The snow had thinned to a soft drizzle by the time Ryn and Amelia reached the foothills of Deimos. The air still tasted cold, but the blizzard's fury had faded. The borrowed horse carried them down the rocky path at an easy pace.
Amelia glanced back at him for the fifth time.
"You're quiet," she said. "And not your normal quiet. Your 'I'm planning something life-threatening' quiet."
Ryn didn't deny it.
Instead, he answered with the calm of someone who had already come up with a plan.
"Scorpio will wait before he strikes."
Amelia blinked. "Wait? Why? Isn't he an assassin?"
Ryn's voice didn't waver.
"He's a hunter. And a sadist. He likes his prey to... ferment."
Amelia's shoulders stiffened.
Ryn continued. "Until the victim knows something's watching. Until dread eats them from the inside."
"…Five days?" she breathed.
Ryn nodded once.
"A week but considering we've already lost two days from the Basilisk. Five days."
She gripped the reins tighter.
"So… what do we do with those five days?"
Ryn finally looked up at her, eyes steady.
"We use them."
Amelia swallowed. "…For what?"
Ryn leaned forward just enough for his voice to drop, the beginning of a plan settling like a blade between them.
"Step one," he murmured, "you learn the flute."
Amelia raised a brow. "The flute? First? Why? It's just for beasts, right?"
Ryn shook his head slowly, almost pityingly.
"No. That's what the Administrator thought it was."
She blinked. "Thought?"
Ryn held out his hand and she placed the flute into it. The instrument looked delicate in his fingers, pale crystal patterned with faint inner lines like frozen lightning.
He spoke quietly.
"The Flute of Echoes doesn't control beasts. It controls instinct. Anything with a survival instinct…which means…"
Amelia stared at him. "Wait. Humans?"
Ryn nodded.
"Humans aren't rational, as much as they pretend to be. Under fear, under danger… instinct always takes over."
He turned the flute so the dim light caught the crystalline veins.
"That's what the Administrator never understood. He used it as a lure… not as a weapon. He played calming tones to pacify monsters and attract them, but he never realized the flute has tones that induce—"
He lifted one finger.
"—fear."
Another.
"—disorientation."
Another.
"—hesitation."
And then—
"—paralysis."
Amelia's throat tightened. "Then why didn't the Administrator use it that way?"
Ryn let out a calm exhale, handing it back to Amelia.
"Because he didn't know that he could."
Her fingers tightened around the flute.
"…And that's why we start here."
Ryn nodded. "Step one," he said.
"You master this. Everything else depends on it."
***
The next morning Amelia stood in the small courtyard behind the barracks, snow settling on her shoulders as she lifted the flute.
Ryn watched her with arms crossed. "Start with a simple tone."
She blew a thin, shaky note. It wavered in the cold air.
Ryn shook his head. "Again. Don't force the sound. Intention before breath."
She tried again.
This time, the note sliced cleaner. A pigeon perched on a rooftop froze mid-step, head snapping toward her before taking flight in a panic.
Amelia startled. "Did I—?"
"Yes," Ryn said. "It's working."
They trained until her breath came uneven and her fingers tingled. Some tones came out weak, others so sharp they made a guard pause mid-sentence as though he'd forgotten what he was saying.
Amelia apologized a dozen times; Ryn assured her the guard would be fine.
By the end of the first day, she found a tone that made a stray dog freeze, tail tucked. Another that made Ryn's heartbeat stutter for just a second—not enough to hinder him, but enough to confirm the flute's potential.
Ryn nodded with quiet satisfaction.
"This is the hardest part," he said. "And you're already beginning to unlock what the Administrator never saw."
Amelia exhaled, steadying herself.
"One part done, then."
***
The second day, Ryn led her into an alley near the eastern wall—narrow, shadowed, enclosed by crates and wooden beams overhead.
Amelia frowned. "This place feels like we're the ones walking into a trap."
"Good," Ryn said. "That's what Scorpio will think too."
He pointed to a wooden door with a narrow barred window overlooking the alley.
"You'll be in there during the fight."
Amelia blinked. "A storage room."
"A vantage point," Ryn corrected. "He'll be focused on me and not on you."
She pressed her lips together but nodded. "Fine. I'll… make it work."
They spent an afternoon finding the perfect angle inside the storage room—where she could see Ryn clearly, where the sound could escape without revealing her position, and where she could retreat instantly if Scorpio somehow sensed her.
By sunset, she knew the room's shadows as well as she knew her own.
***
On the third, Ryn walked the length of the alley, boots crunching over frost.
"Scorpio's greatest strength is mobility," he explained. "He loves open spaces, rooftops, anywhere he can disappear."
"So we pick a place he can't," Amelia murmured.
"Exactly."
Ryn traced a faint X on the ground with chalk.
"This is where I'll stand. He'll come straight to me."
Amelia looked around the cramped passage, taking in the stacked crates, the overhead beams, the tight angles.
"…It's claustrophobic."
"It's perfect," Ryn said.
They spent the next hours scouting every approach, every blind corner, even the rooftops above. Ryn tossed pebbles to watch how sound bounced. Amelia practiced moving silently through the storage room.
The alley began to feel less like a place and more like a blueprint—a trap half-set.
***
On the fourth morning, Amelia sat cross-legged on her cot, watching as Ryn stretched his sore arm.
"You really think he'll ignore me?" she asked quietly.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because he likes to break the smartest first." Ryn tied his hair back. "He'll see me as the challenge. You're the one he'll want to savor."
Amelia shuddered. "…That's horrifying."
"It's also predictable," Ryn said. "And predictability helps us."
She watched him practice his footwork, dodging around nimbly and swinging his blade with finesse. She knew it was definitely far off the realm of his [Enhanced Senses], but she brushed the thought aside.
"When he hits me with his poison, I'll give you the signal."
Ryn breathed hard.
"And remember, no matter how bad the situation looks, don't interfere."
Amelia swallowed hard, but she nodded.
"And if he goes too far?"
"He won't," Ryn said. "He wants to watch the venom take effect."
***
The fifth morning had Ryn injecting a dose of the Basilisk's poison on himself again.
Amelia bit her lip, not wanting the same situation to repeat.
[Poison Resistance Activated: Poison will be nullified.]
The poisoned veins on his arm suddenly retreated, converging on a point until they disappeared altogether.
Amelia gasped in amazement, Ryn smiling at the results.
"See? Maybe drinking the poison wasn't so bad after all?" he smirked.
The comment earned him a punch from Amelia.
"Though Scorpio's poison is stronger than this. So the maximum time I can hold out is roughly two minutes."
Amelia nodded—the day of reckoning would be tomorrow.
And she made sure to memorize every cue.
***
On the morning of the fated day, Amelia stood alone in the storage room's window frame, looking at the alley underneath her, flute lifted.
Ryn looked up at her.
"This is the most important part," he said. "The moment he hits me with venom… he'll drop his guard. That's your time to strike."
Amelia licked her lips, breath trembling. "And… if I miss the timing?"
"Then I die," Ryn said plainly. "But you won't miss."
She wanted to blast him with a fire spell, but it'd waste her magic.
So she breathed in, closed her eyes—and played.
The note vibrated through the wood, sharp enough to disturb dust from the rafters, cold enough to make Ryn's muscles twitch involuntarily.
She froze him for half a heartbeat.
Just one.
But that was all they would need.
She lowered the flute slowly.
"Okay," she whispered. "I can do it."
Ryn nodded.
"Then we're ready."
***
They walked together down the now-familiar street as shadows stretched long from the houses. Torches flickered along Deimos' walls. The air felt heavier tonight.
Amelia tightened her cloak. "He's coming tonight, isn't he?"
Ryn nodded.
They stopped at the entrance as he turned over to Amelia.
"This is it," he said quietly.
Amelia nodded once. "I'll get into position."
He watched as she slipped into the storage room—closing the door behind her with only the faintest creak. Through the small barred window, he saw the outline of her head as she moved into the shadows.
Ryn's hands trembled, and he let himself loose. He'd been playing the confident strategist to her, but even he didn't know if this plan would work. There were too many variables.
Nonetheless, he had to take the risk, or else they would just die at Scorpio's hands.
He stepped into the alley alone, the world narrowing to the marked X on the ground.
Ryn exhaled and rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight of the coming fight settle into his bones.
He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Amelia was waiting just behind the wall, the flute silent but certain in her grasp.
Everything was in place.
Everything they'd prepared for.
With [Enhanced Senses] he hadn't felt anything yet. No killing intent.
But soon.
Very soon.
He lowered his gaze.
"…Come," he murmured under his breath, almost like an invitation meant for the dark.
"We're ready."
As if on cue, a cloud of black smoke converged on the alley's entrance, and a figure stepped out.
12th Seat of the Cult of Evernight…
Scorpio.