Ghaeron didn't hesitate. The polished ebony vessel was barely a breath from Keldri’s lips. With a guttural snarl that ripped through the genteel chatter, Ghaeron launched himself across the table. His perfect posture dissolved into a feral lunge, arms outstretched, not for the cup, but for the Citadel Master himself.
“Poison!” The word tore from his throat, raw and unpolished, a jarring breach of decorum that echoed off the vaulted ceilings. He slammed into Keldri, a shoulder-first impact that sent the esteemed Master of Forgeworks tumbling from his ornate chair. The ceramic cup, freed from Keldri’s grip, arced through the air in a slow, agonizing spin, a dark droplet of mother’s-bane glinting menacingly before it shattered against the marble floor with a pathetic *clink*.
Screams erupted. Chairs scraped back. Guards, who moments before had been statues in the corners, surged forward, their polished armaments glinting. The elegant dining hall devolved into howling disarray. Lord Qaldir, perched impassively at the head table, merely raised an eyebrow, obsidian eyes reflecting the overturned silver. Naszra, a half-eaten skewer of spiced gristle still clutched in her fist, stared with bared teeth. The suddenness of Ghaeron’s violence was far more effective than any crude hammer-blow.
From the corner of his eye, Ghaeron saw Bozig’s mask of concern falter. The bumbling fool’s eyes, usually wide with artless anxiety, narrowed for a fraction of a second, an icy intelligence replacing the feigned terror. Before the first guard could reach Ghaeron, Bozig was already moving, not with a clumsy stagger, but with the fluid grace of a wind-whipped desert viper. He melted into the surging crowd of panicked students and minor scribes, a grey blur disappearing towards the eastern exit. Ghaeron tried to call out, to point, but a heavy gauntlet clamped down on his shoulder, yanking him backward.
“Insolent whelp! Lay a hand on an elder forge-master?” A thick-necked guard snarled, his grip like a vise.
“The vessel… the draft…” Ghaeron gasped, struggling against the guard. “Bane! He was poisoned!”
His words were lost in the cacophony. The elder, dazed but uninjured, clutched his chest, sputtering indignantly. “What is the meaning of this outrage, Vex?! Have you lost your mind?!”
Naszra, however, hadn’t lost her focus. Her eyes, sharp and predatory, tracked Bozig’s escape. *He’s moving too fast. Too smooth.* The thought sparked a primal recognition. She dropped the skewer, abandoning the escalating pandemonium around Ghaeron. Her gaze swept the room, seeking a familiar, infuriating face amidst the chaos. There. Ninshur. The girl, frozen in aristocratic horror, was already backing away, her ‘prophetic’ serenity shattered. This was her chance. Vengeance, raw and unburdened by honor-debts, surged through Naszra.
Dodging a flailing tea merchant, Naszra vaulted over a low table, her movements economical and brutally efficient. She didn’t bother with words. The sheer, unadulterated fury radiating from her was enough. Ninshur shrieked, her painted face draining of color as she recognized the intent behind the charge. She spun, tripping over her own voluminous robes, and bolted for the nearest exit, a narrow service archway rarely used by the gentry.
“You’re not going anywhere, *Prophet*!” Naszra snarled, her voice a low growl that carried over the din. She caught Ninshur’s sash, a rough tug that sent the favored prodigy sprawling onto the unforgiving stone floor. Naszra straddled her, a dagger, pulled from a sheathe hidden in her boot, pressed lightly against Ninshur’s throat. The steel was cold, sharp, and promised agony.
“Talk. Now. Where did you get them? The prophecies. My dam's death. Did you know? Did you help?” Each demand struck like iron, driven by years of contempt and the memory of cold ash in the courtyard.
Ninshur whimpered, eyes wide with genuine terror, not the performative fear she usually affected. “I… I didn’t! I swear it on the Ancestor’s Pyre! I didn’t write them!” Her voice was a reedy, desperate whine. “I found them! In her diary! Our mother’s workbook!”
Naszra froze. The dagger wavered, just a fraction. “Her… records? What are you talking about?”
“After she… after she passed,” Ninshur stammered, tears smudging her kohl. “Father discarded every scrap. I salvaged a few. Her old ledger. It held drawings, strange symbols, and dates. Terrible dates. I copied them! I didn’t know she possessed foresight! I just wanted to be favored!”
Naszra frowned. The quiet woman who had faded under neglected blankets, a seer? Those dying murmurs had not been delirium. The toxic aura. The automatons. The sanctuary's core. Bozig was aiming for something catastrophic.
“What dates? What did they say?” Naszra demanded, pressing the dagger in a fraction deeper. Ninshur whimpered again, a thin line of blood beading on her throat.
“The… the Crimson Reckoning! The Burning Heart! It said Yakhut would shatter into dust and fire. The core… it would ignite!” Ninshur sobbed, clutching at Naszra’s arms. “A year from now! That’s what she wrote!”
Naszra absorbed the words like hammer strikes. The parent she mourned had been silenced before sounding an alarm. This desert garrison, the very seat of her family’s cruelty, faced ruin from an immediate threat. Surpassing her sibling was petty compared to preventing total destruction.
Suddenly, a piercing shriek ripped through the dining hall, cutting through the remaining chaos like a shard of ice. It was a guard, his voice gurgling, his body crumpling to the floor. Naszra’s head snapped up. Bozig stood over the dying man, his previous bumbling demeanor utterly vanished. The air around him shimmered with a cold, precise aura, a thread of darkness that Naszra recognized with a sickening lurch. It was the same toxic, oppressive aura that had emanated from the forge-golems in the vents. It was *his* aura. Bozig wasn't just working with them; he *was* them.
He held a wickedly curved blade of coalesced shadow, dripping with the dark taint that had dissolved her parent's breath. It was weaponized venom.
Then, a thunderous roar ripped through the foundations of the complex. A violent tremor rocked the hall, sending woven banners swaying wildly and showering dust from the ceiling. Scorching air blasted through the eastern archway—the path Bozig had taken—followed by rending stone and metal. A massive explosion. The eastern wing. It was happening.
Bozig turned, his expression utterly devoid of mirth or clumsiness, his eyes glinting with a chilling, cold satisfaction. He stepped through the roiling smoke billowing into the dining hall, the shadow-blade dripping dark ichor, pointing directly at the heart of the exposed Yakhut core, a pulsing light in the distance.