“Who are you signaling, Feliks?” Jadwiga’s voice, low and sharp, cut through the humid night air. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the rough-hewn window frame. Beside her, Duszan’s posture remained rigid, his gaze fixed on the crimson trail climbing towards the constellation of the Serpent’s Eye. The flare reached its apex, then began its slow, sputtering descent, painting the swirling mists below in fleeting streaks of red.
Feliks finally lowered the spent flare casing, turning slowly towards the cabin. His face, now shrouded in shadow, offered no easy answers. “My people,” he stated, his voice tight, betraying a flicker of defiance. “The Preservers of the Veridian Oath. They’ve been observing your bloodline for centuries, Jadwiga. Longer than the zealots of the Word have existed in their current fanatical form. They can offer you true protection. Far more than one man bound by a relic of an oath.” He gestured dismissively at Duszan, whose stare turned flat and hard.
“Your people?” Jadwiga scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. “The ones who led me into a trap at the Veridian Gala? The ones who believed the High Exarch wouldn’t show up at a high-society event they themselves had infiltrated? Forgive me if my faith is… underdeveloped.”
“That wasn’t the plan,” Feliks insisted, stepping closer, his voice laced with genuine anguish. “We miscalculated the Exarch’s reach, his desperation. Our intelligence indicated he would be days away, preparing his forces for a siege of the university. Never that he would personally hunt you. My society’s primary goal is to understand and safeguard the gifts of your lineage. They would never intentionally harm you.”
“Safeguard?” Duszan interjected, his voice a low rumble. “Or study? Or control? The difference is often lost on those who seek power from others.” His hand, still gripping the knife, shifted subtly.
“You speak of control?” Feliks retorted, his own anger flaring. “You, who would drag her across the Combine like a common criminal, relying on brute force and blind loyalty? My people have resources, safe havens, a network of informants. They can teach her to master what she touched in that library. You can only shield her clumsily.”
Jadwiga pressed her temple against the rough wood, a sudden ache blooming behind her eyes. “Stop it, both of you. You sound like vultures arguing over carrion. Neither of you has proven particularly adept at keeping me out of trouble, or even explaining what this ‘gift’ truly is.”
Before either man could respond, a new sound, distinct from the rustle of the mire, reached them. A low, guttural snarl. Then another. The air grew heavy with the scent of damp earth, decaying leaves, and something else – something metallic and sharp. A series of faint clicks, like stone on stone, echoed from the deeper woods.
Duszan instantly pushed Jadwiga behind him, his body a solid shield. “Not zealots,” he murmured, his voice tight. “Too many, too spread out. And not Feliks’s supposed ‘Preservers.’ The rhythm is wrong. Organized, but… rougher.”
Suddenly, the woods erupted. Not with fanatic chants, but with harsh, guttural barking in a dialect Jadwiga barely recognized, spoken by borderland sellswords. A volley of crude, barbed arrows sliced through the air, embedding themselves in the cabin’s decaying timber with sickening thuds. One struck perilously close to the window where Jadwiga had just stood.
“Sellswords!” Feliks gasped, drawing a short, ornate blade from his tunic. “The Skulls of Kragdan! Who hired them?”
“Does it matter?” Duszan snapped, shoving Jadwiga further into the cabin. “They’re here for her. Likely hired by the Syndic of Vorlag. He’s always coveted the old Leszczyn claims.”
The cabin door splintered inward, two hulking figures bursting through, their faces obscured by grim, bone-like masks. Duszan moved with a terrifying grace, his knife a blur, silencing one with a precise strike to the neck before the other could even raise his axe. Feliks, though less practiced, engaged the second raider, his academic’s blade flashing in the gloom, deflecting a wild swing before delivering a shallow, but effective, cut to the man’s arm.
Outside, fresh cries arose, but these were different. Shorter, sharper, punctuated by the familiar, chilling roar of “For the One True Word!”
“The Vigilants,” Jadwiga whispered, the blood draining from her face. “They followed the flare.”
“Or were already converging,” Duszan corrected, his eyes scanning the chaos outside the shattered doorway. “A perfect storm. Three factions, all eager for the same prize.” He grabbed Jadwiga’s arm. “We need to move. Now.”
But just as he pulled her towards the back wall, a whistling sound cut through the din. A crossbow bolt, thick and heavy, shot from the treeline, aimed directly for Jadwiga’s chest. Before she could even react, Feliks, who had just dispatched his mercenary with a desperate lunge, threw himself in front of her. The bolt struck him with a wet thud, piercing his shoulder. He cried out, stumbling back, clutching the wound, his face contorted in agony.
“Feliks!” Jadwiga cried, reaching for him, but Duszan held her firm. His gaze, however, lingered on Feliks for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something unreadable in his usually impassive expression.
“He bought us a moment,” Duszan said. “Use it.” He dragged her towards a gap in the cabin’s back wall, where the planks were loose. The clamor of the cutthroats and the robed hunters grew louder, closer. They were being squeezed from both sides.
Jadwiga looked at Feliks, sprawled on the floor, blood blooming on his tunic. He looked up at her, his eyes wide, a silent plea in their depths. The High Exarch was coming. His words, from the gala, still chilled her: *'a living key'*. She couldn’t be taken. Not now, not after what she’d felt. She would not be a prize to be fought over, or a tool to be wielded.
Her gaze snapped to the astrolabe, clutched in her hand. The metal felt warm against her skin, humming with a latent energy. It pulsed faintly, responding to her terror, her burgeoning resolve. The air around her began to crackle, a low thrum echoing deep within her bones. She wasn't just a conduit, not just a key. She was a weapon. She would not be led. She would act.
With a raw, primal surge of instinct, Jadwiga gripped the astrolabe tighter, focusing not on escape, but on resistance. On disruption. She pictured the blinding brilliance of a midday sun, magnified a thousand times, erupting from her core. She pushed, and the energy obeyed, not a hesitant flicker, but a deliberate, directed blast. A curtain of shimmering, incandescent light erupted from her, tearing through the flimsy walls of the cabin, bursting outwards into the night.
A deafening roar ripped through the mire. Marauders and robed pursuers alike recoiled, their curses turning to screams of pain as the blinding flash seared their retinas. For a moment, the entire swamp was awash in an impossible, pure white glow, the darkness utterly banished, replaced by an overwhelming, painful brilliance. Trees stood stark and exposed, the water of the mire glinting like polished silver. Then, as abruptly as it appeared, the light vanished, plunging the world back into a deeper, disorienting black.
“Now!” Duszan roared, seizing her arm and pulling her through the shattered back wall. The air was thick with the lingering smell of ozone and burnt earth. The forest was filled with the sounds of disoriented men, stumbling, cursing, trying to regain their vision. Jadwiga herself felt a profound exhaustion, her limbs heavy, a throbbing ache behind her eyes, but a fierce exhilaration pulsed beneath it all.
They crashed through thickets of thorn-bush and tangled roots, Duszan navigating by instinct through the disorienting darkness. The sounds of pursuit were still there, but now they were confused, less organized. She could hear splashes, distant bellows of men calling out to each other. They were gaining ground.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them dropped away. Duszan didn’t hesitate. He pulled her with him, launching them both into the frigid depths of a roaring river. The shock of the icy water stole Jadwiga’s breath, the current immediately seizing them, pulling them downstream. She surfaced, gasping, shivering violently, water streaming from her hair and clothes. Duszan was beside her, his hand a steel grip on her arm, keeping her head above the churning water.
As they were swept around a bend, Jadwiga glanced back, her eyes straining against the darkness. High on the ridge overlooking the river, a lone figure stood silhouetted against the pale orb of the moon. The High Exarch. His form, impossibly still, seemed to radiate cold fury, even from this great distance, his gaze fixed on the turbulent waters below, where his quarry was rapidly disappearing into the night.