They did not wait for the tide. Before dawn, while the stewards still counted hours, Lira, Kael, Sera, and Vesh slipped west through the service tunnels Kael still knew by heart. The goal was simple and reckless: reach the largest remaining hardliner cache before the faction could regroup, remove whatever treated blades and restraints were left, and deny the stewards an easy alliance of force.
The tunnels beneath the western districts were low, wet, and full of old echoes. Kael moved like a man returning to a house he had once ruled. He pointed out collapsed side passages, marked pressure plates that no longer worked, and once stopped them short of a tripwire strung with tiny glass bells that would have sung their arrival to anyone still listening.
“Old habits,” he said cheerfully when S
