without hesitation, she jumped silently from the cage and plunged into this suspicious artery.

  Her progression through the underground labyrinth then took on a new dimension. Hood drawn over her masked face, she melted into the ambient darkness and navigated from gallery to gallery along a route that zigzagged through the sprawling network. The spectre first explored the main southeast tunnel, then ventured into its lateral branches. She discovered a first fork toward the east that led her to a four-way intersection. From there, she took a passage toward the south that wound in a gentle slope before abruptly bifurcating westward, creating a complex loop that brought her back toward her starting point from a different angle.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The maze proved far more intricate than it had appeared from the elevator. Some galleries ended in dead ends, others opened onto natural caverns widened by excavation, and a few plunged toward lower levels. Mei memorised every detour, every intersection, every particular feature of the terrain with the precision of a military cartographer. Her Noohrikane training allowed her to build a three-dimensional mental map of the network, already anticipating several possible escape routes.

  In the course of this methodical exploration, she crossed several groups of miners she avoided with perfect discretion, slipping into natural fissures in the rocky wall or disappearing behind the abandoned wagons that dotted the twisted rails. Each encounter taught her something about the habits, schedules, and zones of intense or relatively quiet activity.

  It was after covering nearly ten kilometres through this labyrinth that she finally discovered what she was looking for. At the end of a particularly complex detour that had led her through three secondary galleries and two ventilation shafts from which mournful murmurs emerged, she reached a natural cavern widened by years of excavation. There stood an impressively large cart, loaded with whiteiron and other ores glittering beneath the reflections of the suspended mirrors — but the attitude of the miners present immediately revealed that something was wrong. Unlike their colleagues in the other galleries, these men worked in an almost religious silence. Their feverish gestures betrayed a nervousness that had nothing to do with ordinary fatigue. They piled fragments of ore with suspicious haste, exchanging tense whispers that revealed a visceral fear. Mei crouched behind a heap of rocky debris. With calculated slowness, she crawled to a ledge overlooking the scene, her body grazing the rough rock to catch their words without revealing her presence.

  But just as she closed her eyes and strained her ear, a chime of bells suddenly rang out, their tones resonating through the galleries, signalling the seventh hour. The miners, shoulders hunched, ceased their labour and their pickaxes fell still in a heavy silence that marked the end of their shift.

  Without any haste or urgency, she set off. From the very beginning of her infiltration, she had meticulously prepared her exit: identify an isolated miner of similar build, memorise his exact position in the maze, plan the return route. In the course of her labyrinthine exploration, she had spotted her ideal target — a frail young miner she had glimpsed working alone in an isolated alcove off the main tunnel, accessible by a shortcut she had memorised. Leaving her observation post, she launched herself through the complex network of galleries. Her tactical memory guided her infallibly by the most direct path to her destination. She skirted the star-shaped intersection of the main level, descended through a service shaft to a connecting gallery, then climbed back up via an access ramp to the alcove she was targeting. Every detour was calculated to avoid heavily frequented areas while minimising travel time.

  Her target awaited her exactly where she had calculated: the narrow alcove leading toward the main southeast tunnel. He could barely have been older than R?chard; his gestures betrayed an inexperience that had doubtless condemned him to this isolated and thankless post. For a moment, a thought crossed her trained mind: did he deserve to die for a mere set of clothes?

  This hesitation dissolved at once.

  For the Noohrikane, no personal consideration could take precedence over the accomplishment of the mission. Without the slightest tremor of emotion, she slipped behind her target with the fluidity of a shadow. The young man, exhausted by hours of labour, perceived no sign of danger. With the surgical precision of her training, Mei acted. In a sharp, powerful movement, she violently twisted his head to one side while keeping his shoulders immobile. The cervical vertebrae had just given way under the brutal torsion. Death was instant and silent.

  Methodically, she stripped the corpse of its leather helmet, filthy clothes, and tools, then concealed the body in a natural fissure in the rocky wall. In a matter of moments, every trace of the miner had vanished. She then pulled the work clothes over her tunic, adjusted the helmet on her head to conceal her hair, and lowered her mask. Her fingers plunged into the ash on the ground to spread soot across her face, masking her delicate features beneath a convincing layer of grime.

  The approach to the elevator required all her mastery of the art of camouflage. A crowd of miners was already clustering around the iron cage, so Mei observed. First she scrutinised the group from the shadows, studying their gestures and interactions, before naturally blending into the mass, perfectly adopting the resigned attitude of the other workers.

  The cables began to groan, and the elevator lurched, rising back toward the surface. Inside the packed cage, the smell of sweat mingled with whiteiron dust was suffocating, but the warrior remained impassive, her fingers gripping the pickaxe like an anchor in her new identity.

  As they ascended from the bowels of the earth, a miner with a face seamed by scars leaned toward a thinner companion.

  "Hey, Vren," he began in a low voice. "The gathering at first light... it's cancelled."

  Mei discreetly strained her ear to catch the rest of this conversation, which could prove crucial to her mission.

  "You weren't there when the sentinel came down," he continued, leaning still closer toward his friend. "But the Sir warned us! Solheim is within our walls. His snoopers are prowling around, and as long as their eyes and ears are lurking, we don't go down to the crypt..."

  Raising his head, Vren nodded discreetly beneath the glare of the beams crossing the cage and questioned in an equally low but perceptible voice — audible to the Noohrikane's trained ear despite the ambient noise.

  "And what about the convoys then? Same as usual?"

  "Yes. Above all we mustn't draw the attention of the earth-burner's servants," said another in a less discreet voice than the other two — younger, with tired eyes, turning around to insert himself into the exchange before Gorr could respond. "And as long as She isn't freed from her prison, we keep going through..."

  "Ooooh! How many times do I have to tell you? No mention of you-know-who. NONE. It's not complicated!" a foreman snarled savagely from his place with authority, the whip coiled at his belt. "Follow Sir Graven's orders and everything will go smoothly. Exactly like the last two times. So the moment you leave this mine, not another word — or I'll have you chewing iron with whatever teeth you have left. Is that understood?"

  An icy shiver froze the crowd, the murmurs extinguishing like embers in a gust of wind. Mei, a shadow among shadows, felt her heart hammering beneath the weight of the revelations she had just heard.

  "That old man... I should have killed him when I had the chance," she thought, her sharpened mind engraving every word, every furtive glance.

  When the elevator reached the surface, the copper light of the Sun flooded the cage — blinding after the prolonged darkness of the mine. The miners scattered at once, dragging their exhausted tools toward Shadow Fort's barracks in a disorderly movement. Still in disguise, Mei feigned to stumble on a broken rail just before crossing the entrance, letting her pickaxe fall further ahead with a resounding clatter that briefly drew attention. Taking advantage of this calculated distraction, she rolled swiftly behind a rusted winch, her body blending perfectly into the shadow cast by the imposing machinery. The last miners moved off without looking back, their silhouettes fading into the dust stirred by the burning desert wind. She waited patiently for the operator to send the empty cage back down into the depths so that the last workers could finally leave the area toward the city. Once alone and still concealed behind the massive winch, she vigorously wiped her face to remove the soot masking her features, then pulled off the filthy tunic and miner's helmet to hide them beneath a nearby pile of rubble.

  It was at that precise moment, as she finished resuming her Noohrikane appearance, that she recognised the familiar and characteristic sound of the Stone-Skin's chains. She then saw her three companions come rushing at full speed toward the mine entrance, their faces marked by manifest concern. They hurried to the edge of the shaft and, in a desperate chorus, shouted her name into the bowels of the earth.

  "MEIIIIIIIII!"

  Their voices echoed against the shaft walls, multiplying into echoes that descended toward the obscure depths.

  "No need to shout like that," she said curtly, emerging from her hiding place as her name continued to resonate in the mine's bowels. "I'm not deaf yet."

  A palpable relief instantly transformed the taut faces of the three warriors as they heard their spectre's voice behind them.

  "May Solarys be praised, you are safe and sound," breathed Siegfried with sincere relief, stepping quickly toward her to place a brotherly hand on her shoulder. "We feared you were in grave danger."

  As R?chard had done before her, Mei immediately noticed the blood soaking her leader's tunic and staining the dark veil he wore. She understood at once that something serious had occurred.

  Siegfried pivoted to sweep his squadron with his gaze before designating the mine entrance with an authoritative gesture.

  "R?chard, position yourself at the entrance. Send Plume to watch Graven's office. Have her alert us the moment that old man sets foot inside."

  "Consider it done," he assured, before whispering instructions into the raptor's ear; she took flight at once toward the castle in a powerful beat of wings.

  Once the archer was in his surveillance position, Siegfried gathered Mei and Juuh'ma close to him, standing slightly away from the entrance to avoid being seen from the city. His green eyes fixed intently on the Noohrikane.

  "Tell us what you were able to learn in the depths," he ordered.

  She gave her report quickly and with precision. She detailed what she had observed in the underground galleries, and when she finished, the Green-Gaze's jaw tightened further still. He nodded slowly, his eyes taking on a darker hue. In a low voice laden with barely contained fury, he delivered his orders.

  "Our objective is the capture of Graven. The moment that vermin returns to his quarters, we take the castle. Without noise, without mercy, without the slightest hesitation. Whatever stands in our path. However many of these heretics we must cut down to get there."

  He paused, heavily meaningful.

  "And that traitor will have answers to give us. Many answers. Have I made myself clear?"

  The tone was unequivocal. Mei perceived something unusual in her leader's voice — a cold rage boiling dangerously beneath the surface of his legendary composure.

  "What did you discover to act this way?" asked R?chard from his post, his usually mischievous voice tinged with an unusual gravity.

  A heavy silence fell. When Juuh'ma finally spoke, his deep voice trembled with a muted anger he could barely contain.

  "The hanged men... All the tortured bodies we have seen since our entry into this accursed city..."

  He had to take a deep breath to control the rage threatening to overwhelm him.

  "They were faithful of Solar?s. All of them. They dared massacre our people and make us cheer their so-called justice. Graven has played us from the very beginning. This entire city has fallen into heresy, and that wretch lied straight to our faces."

  From his post, R?chard had lost every trace of his habitual smile. His face had closed, his normally mischievous eyes now burning with a cold fury.

  "That monster..." he murmured with disgust. "I just hope he tries to flee. I have an arrow that already bears his name."

  As for the spectre, a ferocious smile spread beneath her mask. She drew one of her daggers and spun it around her middle finger in an almost nonchalant gesture, yet its meaning was unmistakable. She addressed the Green-Gaze in a voice laden with a deadly promise.

  "What do we do, Sieg? This Graven must learn that betrayal has a price."

  Siegfried let out a long sigh and loosened his grip on his sword slightly.

  "For now, nothing. We have a little time before Plume spots that filth. Let us use it to rest, eat something, check our equipment," he commanded, sweeping his squadron with his gaze as he unclasped the sword from his hip. "When the moment comes, we will act as we know how. We will need to be swift and merciless."

  The warriors nodded soberly.

  Juuh'ma went to sit heavily on a rock, his chains clinking against the stone, while Mei began methodically sharpening her daggers, the ferocious smile still fixed beneath her mask.

  "Graven is going to learn what the anger of a Noohrikane means," she murmured, sliding the whetstone along the blade in a steady grinding.

  "And mine," added Siegfried in an icy voice.

  After some time, as they shared a piece of meat, a sharp whistle pierced the air. R?chard straightened abruptly and announced, his eyes riveted on the castle.

  "Sieg! Plume just found him!"

  The smile beneath Mei's mask widened dangerously, transforming her expression into something predatory. She rose in a fluid movement, her perfectly honed daggers gleaming in the copper light.

  "He's there," confirmed young Desrosiers, his voice laden with a dark satisfaction. "Graven just entered his office."

  Siegfried instantly left the rock on which he had been sitting, his hand naturally finding the hilt of his sword resting beside him.

  "That old man is going to pay for what he has done."