House of Blood

The drainage sluice gate held back the worst of the black water, leaving Cell One and the Terza Twins standing in a shallow, dripping corridor of carved basalt.

Pollux remained on her knees in the wet silt, her dark duster soaked through, her head bowed toward the floor. Castor stood beside her, his posture stiff, his war-mattock lowered to his side.

”Get up, Pollux,” Castor said, his voice quiet and tight. ”You heard him. Move to the rear.”

Pollux stood slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. She didn’t say a word. She retrieved a secondary hunting knife from her boot, checked its edge once, and fell in behind Casper without her usual sharp smirk.

Casper looked back at her, then turned to Valerian with a raised eyebrow.

”I don’t know what kind of administrative disciplinary training they give you clerks in Sector B, Valen, but I might need you to write a manual for House Valerius.”

”Discipline is merely the reduction of unnecessary movement, Casper,” Valerian said, his voice flat as he adjusted his scuffed wool coat. ”Lady Pollux expended sixty percent more kinetic force than necessary to bisect a creature that was already falling.”

”It was a dark-mithril lurker!” Casper argued, waving a hand toward the severed halves of the beast lying in the silt. ”Those things tear through standard plate armor like parchment!”

”And its underbelly was exposed,” Solene cut in, stepping past them. Her white cape was splashed with dark water at the hem, but her ivory rapier remained ready. ”Scribe Valen is correct. A targeted thrust to the spinal joint would have killed it without cracking the floor beneath us.”

Lyra wiped a smear of wet soot from her focus gems and looked down the newly revealed tunnel.

”The water is draining deeper into the fifth level. The spatial distortion is dropping, too. My staff is registering clear ley-line pathways ahead.”

”Which pathway leads to the Primary Submerged Arch?” Solene asked, turning to Valerian.

Valerian tilted his blindfolded head slightly toward the left wall.

”The main aqueduct conduit runs parallel to this passage. If the Secret Commission deployed the lurkers here, their forward observation post is less than two hundred yards ahead.”

”Then we don’t give them time to reset their traps,” Solene said. ”Casper, take the left flank. Castor, cover the right with your mattock. Pollux, stay on Lyra’s hip.”

”Understood, Princess,” Castor said, stepping into position beside Casper.

They moved quickly through the dark, arched conduit.

The wet basalt walls reflected the pale blue light of Lyra’s staff, the air growing colder and clearer as the sulfurous stench of the alchemical beasts faded behind them.

After a hundred yards, the narrow tunnel opened into a large, circular chamber.

In the center stood a ruined marble fountain, its basin cracked and overflowing with clear groundwater. On the far side of the chamber, three robed figures in the dark-gray tunics of the Secret Commission were frantically packing silver scroll-cases into an iron travel chest.

”Inquisitor remnants,” Solene whispered, her grip tightening around her rapier.

”They aren’t fighting,” Casper noted, squinting through the dim light. ”They’re burning documents.”

One of the robed agents looked up, his porcelain mask painted with a single crimson eye catching the light of Lyra’s staff.

”Cell One!” the lead agent shouted, dropping a burning torch onto a pile of parchment. ”Seal the arch! Do not let the royal girl reach the primary register!”

”Castor, take the left agent!” Solene commanded, her boots gliding across the wet stone floor as she lunged forward. ”Casper, cut off the chest!”

Before the agents could raise their heavy crossbows, Castor moved.

He didn’t execute a flashy vault or channel violent mana.

He stepped forward in two clean, rhythmic strides, bringing the heavy iron head of his war-mattock down on the lead agent’s crossbow stock.

CRACK.

The brass weapon shattered into splinters.

The agent stumbled back against the cracked fountain, reaching for a short sword at his waist, but Castor drove the blunt butt of his mattock into the man’s sternum, dropping him instantly to the floor.

Casper closed the distance on the second agent, his twin arming swords flashing in simple, high-guard thrusts.

He knocked the man’s dagger aside with his right blade and slammed his left pommel into the agent’s jaw.

The man collapsed beside the burning paper pile.

The third agent grabbed a sealed silver tube from the iron chest and bolted toward a narrow escape hatch in the back wall.

”He’s got the primary register!” Lyra called out, raising her staff to cast a spatial barrier.

”Don’t waste the mana, Lyra,” Valerian said softly from the back of the room.

Pollux didn’t wait for a command this time.

But she didn’t jump into the air either.

She stepped past Lyra, unclipped her secondary hunting knife, and threw it with a low, flat wrist-flick.

The heavy blade whistled through the dark air and pinned the running agent’s leather sleeve directly to the wooden frame of the escape hatch.

The sudden jerk threw the man off balance, sending him crashing face-first into the stone wall.

The silver tube slipped from his hand and rolled across the wet floor, stopping right at Valerian’s boots.

Pollux stopped five paces away, her chest rising and falling, her hands kept strictly at her sides.

She looked at Valerian, waiting.

Valerian bent down, picked up the silver tube, and wiped a speck of wet ash from its brass cap with his thumb.

”A clean throw, Lady Pollux,” Valerian said evenly. ”No kinetic waste. No structural damage.”

A faint, sharp breath escaped Pollux’s lips.

She immediately straightened her back, a look of profound relief washing over her face.

”Thank you, Scribe Valen.”

Casper walked over, stomping out the remaining embers of the burning parchment pile with his heavy boot.

He looked down at the unconscious agents, then at the silver tube in Valerian’s hand.

”Is that the Fourth-Tier objective?” Casper asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.

Solene walked up, sheathing her ivory rapier with a soft click. She looked at the brass seal on the cap of the silver tube.

”It’s the original blueprint for Sector Zero’s lower drainage system,” Solene said, her blue eyes scanning the engraved symbols on the metal. ”The Secret Commission was trying to destroy it so the High Council couldn’t track where the alchemical brine was being piped in from.”

”Piped in from where?” Lyra asked, joining them near the fountain.

”Sector Three,” Valerian answered calmly, sliding the silver tube into his inner coat pocket alongside his leather ledger. ”The Mad Doctor’s central laboratory is fed directly by the old First Era aqueducts running beneath this chamber.”

Solene turned her sharp gaze to Valerian.

”You knew this observation post was here before we entered the Sunken Vaults.”

”I processed the water-allocation ledgers for Sector Zero last month, Solene,” Valerian replied smoothly, his blindfolded face unreadable. ”When a condemned sector experiences a twenty-percent increase in water pressure during a dry season, the source is obvious.”

Casper let out a low whistle, shaking his head.

”So the trial objective wasn’t just a test for the cadets. Mirain set this whole thing up so Cell One would clear out the Secret Commission’s forward nest.”

”Representative Mirain appreciates efficiency,” Solene said, though her gaze remained fixed on Valerian. ”And she knew Scribe Valen would notice the numbers.”

Castor walked over, wiping the head of his war-mattock with a clean rag before slinging it back over his shoulder.

He stood at attention beside his sister.

”The chamber is secure, Princess,” Castor reported formally. ”The three agents are incapacitated and bound. Auxiliary units will arrive in ten minutes to transport them to the upper dungeons.”

”Good work, Castor.”

Solene turned back to her cell.

”We take the primary register to the central staging platform. With this retrieval, Cell One secures first place in the Fourth-Tier Trial.”

”First place again!”

Casper grinned, clapping Castor on the shoulder.

Castor remained rigid, but a slight nod of acknowledgment passed between the two men.

”Lord Julian’s allies are going to be throwing chairs at the council meeting tonight.”

”Let them throw chairs,” Solene said coolly. ”They don’t have the floor logs.”

As Solene, Casper, and Lyra began gathering the remaining unburned documents from the table, Castor took a subtle step closer to Valerian while Pollux stood guard near the arched exit.

”Master,” Castor whispered under his breath, his voice flat to avoid detection by the others. ”The High Marshal’s personal scout was seen near the upper gallery two hours ago. He is reviewing the casualty logs from Sector Six himself.”

”Let him review them, Castor,” Valerian replied in an equally low, steady murmur. ”The math is correct.”

”And the Mad Doctor?” Castor asked. ”If his brine supply is cut off by this register’s recovery, he will be forced to surface in Sector Zero during the final trials.”

”That is the intention,” Valerian said softly, his hand resting over his pocket where his iron stylus sat. ”A threat that remains hidden in the drainage system is an uncalculated variable. Once he surfaces, he becomes an entry on the ledger.”

Castor gave a single, deep nod.

”The Terza Twins will be ready at the perimeter.”

”Ensure your sister keeps her head,” Valerian added, tilting his head slightly toward Pollux, who stood at rigid attention by the door, watching the hallway like a hawk.

”She will, Scribe Valen,” Castor assured him quietly. ”You gave her a directive. She won’t break it again.”

”See that she doesn’t,” Valerian said, stepping toward the center of the room where Solene was waiting.

Solene held out her hand toward the exit corridor.

”The transit lift to the upper rotunda is ready, Valen. Let’s go report our victory.”

”Lead the way, Princess,” Valerian said, walking beside her into the warm light of the lift shaft.