A guttural cry tore from Kavira’s throat. Her hand, slick with glacial water, snatched a loose shard of frost-rimmed rock from the cavern floor, its edge glinting with lethal intent. She lunged, not at his face, but at the expanse of his chest, aiming for the hollow above his ribs. The strike was blind and feral, driven by a raw instinct to crush the witness before the truth could take root.
Garek didn’t flinch. His left hand shot out, not to block, but to seize her wrist, halting the makeshift dagger inches from his tunic. His grip was an iron band, unyielding. With his right arm, he swept around her waist, pulling her flush against his armored form, pressing her against the cold, hard plates of his chest. The rock clattered from her fingers, forgotten. His embrace was fierce, almost bruising, but there was no aggression in it, only a desperate, aching hold. Her ossified ribs protested the pressure with sharp, splintering agony.
“No,” he breathed, his voice a low rumble against her ear, raw with a feeling she couldn't yet name. “No, Kavir. Not like this. Not alone.” His breath warmed her temple, a startling intimacy. He pulled back slightly, just enough to look into her eyes, his own grey and fractured with turmoil. “You lied to me. You kept it hidden. But the blight… it’s *out*. You’re dying, and I swore to fight for you.” His gaze dropped to the red calcified growth erupting from her skin, his brow grooved by a distress that mirrored her own. “We are out of time. Tonight. We take the Sun-Ember tonight.”
The words, firm and resolute, cut through the haze of the stimulant, through the panic and the pain. He wasn’t disgusted. He wasn’t enraged by her deception. He was simply… there. For *her*. The alien warmth of his body seeped into her, fighting the glacial chill of the cavern, of her own crumbling flesh.
“Commander Vane… he has the keys,” Kavira rasped, her voice hoarse, her throat aching. “The High Vault. It’s warded. He’s the only one with full access.”
Garek's mouth hardened. “Then we make him give them up.” He released her, but his hands lingered, one on her shoulder, the other brushing the jagged growth along her ribs, a gesture of unvarnished tenderness that stunned her into silence. “We need a distraction. A big one. Something to draw him away, create chaos, then get the keys. And we need to be fast. You’re… fading.”
Her mind, usually so precise, struggled to focus. “Elian,” she mumbled, the name a faint whisper. “And Grit.”
Minutes later, dressed in her soaked tunic with the mineral growth hidden beneath the coarse wool, Kavira and Garek laid out their plan to Elian in the dim barracks mess hall. Elian listened with trembling hands, shrinking back at the raw urgency in Garek's posture and Kavira's sallow skin. Grit, perched on Kavira’s shoulder, ruffled his soot-stained plumage, eyes fixed on the low rafters.
“Commander Vane has a particular fondness for his quarterly wheel of Ursine-Stink cheese,” Elian began, his voice barely audible, “kept in his private larder. It’s pungent, and the cliff-apes are drawn to it. They go feral.”
Garek fixed him with a stare that brooked no argument. “Pungent enough to mask a thief? Feral enough to create a ruckus?”
Elian nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes. They’ll tear the larder apart for it. And Vane supervises every inventory himself.”
“Good,” Kavira said, the strategy snapping into place. “Grit, you target Vane. When the ape chaos starts, he’ll be distracted. His keys hang from his belt. Snatch them. Elian, you get the cheese. Release the beasts. Make a mess. Garek and I will be waiting.”
The air in the mess hall thickened with the scent of stale hearth smoke and simmering fear. Elian, despite his terror, squared his thin shoulders. “Right. For Kavir.”
Hours later, a sickeningly sweet, acrid stench began to waft through the stone corridors of Karst Watch, growing steadily stronger until it stung the eyes and coated the tongue. Then came the high-pitched chittering, thumps, and frantic scuttling that escalated into pandemonium. A guard, gagging, stumbled into the hall with a mottled face. “The Commander’s larder! The cliff-apes got in! They’ve torn through the Ursine-Stink wheel!”
Vane, his skin mottled with fury, burst from his private quarters roaring orders. “Secure the stores! Drive those vermin out! They’ll spoil a month’s rations!” He marched toward the pantry, iron-shod boots slamming against the flagstones.
Kavira watched from a shadowed alcove as Vane knelt to inspect a shredded flour sack. Grit swooped from the high rafters, a blur of charcoal feathers, and struck the iron ring at the commander's hip. With a sudden upward snap of his wings, the corvid sheared the ring clean off the leather hoop. Vane shouted in startled fury, clapping a palm against his bare hip, but Grit was already banking hard, iron dangling from his beak. The bird released the ring squarely onto a snarling cliff-ape, which screeched and batted it down the flags.
“The keys!” Kavira hissed to Garek. “Go!”
Garek moved in low, scooping the iron ring from the flags while Vane was still bellowing at the fleeing beast. They melted back into the deeper, less trafficked passages, heading towards the High Vault. The stench of Ursine-Stink cheese, mingled with the shouts of frantic guards, faded behind them.
“It worked,” Kavira breathed, a fragile hope blooming in her chest, quickly choked by a sudden, searing pain that made her clench her teeth. Her vision swam. The vitrified growth in her ribs throbbed, a dull ache that resonated with every step.
They reached the High Vault, a massive door of burnished iron and ancient stone, warded with gleaming runic carvings. Garek hefted the heavy ring of keys, his fingers already searching for the correct one. But then he froze. Kavira followed his gaze. The massive doors weren’t sealed. A thin, ominous sliver of light spilled from the crack between them. And Vane was there, flanked by three figures cloaked in gray felt, their visors down. Vane had a brass skeleton key half-turned in the upper ward.
“No,” Garek whispered, his voice laced with venom. “He’s stealing it. He was always going to.”
As the lock clicked over, the nearest mercenary turned. His gaze, sharp as a hawk’s, cut through the gloom, landing squarely on Garek and Kavira. Then, his hand moved, effortlessly yanking a struggling, wide-eyed Elian from behind a nearby pillar, pressing the cold steel of a short sword against the boy’s throat. Elian’s eyes, full of terror, found Kavira’s.
“Drop your weapons,” the mercenary snarled, his voice rough, “or the boy dies.”