IV
1036 Words
[SERA — POV]
Commander Aldric Voss ran his strategy sessions at six in the morning, on the logic that anyone who couldn't think clearly at six in the morning wasn't worth strategizing with. He served strong black tea that tasted like the concept of discipline and expected his captains to stand throughout, which he'd always maintained kept minds sharper.
Sera stood at the strategy table and catalogued the faces of the other captains. Six of them, including herself, for what had been supposed to be a debrief of the Carnelian Club operation. Instead it had become a reckoning for the three dead.
Her uncle sat at the head of the table. He was sixty-two, built like a watchtower, with silver-streaked hair cropped close and a jaw that seemed carved from the same material as his decisions. He wore his Warden's Flame insignia on his left collar—a stylized torch above a crossed blade and stake—and he wore it with the complete comfort of a man who had never questioned whether it belonged there.
"Three dead," he said. "Corren, Marsh, and Wickham. All extraction specialists, all experienced, all killed in under four minutes based on the timeline." He looked around the table. "Thoughts."
Sera kept her face neutral. She had given her formal report to the duty officer last night—found the scene compromised, determined the operatives killed before her arrival, assessed the building as too exposed to investigate further, withdrew. She had not mentioned Kael Dravon.
She had not yet decided if that was a mistake.
"The kill methodology," said Captain Brennan, to her left. He was a blocky, serious man who'd lost three fingers in the Eastern Garrison collapse and held Kael Dravon personally responsible for it. "Consistent with Noctis military procedure. Fast, low-struggle, theatrical placement of the bodies. It's a message."
"The Noctis Court has sent messages before," said the Commander. "They've never been this direct. This is—" he paused "—aggressive, even for them."
Sera watched him. He was troubled in a way he wasn't showing his captains. She had long practice reading her uncle—she'd been his closest operative for seven years, and she knew his micro-expressions as well as her own reflection.
"Do we have any intelligence on Noctis movement in Veyrath?" asked Captain Orin, across the table. She was the youngest captain, all sharp angles and ambition.
"Our sources have gone dark," said the intelligence officer at the end of the table, a thin man named Pellier. "Three informants, unresponsive in the past week. We're working to reactivate."
Sera kept her breathing even. Three informants. Dravon had said his antiquities dealer was one human in a broader communication network. Someone was systematically dismantling the information infrastructure that connected both sides—not to silence one side, but to blind both of them.
"I want the Ash Market saturated," said Commander Voss. "Every contact, every channel. I want to know what moved through the Carnelian Club in the past week." He looked at Sera. "You were closest to the scene. Your assessment of the kill methodology?"
This was the moment. She felt it with a clarity that was almost physical—the pivot point of the conversation, the place where the information she was holding could go one direction or another.
"Consistent with Noctis military training," she said. "Whoever did this knew how to make it look like Noctis. Whether it was Noctis, I can't confirm from the scene alone." She held his gaze. "I'd want more intelligence before we treat this as a court operation."
A small silence.
"That's an interesting qualifier," the Commander said.
"It's an accurate one."
He studied her for a moment with eyes that had been evaluating her since she was seventeen and newly grief-carved and furious. Then he nodded, once, and moved on.
She breathed.
Across the table, Captain Brennan was watching her with the flat attention of a man who collected small irregularities and examined them later.
She noted it and filed it, as she filed everything.
After the session, Mira caught up with her in the corridor.
Mira Senn was Sera's partner in the way that the Order understood partnership: matched hunter pairs who operated in tandem, each the other's extension in the field. They had been paired for four years. In that time, Mira had developed the particular ability to read Sera's internal weather at a range of about fifteen feet.
She matched Sera's stride in the corridor without being invited and said nothing for a full thirty seconds. This was also part of her ability—knowing when to let the silence run.
"Three dead," she said finally.
"I know."
"You arrived first."
"I know, Mira."
"And found them already dead."
"Also in my report." Sera pushed through the exterior door and out onto the practice yard, which was blessedly empty at this hour. She needed air that wasn't institutional. "What's your question?"
Mira came out behind her and stopped, arms crossed, in the morning gray. She was compact and dark-haired with an expressive face that she weaponized constantly, switching between expressions of absolute sincerity with the precision of a craftsperson. "My question is why you came back from the Carnelian Club looking like you'd been thinking very hard about something you weren't going to tell anyone."
"That's not a question, that's a character assessment."
"Both can be true." Mira's eyes were steady on her. "What happened at the Club, Sera?"
Sera looked at the practice yard. At the wooden training dummies arrayed in their patient rows, targets for every kind of violence the Order taught. She had trained here since she was seventeen, and she knew the grain of every post and the give of every mat, and this place felt as much like home as anywhere she had.
She thought about Kael Dravon saying someone wants us to kill each other.
"I'll tell you when I know if it matters," she said.
Mira looked at her for another five seconds. Then she uncrossed her arms. "You know I'm going to worry about this."
"I know." Sera turned toward the armory. "Don't."
"That's not how worry works, Sera."
"I know that too."
- Writer
