Sabin Volkov’s boots made little sound on the polished obsidian floor, a contrast to the distant clang of metal that echoed through the Citadel’s corridors. The air, thick with the scent of oil and cold steel, offered a tangible welcome to the Armory. This was not a place of display, but a functional maze of sharpened edges and lethal mechanisms, where every shadow held the potential for a concealed blade. The letter from her past self had been precise: locate the Volkov ancestral key-scroll, hidden within the weapon vaults' restricted sector. Only a fool would attempt it during daylight, but her uncle’s elite patrols shifted with the moon’s phase, leaving a narrow opening before the midnight watch. Her stride was even, her gaze dissecting every rack of polearms, every darkened alcove, calculating angles of approach and retreat. She found him tucked away in a recess behind a display of ancient, ceremonial axes. Antonin Krest, heir to the Krest bloodline, notorious for his venomous wit and rumored skill with poisons, was a blur of quick, furtive movements. His slender fingers, surprisingly strong, worked at a heavily reinforced lockbox, a specialized contraption that guarded the most sensitive intelligence. A small, wickedly designed skeleton key glinted in his hand. He was after the codebook, just as she was. Their shared objective was a dangerous coincidence. Sabin moved without preamble, her footfalls silent until she was directly behind him. Antonin, startled, spun around, his hand already reaching for a dagger strapped to his wrist. But Sabin was faster. Her hand shot out, not for a weapon, but for his elbow, twisting it with brutal efficiency. A sharp crack echoed in the otherwise silent room as Antonin cried out, a strangled sound of pain and surprise. His arm bent at an unnatural angle, the skeleton key clattering to the floor. “Volkov,” he hissed, his face contorted. “What in the blazes–” Sabin twisted harder, leveraging his own weight against him. “The ancestral cipher,” she stated, her voice flat, devoid of emotion. “It is mine. You will aid me.” Antonin gritted his teeth, his eyes, the color of jade, blazing with fury. “Aid you? I’d sooner gut you, you brute. You think to bully the Krest heir?” “I think to survive,” Sabin replied, her grip unwavering. “And if you continue to struggle, you will not be able to hold a blade for a month. Perhaps longer. And then where will your house be, Krest? Stripped bare.” The threat was stark, undeniable. Antonin ceased his squirming, the calculation settling behind his pale stare. He knew the Citadel’s ruthless politics as well as she did. A crippled heir was a dead heir. “Fine,” he spat, the word dripping with venom. “Release me, then. You expect me to work with a madman who breaks arms for sport?” Sabin relaxed her grip slightly, but did not let go. “We will retrieve what we need. Then, we will be strangers. If you breathe a word of this, Krest, I will ensure your house crumbles to dust before your arm even heals.” Before Antonin could reply, a sudden, muffled shout from the corridor outside the Armory froze them both. Heavy boots pounded closer, the rhythmic thud unmistakable. Elite assassins. Too many, too fast. “They’re here,” Antonin whispered, his bravado gone, replaced by genuine alarm. “Duke Vane’s personal guard. What did you do, Volkov?” Sabin ignored him. Her gaze swept the room, assessing escape routes, recognizing the futility. She heard the distinct, measured tread of General Ignac Rostoch, his patrol coincidentally too close. A grim calculation. A desperate gambit. Without a word, Sabin shoved Antonin towards a narrow, seldom-used passage hidden behind a stack of rusted siege equipment. “Go. The cipher, remember.” Then, with a surge of motion, she launched herself at the formidable figure of General Ignac Rostoch as he stepped into the Armory’s entrance. He had half a second to register her charge before she drove a shoulder into his sternum, using momentum to pull them both sideways into an unlit storage alcove. Cramped, suffocatingly dark. They tumbled inside, the door swinging shut with a soft thud, plunging them into absolute blackness. Sabin landed awkwardly, Ignac’s solid frame pinning her against the stone partition. The recess offered scant clearance for one soldier, let alone two fully armored figures. Sword hilts, axe heads, and spear tips pressed into her back and sides, cold and unforgiving. Ignac’s chest was against hers, broad and unyielding, his breath a sharp gasp against her ear. The metallic tang of his military uniform filled her nostrils, mingled with something else—the faint, clean scent of frost and pine. Ignac Rostoch froze, every muscle in his powerful frame rigid. The scent of ozone, faint but distinct, returned. It was the ‘boy’ Volkov. The one with the unnerving resemblance to Duke Vane’s dead niece. His mind reeled. His body, however, reacted with a primal, terrifying intensity. Pressed chest-to-chest, thigh-to-thigh, the unexpected closeness was a visceral shock. He felt the rapid, shallow thrum of Sabin’s breathing, the warmth of ‘his’ body a suffocating presence. A prickle of sudden, unwelcome heat surged through his collar, which he instantly branded as raw fury at the insolence. Yet, beneath the fury, another sensation stirred, foreign and deeply unsettling. His pulse surged unevenly against the high leather of his collar. Outside, iron-shod boots scraped past the doorway, gutter-low whispers filtering through the seam. Every whisper outside dragged the silence out; Ignac's ribs hitched as he fought the draw of air. He tried to steady it, to impose discipline, but his lungs refused. A terrifying tightness seized his chest. The proximity to Volkov, this boy, was unraveling him. His mind screamed betrayal, disgust, but his body… his body was a traitor. He could feel the insistent, horrifying pressure against him, the soft give of ‘Sabin’s’ chest, the hard outline of something that was undeniably male, or what he was forced to perceive as male. He fought for air without drawing sound, his diaphragm seizing against the iron plating of his cuirass. Sabin felt the tremors in Ignac’s body, the frantic acceleration of his breathing. A panic attack. Unusual for a man of his reputation, but not entirely unforeseen given the circumstances. She remained utterly still, a statue carved from ice, allowing him his internal war. The metallic tang of blood seemed to mingle with the ozone now, a ghost of her own recent illness, a reminder of her precarious disguise. An hour stretched. An eternity. The assassins’ movements slowly receded, the distant thuds fading into silence. Finally, the last faint echo vanished. The air, though still thick, seemed to lighten. Ignac’s breathing slowly, shakily, regulated. He remained motionless, muscles locked like frozen iron while his pulse shuddered against her collarbone. He smelled of sweat, adrenaline, and something deeply, profoundly disturbed. Sabin waited another minute, then another. Only when the silence was absolute did she speak, her voice a low murmur. “They’re gone, General.” Ignac recoiled as if burned, pushing himself away from her with a sudden, violent shove that sent a few loose blades clattering. He shoved the locker door wide, spilling weak lamplight across the rusted iron. His jaw twitched with tight fury, pupils pinpricked under the lantern glare. He did not look at Sabin. “Captain Rurik!” Ignac barked, his voice clipped and rough at the edges. He turned to a subordinate who stood, bewildered, a few paces down the corridor. “Find me the underground physician in the lower wards. Tonight.”

The Weapons Closet