Alive. The implication settled on Sofiya’s tongue like ash. Vakhtan wanted her whole: seized, dissected, drained. Cold clarity seized her thoughts, cutting through the panic. “Through the back,” Sofiya murmured, her voice tight, already moving. She grabbed a heavy, waterlogged sack of discarded rags, the only substantial item in the hovel, and shoved it toward the low flue slit at the rear. It was small, barely a handspan wide, but it led into a narrow, refuse-choked alley that might offer a chance. “Too tight,” Givi rasped, watching her. “Even for you.” “Not for me to go through,” she corrected, already tearing a strip from one of the rags. “For the smoke.” Another violent kick pulverized what remained of the door’s upper panel. A sliver of the outside world, a glimpse of an armored boot, appeared through the jagged opening. The gruff voice barked again, closer now, demanding entry. Sofiya moved with a sudden, precise violence. She snatched a half-burnt candle from the table, its flame a sputtering defiance in the gloom. Her eyes scanned the hovel’s sparse contents, landing on a small, clay pot, half-filled with a greasy, rancid oil – likely for a lamp that no longer existed. Without hesitation, she upended it onto the stack of rags near the wall opening. The oil soaked into the fabric with a disturbing swiftness. “The alley leads to the Khetis market district,” Sofiya explained, her fingers already working, twisting the rag strip into a makeshift wick, soaking it in the oil. “There’s a communal grain storehouse, just beyond the butcher’s stalls. It’s dry. It’s wood. It’s full of kindling.” She ignited the wick with the candle flame. The rag caught quickly, spitting and hissing as the oil flared. Black smoke, thick and acrid, immediately began to billow, coiling upward, then sucking greedily through the stone slit. The smoke was a living thing, expanding, dense and chokingly sharp, filling the small space. “They’ll be looking for us to run,” Sofiya continued, the heat from the burning rags pressing against her face. “Not for a distraction. Not for chaos.” Outside, the squad hesitated. The first foul wisps curled out from the stone opening into the alley. A cough, then a muffled shout from one of the soldiers. The relentless kicking stopped. “Get ready,” Sofiya commanded Givi, her voice strained by the fumes, but clear. “When they open that door, they’ll be expecting us to fight, or to be waiting. They won’t expect a choking haze.” Almost as if on cue, the door splintered inward with a final, echoing crack. But instead of charging, the Falcons recoiled. A cloud of thick, black smoke, laced with the stink of burning refuse and cheap oil, billowed out, stinging their eyes, forcing a cascade of coughs and curses. Sofiya, holding her breath, grabbed Givi’s arm. “Now.” They moved as a single, desperate shadow, Givi leaning heavily on her, his weight a dead anchor she dragged with surprising strength born of pure adrenaline. They slipped past the momentarily disoriented soldiers, who were still grappling with the unexpected smoke, their vision obscured, their movements clumsy. Sofiya guided Givi through the narrow gaps between their armored forms, their bodies barely grazing the rough fabric of their tunics. They were out, into the rancid air of the alley, before the Falcons could recover. *** In the Obsidian Throne Room of the Azhdari Palace, Emperor Vakhtan stood over the basin of the Serpent’s Eye, its dark, polished surface shimmering with an oily sheen. Around him, age-old ritual sigils, etched into the jet-black marble floor, pulsed with a faint, crimson light. A single drop of blood, fresh from a willing sacrifice, had been offered moments ago, swirling into the depths of the basin, painting the scrying water with images. The vision had been fleeting, fractured: the dim hovel, the smoke, the fleeting glimpse of Sofiya’s determined profile. He saw her face, unbowed, even amidst the squalor, and a flicker of something primordial, something *Sakhli*, danced in her eyes. It enraged him, and thrilled him. “She’s resourceful,” Vakhtan mused, his voice a low, melodic rumble that belied the fury in his eyes. He turned from the basin, his long, shadow-draped form silhouetted against the colossal obsidian dais. “More so than I gave her credit for. And Givi… Givi has become a dog without a leash.” Before him, on knees scraped raw from the rough stone, knelt a Falcon guard. Lieutenant Kavar. His face was a mask of terror, his eyes darting frantically from Vakhtan’s impassive face to the two towering, masked executioners flanking the throne. Kavar had been part of Givi’s original unit, captured after the massacre, questioned, and broken. He had confessed to witnessing Givi’s act of betrayal: pushing Sofiya into the hidden passage. “You stood by and watched your captain betray his Emperor,” Vakhtan stated, not a question, but a pronouncement. “You watched him save the very witch I sought to claim.” Kavar whimpered, pressing his forehead to the cold floor. “Your Majesty, I was disoriented! The chaos… I did not understand… Captain Givi, he was a loyal man, I swear, he must have been compelled by some sorcery…” Vakhtan raised a hand, a gesture that silenced the man instantly. “Sorcery, Kavar, is not a shield for treason. But your loyalty, however belated, is noted. You have given me valuable information.” A glimmer of hope flickered in Kavar’s eyes. “Then… then I may yet serve, Your Majesty?” Vakhtan smiled, a chilling, unfeeling curve of his lips. “Indeed, Kavar. You shall serve in a way no other man can.” The air in the chamber grew heavy, crackling with an unseen charge. Vakhtan extended his hand, palm open, towards Kavar. A stream of dark, viscous power poured from his fingers, an obsidian mist that coalesced and swirled around the kneeling man. Kavar gasped, a strangled sound, as the energy enveloped him. His muscles locked, then began to contort. A scream tore from his throat, not of pain, but of profound, existential horror. His eyes, already wide with terror, bulged, then glazed over, the light of reason draining from them. His skin tightened, stretched, turning chalk-white and almost translucent. His bones groaned, shifting beneath his flesh. He no longer resembled a man, but a puppet on invisible strings, his body twisting, reforming, into something gaunt and monstrous. The transformation lasted only a few agonizing breaths. When it ceased, Lieutenant Kavar was gone. In his place was a shambling, skeletal figure, still clad in the tattered remains of a Falcon uniform, but with an unnerving, vacant stare. Its eyes, though sightless in the conventional sense, glowed with a faint, hellish green light, fixed on some unseen target. This was a Husk, a mind-eaten hunter, Vakhtan’s personal hound of vengeance, powered by the Emperor’s will and an insatiable desire to track. “Find them,” Vakhtan commanded, his voice a low hiss, directed at the Husk. “Bring me the Dzhugashvili witch. And bring me Givi, alive, so he may witness her fate.” The Husk twitched with an abrupt, disjointed snap, then turned and shambled from the hall, its bare feet making no sound on the polished marble. It was a dark, unholy thing, a shadow set loose to hunt. *** Sofiya and Givi moved through the choked alleys of the Khetis market, the smoke from the burning grain storehouse a distant, acrid cloud on the horizon. The fire, once a frantic gamble, had blossomed into a full-blown inferno, drawing the city guard like moths to a flame. The chaos was their cloak, the shouts and distant sirens a lullaby of escape. Givi, his face pale and slick with sweat, gripped her shoulder, his hand a branding iron against her tunic. He was losing blood, but his pace remained steady, driven by a raw, relentless will. They reached the city’s outer wall, near the forgotten sewage sluices, a place no decent citizen would ever approach. The air here was thick with the stench of decay and effluent, masking their own scent, their own fear. Sofiya found a loose grate, hidden beneath a pile of rotting refuse, and together they strained, prying it open just enough for them to squeeze through. Outside the walls, the air was cool, clean, and sharp with the scent of pine and damp earth. They were in the wilderness, the sprawling, untamed forests that bordered the capital. Their path lay northward, toward the far, mist-shrouded peaks of the Qvabari mountains. They walked for hours, driven by the thin hope of sanctuary, the silence of the woods standing in stark contrast to the city’s recent clamor. The moon, a sliver of silver, cast long, shifting shadows through the towering pine boughs. Sofiya paused, her senses suddenly prickling. A prickle of cold, sharp and entirely separate from the night wind, tightened across the nape of her neck. She turned, scanning the deep shadows behind them. Nothing. Just the rustling leaves, the distant hoot of an owl. Yet the certainty rooted deeper, relentless and bizarre. Then she saw it. Not through the trees, but through the shifting mists that occasionally parted like curtains. A figure. It moved with an odd, lurching gait, its form unnaturally gaunt, almost skeletal. But what held her gaze were its eyes. They glowed with a faint, malevolent green light, piercing the darkness, fixed directly on them. Givi, sensing her sudden rigidity, followed her gaze. He drew a sharp, rasping intake of air. “By the forgotten gods…” The creature was closer now, its swiftness sickeningly disjointed. It was a man, or what had once been a man, clad in the tattered remnants of a Falcon uniform. Sofiya recognized the stylized emblem of the Azhdari hawk, though faded and torn. And she recognized the face, gaunt and twisted though it was. It was the officer from the palace barracks, a man Givi had once marched beside.

The Emperor's Shadow