The overhead bulb flickered against the beams, sharpening the gray hollows of Maartin’s face. The send prompt pulsed green. Rustenveld, Maartin, Ouma—all of it would be erased under mortar shells if she touched the glass. Her thumb pulled back and jammed into her pocket. She would not let the farm burn. She moved with a quiet urgency, retrieving her pack from beneath the floorboards. The air in the root cellar was thick with the scent of damp earth and Maartin’s metallic blood. She found the chief’s phone, now a dead weight in her hand, and tucked it deep into her internal pocket. The flash drive, warm against her skin, held the uncompressed data. It was her war to fight, and she would not drag the farm into the crossfire. Before she left, she knelt beside Maartin, his breathing shallow but steady. The wound in his side was still bleeding sluggishly, a dark stain against the potato sacks. His eyes fluttered open, clouded with fever. She reached out, her fingers brushing his jaw, a touch too brief, too hesitant for the depth of feeling that had bloomed between them. “Don’t die on me, Kest,” she murmured, her voice stripped of its saccharine cheer. It was the truest thing she had said in years. “I’m not done with you yet.” He managed a weak smile, a ghost of his usual sardonic humor. “You going somewhere, Vossen?” “To finish what I started,” she replied, standing. “And this time, I’m not coming back.” She didn’t wait for his response. A quick, practiced movement, and the cellar door was locked from the outside. The night air was biting, but she ignored the chill, her focus narrowed to a pinpoint. Ouma Hessel was nowhere to be seen, a conspicuous absence that spoke volumes. The old woman knew. She always knew. Beatrys left no note, no explanation. Just a silent promise carried on the wind that rustled through the winter-bare brambles. She swapped the mud-caked denim for a matte black jumpsuit in the restroom of a rail depot, stuffing the neon pink raincoat into her canvas satchel. The annual Arend Winter Solstice Gala filled the tiered banquet hall of the Klippenaar Tower. Valet attendants in pristine uniforms greeted a parade of polished vehicles. The air thrummed with the low murmur of power and pretense. Beatrys slipped past security, a practiced ease born from years of high-society subterfuge. Her smile was back, wider and more terrifying than ever. She adjusted the hood of her vibrant raincoat, making sure it framed her face like a mocking halo. The hall glittered with silk stoles and diamond chokers, rich tobacco drifting over the clink of crystal. At the dais, the ringleaders—Gerhold Kray, a twitching ledger-man, and the matriarch Margaretha Van Der Sloot—sat beneath silver candelabras. Kray, a man with a perpetually anxious twitch, was mid-story, his voice booming over the polite applause. Beatrys walked straight toward the massive display behind the dais, its canvas currently showing the ring's raven crest. She shook out the neon pink raincoat, donning it over her black jumpsuit as whispers spread across the perimeter. Heads turned. Whispers rippled through the crowd. “Oh, excuse me!” she chirped, her voice carrying across the hushed room. She bumped into a waiter, spilling a tray of champagne flutes with a theatrical gasp. “So clumsy of me! I just adore these displays, though. How do you make them so… *big*?” She batted her eyelashes at the technician, a nervous young man who barely reached her shoulder. Before he could respond, her hand darted out, plugging a ribbon lead from her sleeve directly into the console hub. The raven insignia flickered, then vanished. On the screen, a ledger appeared. Rows of figures, bank transfers, shell corporations. Then, a series of documents: signed contracts, encrypted emails, photographic evidence of bribery, extortion, money laundering. Every routed bribe, every seized estate, and every shell company account rolled down the canvas. The crowd gasped. Silence dropped across the tables, broken only by the hum of the cooling fans. Gerhold Kray choked on his drink, his face draining of color. Margaretha's wine glass cracked in her grip, red vintage spilling across the white linen. “What is this sorcery?!” Kray shrieked, scrambling to his feet. “Stop it! Shut it down!” Beatrys turned, her smile unwavering. “Oh, isn’t it just *fascinating*?” she trilled, her voice devoid of its usual warmth. It was pure, distilled malice, wrapped in cotton candy. “All those pretty numbers, like little poisonous flowers blooming in the dark. It’s almost a shame to pluck them.” Security detail, burly men in black, surged forward, converging on her. Just as their hands reached for her, a new voice, deep and resonant, cut through the pandemonium, amplified by the ballroom’s sound system. “Stand down.” The enforcers froze, their training overridden by the unexpected command. Beatrys turned, her chin snapping up. Maartin Kest stood at the ballroom entrance, leaning casually against the ornate frame. He was impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit, a stark contrast to the bloodied farmhand she’d left in the cellar. A stiff brace showed beneath the left cut of his jacket, but his spine remained rigid. He looked like a king arriving to claim his throne. “What is the meaning of this, Maartin?” Margaretha demanded, rising. Maartin pushed off the doorframe, advancing slowly, his gaze fixed on Beatrys. “The meaning, Margaretha,” he said, voice carrying across the hush, “is that seven minutes ago, the Arend cartel ceased to exist as an independent entity. Every asset, every share, every last poisonous root has been acquired. I am now your majority shareholder.” He stopped a few feet from Beatrys, his presence radiating an almost predatory calm. The room remained frozen, ledger sheets still rolling down the wall. Maartin’s eyes, dark and intense, finally met hers. “You broke the rules of the farm,” he said, his voice a low rumble that resonated through the silent ballroom. “Now you have to pay the toll.”

The Ghost of Goudhaven