Richter had his hand on the door when the first scream reached his window.
Not Estellise.
That was the only reason he did not move immediately.
He stood inside his house with his travel coat half-fastened, listening to Luminaris tear itself apart outside.
Firelight flashed against the window shutters.
Smoke dragged along the lane in thin gray fingers.
Somewhere near the market road, steel struck steel hard enough that the sound carried over the bells.
He should go to Luminara.
That was the correct answer.
His apprentice was there.
Estellise had been unsealed two days ago.
Her senses were raw, her memories unstable, her magic newly opened and untested.
If the raid found the hidden road, if panic reached the inner village, if she acted before understanding the shape of her own power, she could break herself as easily as Deckard had broken Seth’s chamber.
He should retrieve her.
He should take her away from the center of events before affection, curiosity, or whatever foolish new thing had taken root inside her made her run toward danger again.
Another scream cut through the lane.
Closer.
Richter closed his eyes.
“Do not make this my problem,” he said to no one.
Then a young girl ran past his window.
She could not have been more than seven.
One festival ribbon still hung from her hair, half-burned at the end.
She stumbled in the smoke, caught herself against the fence, and looked back with the blank terror of a child who had not yet learned how to understand men with weapons.
An assailant came after her.
West March cloak.
Short blade.
Too fast.
Richter opened the door.
He did not shout.
He did not warn.
He stepped into the lane and flicked both wrists.
Razor wire hissed into the firelit dark.
The weighted ends spun wide, each no larger than a coin but heavy enough to drag the wire into perfect arcs.
The first line wrapped around the attacker’s wrist.
The second cut across his thigh.
The third passed beneath his throat before he realized the old man in the doorway had moved.
Richter pulled.
The man stopped entirely.
Not cleanly.
The girl froze.
Richter looked at her.
“Run.”
She ran.
The body fell after she turned the corner.
Richter watched until she vanished behind a row of houses, then looked toward the burning scaffold rising above the plaza.
His decision had already been made.
How irritating.
He gathered the wires with one smooth motion and walked toward the sound of Garron’s sword.
Garron had forgotten how much he hated spears.
Not all spears.
Only spears in the hands of men who knew what they were doing.
Veyr knew.
His reach controlled the tower steps.
His footwork denied the lower road.
His strikes came in short, precise bursts that forced Garron to defend before countering, then punished the counter before it fully formed.
The younger version of Garron might have enjoyed the challenge.
The older version had a burning horn tower at his back, villagers screaming behind him, and no time to admire anyone’s technique.
Veyr drove the spear toward his throat.
Garron turned it aside and stepped in.
Veyr’s rear hand shifted.
The butt of the spear struck Garron’s ribs hard enough to steal breath.
Garron answered with a cut that would have opened a lesser man’s shoulder.
Veyr bent away.
Barely.
The blade scored his cloak instead of flesh.
“Still good,” Veyr said.
“Still busy,” Garron growled.
“That joke was better the first time.”
“It wasn’t a joke.”
Veyr smiled.
Then razor wire flashed between them.
Veyr pulled back instantly, spear sweeping low to catch one weighted end before it reached his knee.
The wire wrapped once around the shaft.
Richter stepped from the smoke, twisted his wrist, and the wire snapped free before Veyr could trap it.
Garron did not look surprised.
Only annoyed.
“You took your time.”
Richter’s eyes remained on Veyr.
“I was deciding whether this was your problem.”
“And?”
“It became mine.”
Veyr looked from one man to the other.
His smile faded by a fraction.
Richter noticed.
“Good.
You can count.”
Veyr’s spear tip shifted toward him.
“Old man.”
“Accurate, but imprecise.”
Garron straightened.
“Richter.”
“You are needed elsewhere,” Richter said.
Garron’s jaw tightened.
“The path?”
“I placed delays.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that punish curiosity.”
Garron understood too quickly for Veyr’s liking.
Richter continued, “I also triggered the signal.”
Garron’s eyes flicked toward the deeper crater road.
For one heartbeat, relief and worry crossed his face together.
The High Guardians.
If Richter had truly triggered the inner signal, Luminara would not remain blind forever.
But signals took time to climb old routes and wake the right people.
The hidden defenders would need roughly an hour to gather, seal paths, and move toward Luminaris.
One hour.
In a burning village.
With Toren already inside the walls.
Garron looked at Veyr.
Richter said, “Go.”
“I am not leaving you with him.”
“I did not ask your permission.”
“He is better than you.”
“Almost certainly.”
Veyr’s eyes sharpened.
Richter looked at him properly for the first time.
“But he is proud enough to object when told so by a man he thinks beneath notice.”
The spear tip turned fully toward Richter.
Garron muttered, “That was unnecessary.”
“It was useful.”
Veyr stepped down from the tower stair.
“You think wires make you dangerous?”
“No.”
Richter’s hand lowered.
“I think they make you impatient.”
One weighted line snapped toward Veyr’s face.
He cut it from the air.
Richter smiled faintly.
“See?”
Veyr lunged.
Richter moved.
Not backward.
Sideways.
The spear split smoke where his chest had been.
Razor wire kissed Veyr’s sleeve and left a red line beneath the cloth.
Veyr turned after him at once, but Richter was already retreating into the narrow lane beside the tower.
“Running?” Veyr called.
“A change of venue,” Richter answered.
Garron cursed under his breath.
Then he ran the other way.
Richter’s first trap took Veyr at the corner of the dye house.
Not enough to stop him.
Enough to teach.
A trip line, nearly invisible in smoke, snapped upward from ankle height when Richter’s weight passed the trigger stone.
Veyr saw it late and drove his spear down, pinning the wire before it sliced into his knee.
The second wire came from above.
He twisted.
It cut across his shoulder instead of his neck.
Blood darkened the merchant cloak.
“Annoying,” Veyr said.
“Encouraging,” Richter replied.
He flicked his wrist.
Two weighted wires looped around a signpost and snapped back toward Veyr from opposite sides.
Veyr spun the spear in a tight circle, catching one, deflecting the other, then drove forward with enough force to make Richter abandon the lane and slip through the smoke toward the old cooper’s yard.
Good.
The yard had three exits.
Richter had prepared two of them.
The third was for him.
Veyr followed.
A weighted net of wire dropped from the roofline.
He stopped just short.
Then smiled.
“You prepared.”
“I disliked your caravan.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“Then why not warn them?”
Richter looked toward the burning plaza beyond the roofs.
“People rarely believe warnings that inconvenience festivals.”
That was partly true.
The other part was that Richter had spent too much time watching Estellise and Deckard, too much time measuring seals, awakenings, and impossible barriers, too much time believing the outer threat would arrive tomorrow instead of tonight.
A mistake.
He disliked mistakes.
Especially his.
Veyr swept the spear upward and tore the falling wire net loose from its anchors.
“Is this all?”
“No.”
Richter stepped on the third trigger.
A flash seal ignited under Veyr’s feet.
White light burst upward, sharp enough to blind men who relied on sight.
Veyr closed his eyes before it bloomed.
Not blinded.
Only slowed.
Richter clicked his tongue.
“Good instincts.”
Veyr threw the spear.
Richter barely turned.
The weapon passed close enough to cut his cheek and buried itself in the wall behind him.
For one foolish fraction of a second, Richter believed that was a mistake.
Then Veyr opened his hand.
The spear returned.
Not pulled by wire.
Not by rope.
By magic.
Fire erupted along its shaft, burning away smoke as it flew back into Veyr’s grip.
Richter went still.
Veyr’s smile returned.
“There.”
The spear captain rolled his shoulder once.
“Now I am finished being polite.”
A wave of fire tore through the cooper’s yard.
It did not behave like a torch flame or spilled oil.
It moved like a command.
A broad red-gold sweep that devoured hanging wires, burned anchors from walls, and turned two prepared trip lines into glowing ash before they could trigger.
Richter had already stepped.
He had stepped to avoid spear reach.
He had stepped for steel and wire.
He had not stepped for magic.
The edge of the fire caught him.
Only the edge.
Only enough to blacken the hem of his coat and lick heat across his left side before the wave spent itself against the old Angelstone seam running beneath the yard wall.
Still, the lesson was clear.
Veyr had hidden magic until it mattered.
Fire.
Strong fire.
Stronger than Richter.
Far stronger.
Richter looked at the burned hem of his coat.
Then at Veyr.
“You concealed that well.”
“You were not worth showing.”
“Flattery after fire.
How cultured.”
Veyr advanced.
Richter’s expression became grim.
He reached inside his coat and withdrew a small device the size of two fingers laid together.
Dark metal.
Three thin rings.
A hollow red crystal set at the center.
Order work, old and unpleasant.
Not a weapon.
A bargain.
It did not make weak men strong.
It let weak men spend what they could not afford.
Richter turned it once in his hand.
If he used it, he might hold Veyr.
Might.
Long enough for Garron to reach the inner road.
Long enough for the High Guardians to answer.
Long enough for Estellise to remain alive somewhere beyond the burning village.
Veyr noticed the device.
“What is that?”
Richter closed his fingers around it.
“Correction.”
He pressed the first ring inward.
The crystal woke red.
Garron found Toren at the mouth of the east lane.
That should not have surprised him.
It did anyway.
Toren stood where the smoke thinned, wearing a merchant cloak that no longer made any effort to disguise the man beneath it.
Two guards flanked him.
Neither looked like a caravan guard now.
Both had blades out.
Both had the stillness of men waiting for permission.
Behind Toren, several West March soldiers moved toward the side roads, searching houses, cutting off exits, pressing deeper.
Too deep.
Garron lifted his sword.
“Move.”
Toren studied him with calm interest.
“That seems to be a popular request tonight.”
Garron’s eyes narrowed.
“You are Falsted.”
Toren’s mouth curved faintly.
“So you do know something.”
“I know enough.”
“I doubt that.”
Garron stepped forward.
The two guards shifted.
Toren raised one hand, and they stopped.
“You were at the tower,” Toren said.
“You left Captain Veyr.”
“He found someone prettier.”
“Unlikely.”
“He’ll survive the disappointment.”
For the first time, Toren’s smile almost reached amusement.
Then it vanished.
“The boy is not in your house.”
Garron’s sword came up.
“No.”
“Nor is Elena.”
Garron said nothing.
“Nor the red-haired girl.”
Still nothing.
Toren’s gaze drifted toward the darker road beyond Garron’s shoulder.
“There is somewhere else.”
Garron felt the old fear settle cold and heavy in his gut.
Toren saw it.
Of course he did.
“Ah,” Toren said softly.
The village burned behind them.
The horn tower remained silent.
Somewhere deeper in the crater, hidden bells had begun to wake.
Toren drew a narrow blade from beneath his cloak.
“I think,” he said, “it is time we speed up the process.”
Garron tightened his grip.
“No.”
Toren stepped into the lane.
“Then slow me.”