Ember’s edge hovered a breath from her throat, heat shimmering in the narrow space between us. Marcilla didn’t flinch. She just stared up at me with those sharp, assessing eyes.

  “Wait,” she said, voice steady despite the blade. “Riven… wait a minute. I’m friends with your sister. I’ve been watching over Alice and Elizabeth for months.”

  My grip tightened, then eased. Ember dipped just a fraction, but I didn’t pull it away.

  “I didn’t see your eyes flash, and with this cloak I’m wearing there is no way for you to Identify me,” I said. “So how do you know my name? And don’t say Alice told you. Anyone can spit out sweet words with a sword at their throat.”

  I leaned in, letting Ember’s heat speak for me.

  “More likely you recognized me from one of the posters… or your faction’s information network, I’m guessing.” My voice remained cold. “Try again.”

  She exhaled through her nose, irritation flickering across her face, but the fear she’d shown at the start was gone. That alone gave me pause.

  “The whole reason I was coming out here was to meet with some of my other faction contacts in town,” she said. “There’s an inn called the Wandering Warrior. I was heading there to see if anyone was willing to smuggle all of us out and help find you.”

  She lifted her chin slightly. “Full disclosure, I was planning to use the fact that Alice and Liz are family to an Outlier to get them protection before Sager kills us all.”

  Balt stepped forward, shield half?raised. “Who’s Sager?”

  Marcilla flicked her eyes toward Ember, pointedly. I considered it, then dismissed the blade with a thought. Ember dissolved into sparks.

  That was when Tucker padded up beside her, teeth bared in a low, rumbling growl.

  Marcilla wrinkled her nose. “Your dog’s breath is terrible.”

  Tucker stopped mid?growl and looked back at me, ears drooping. Is it? He asked, wounded.

  “It’s pretty kicking, bud, I sent back mentally”. Tucker padded back and let out a small whimper.

  Marcilla looked confused, then shifted her attention to Balt. “To answer your question, Sager is the leader of the Shattered Blades’ hit squad for the bottom floors. Blackthorn is what we’re called.”

  My eyebrow rose. “So you’re a member.”

  “In name only now,” she shot back immediately.

  I folded my arms. “Explain. Everything.”

  She hesitated, then nodded once, as if bracing herself.

  “I was assigned to Alice months ago,” she said. “At first it was simple: keep her confined, keep her safe, keep her quiet. But she’s stubborn. She begged me to start training her. I tried. I really did. We slowly started to become friends. One day we were at the training hall and I was holding Liz so Alice could work on her sword forms when Sager decided to walk in and take over.”

  Her jaw tightened in obvious frustration. “She doesn’t train. She just beats on Alice. And she only does it because she fancies Carson. Her twisted mind probably thinks that hurting Alice will impress him or something.”

  She sneered and spat in disgust. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he even knows what’s going on. The Faction Prince is barely around; sometimes none of the staff see him for weeks. Everyone assumes he’s training in seclusion or out looking for you.”

  My stomach twisted, and fury was burning white-hot in me now. They dared to lay hands on her. “Did anyone even try to stop this piece of shit from hurting a new mother with an infant to take care of?!”

  Marcilla slowly scooted back from me and continued, her voice lower now. “I tried to stop Sager when she went too far. That’s how I ended up like this.” She pulled her collar aside, revealing a constellation of bruises along her ribs and shoulder. “After that, I wasn’t considered a trustworthy member of Blackthorne anymore. More like someone who needed guarding.”

  I was clenching my hands so hard I could feel my whole body shaking. The thought of Alice being hurt, trapped, beaten… I forced the rage down. I needed a clear mind. I needed answers.

  “That’s quite a story,” I said, though my voice came out tighter than I intended. “Tell me something. Did Alice talk about me often?”

  “Not at first,” Marcilla admitted. “But when you’re locked in a room most of the time, there isn’t much else to do but talk.”

  “Did she ever say what my favorite anime was?”

  Marcilla frowned. “Kind of.”

  “What does ‘kind of’ mean?”

  “She said it was between… Dragon Ball Z and Berserk, but you said that if the first season of something called SAO was your all-time favorite. So I don’t think she gave me a solid answer on that one.”

  I turned to Balt. “I believe her partner. What do you think?”

  Balt nodded. “I do, too.”

  Marcilla let out a long breath. “Finally.”

  “That doesn’t mean I fully trust you,” I said quickly. “It means I’m choosing to believe you until you show me something different.” I stepped back, giving her a little space. “Now, you've got the help you were looking for. Can you get us in?”

  Marcilla’s expression shifted, the relief fading into something more cautious. She looked between the three of us before answering.

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  She shook her head, frustration causing her jaw to tighten. “I definitely can’t smuggle something as big as, she made a gesture over towards Tucker, that through the back gate without drawing every eye in the place. They’d notice something was off before I even got close.”

  Marcilla’s mouth tightened. “There are wards keyed for Outliers in the castle. That’s why the faction head put Alice there I think. If you try to enter, Carson gets notified instantly. And there’s no way I can bypass them. Not to mention over a hundred faction combatants on patrol… and all of Blackthorn reinforcing the gates. Every one of them is an Elite.”

  I met her eyes. “Are the other members of Blackthorn at your level?”

  I activated Identify.

  She nodded once.

  “Then they won’t be a problem,” I said.

  Her eyes went wide. “You’re serious?”

  Balt snorted. “Oh, he’s serious.”

  “Be that as it may,” Marcilla said, regaining her composure, “I still have no way to infiltrate unseen with multiple people and an animal larger than a horse. Everyone knows your face, Outlier, and masks or helms are not allowed in the castle.”

  Balt crossed his arms. “Well… do you have an idea? How were you planning on sneaking Alice and Liz out?”

  Marcilla grimaced. “I hadn’t figured that part out yet.”

  I tapped my lip, thinking aloud. “So, to summarize. If I go with you, the wards will alert everyone. If I charge in and kill my way through, Alice becomes a hostage or a corpse. Best-case scenario, someone will put a blade to her throat and use her for leverage, and I cannot have that.”

  Silence settled for a moment.

  Then Balt spoke. “We could split up. If Marcilla can get me in, I can reach the girls. They don't know my face yet. I can shield them and get them out while you and Tucker are on standby.”

  “I am not going to Scooby?Doo this shit,” I said.

  Marcilla blinked. “What’s… Scooby?Doo?”

  I kept forgetting that pop culture references wouldn’t work with people not from Earth. “It was a popular show,” I said, “about a group that solved mysteries with a big dog named Scooby.”

  Tucker perked up at the word dog.

  They all were looking at me oddly now. “The leader, Fred, always split them up. Shaggy and Scooby would go one way, Fred and Daphne another. Velma floated between groups depending on the episode. Anyway… Shaggy and Scooby always found the bad guy first and got into trouble.”

  Marcilla raised a brow. “So in your analogy… me and Balt are Shaggy and Scooby, you’re Fred and Tucker is Daphne.”

  “It would appear so, yes,” I said. “My whole point is it’s too risky. Let’s think this through and find another way.”

  We all fell into a tense silence, the kind that makes every breath feel too loud. Then we started hashing out possibilities, throwing ideas down, discarding half of them as dumb, refining the rest until something that resembled a plan began to take shape. Marcilla had a sharp tactical mind that I appreciated. I could see why she had made it as far as she had.

  In the end, what we had was a hybrid: part infiltration, part contingency, part-controlled chaos. I didn’t like it, but with the time we didn’t have and the pieces we did, it was the best we could manage. Leaving Alice there any longer wasn’t an option for me.

  Balt would use the crystal to send coded flashes once inside.

  One flash: he had Alice.

  Two flashes: he couldn’t reach her.

  Three flashes: he had her, but he was in trouble and several other scenarios. We tried out the crystal, and the flash was quick and instant. All you had to do was feed a bit of mana into it.

  We drilled what each flash meant and the overall layout of the castle until there was no hesitation left in us. Marcilla did not have to return until the morning so we used the time the best we could.

  My role, and Tucker’s was brutally simple. Depending on the signal, we would either smash the front gate to draw every eye, create a diversion elsewhere, or carve a straight path to Balt if he needed extraction. If it came to that, he’d blast through a window or wall to mark his position as soon as he could.

  If Balt and Marcilla got Alice and Liz out clean, I’d hit the front anyway, cover their escape and, if I was lucky, draw Carson out where I could end him.

  It wasn’t perfect. But it was a plan. And I trusted Balt with my sister’s life.

  I stepped forward and pulled Balt into a hug. Tucker pressed in on the other side, wrapping his big head around Balt’s shoulder.

  Balt squeezed back, voice low. “I won’t let any harm come to her, my brother. I swear it.”

  I clapped him on the shoulder. “I know. Just don’t forget to bring yourself back, brother.”

  Then I turned to Marcilla. “You help get my family out, and you’re one of mine, if you want to be.”

  Marcilla nodded, something like relief flickering across her face.

  It was a hour before dawn when I fist bumped Balt and headed out, Tucker padding at my side. We moved through the trees until we reached the edge of the treeline, overlooking the castle. From there, we veered off the path and dug ourselves in, more foxhole than anything, though with Tucker involved it should be called a wolf?bear hole. We carved out enough space to lie low, packed the surrounding dirt, and settled in deep enough that no one should spot us unless they were standing on top of us.

  Marcilla had told us that the guards had grown lax over the last few months. They only patrolled their side of the treeline now, never venturing out this far. They had become complacent waiting for me. I was glad to hear it. I needed every advantage I could get.

  From our little dug?in nest, I could see the castle gate clearly.

  Now all I could do was wait. I placed a hand on Tucker’s head, trying to calm my nerves, and placed the crystal in front of us for both of us to watch.

  Balt

  Balt adjusted the spare Shattered Blades cloak Marcilla handed him, letting it drape over his own. The heavy fabric settled awkwardly across his shoulders, and he pulled the hood tight.

  “If it weren’t for my enhanced stats,” he muttered, “I’d be sweating like crazy between all these layers.”

  Marcilla didn’t smile, but her eyes flicked with the faintest amusement before she turned and led him through the treeline. They moved with purpose, branches brushing against the cloaks, the castle’s outer lights glowing faintly through the gaps.

  The sun was just cracking the horizon as they broke through the last line of trees, two guards at the outer post straightened and saluted with a fist to chest. Marcilla returned the gesture and kept walking.

  Balt kept his head down, letting the hood shadow his face. No one questioned him.

  Marcilla veered off the main path, guiding him down a narrow side trail that curved behind a storage building. A small stone gate sat recessed into the wall, half-hidden by ivy. She pressed her palm against the stone.

  A faint pulse of mana rippled outward, and the gate clicked open.

  “Stay close,” she whispered.

  They slipped inside, entering a dim corridor lit by flickering wall sconces. Their footsteps echoed softly as they moved deeper into the castle’s underbelly.

  They walked for several minutes before Marcilla turned left into a standard-sized hallway. Two guards stood in front of a reinforced door, one man, one woman, both armed with spears. Both smiling.

  “Well now,” the male guard said, eyeing Balt. “Who’s your friend?”

  “One of our healers from another floor I brought,” Marcilla replied smoothly. “Here to check on the baby.”

  The guards burst into laughter.

  “Well, he can turn back around,” the woman said, wiping her eyes. “Sager just went in for a training session. From what I hear, a healer won’t be needed or appreciated.”

  Balt didn’t hesitate.

  He Blinked.

  Lightning detonated through the hallway as he reappeared between them. Their heads burst in twin flashes of blue-white energy, bodies collapsing before their spears even hit the floor.

  Balt kicked the door open.

  Inside, chaos.

  Alice was tied to a chair, gagged, flailing desperately toward a makeshift crib where Liz lay screaming. Her eyes went wide when she saw him.

  Balt rushed forward, ripping the gag free. “Alice, it’s Balt. What’s going on?!”

  “Behind you!” yelled Alice.

  Balt spun.

  A figure blurred toward him, moving impossibly fast, a spear tip screaming through the air straight for his heart.