Prologue
Lethren was correcting a line he had argued over for weeks when the glass began to vibrate.Not hard enough to shatter. Just enough to notice.
The tremor passed through the tall windows and into the desk. His quill slipped, dragging ink across the margin. He stared at the smear, irritated more than afraid, then lifted his head and listened.
From below came a sound that did not belong to the fort.Steel meeting flesh.Stone receiving it.
He stood and crossed to the window.
The courtyard lay open beneath him, already thick with bodies. Men moved among them in armor dulled by use, faces bare, eyes fixed forward. Their blades rose and fell with practiced patience, each stroke measured, unhurried. Scholars collapsed where they stood. Some reached for doors. Some held books tight to their chests. Blood spread across the stone and ran into the seams between blocks.
One man broke from the line and ran.
He slipped, caught himself, staggered on. Steel took him at the neck. His body slid across the courtyard while the others stepped around him and continued their work.
Lethren turned from the window and ran.
The inner halls were slick. He skidded once, caught himself against a column streaked dark with handprints, and kept moving. Bodies lay folded into doorways, slumped against shelves. One scholar knelt against the wall, hands pressed to his throat, breath bubbling uselessly between his fingers.
Lethren looked once, then turned away.
The high study door gave beneath his hand.
"Master Luwan," he said. His voice broke. "They're inside."
Luwan sat at the desk, writing.
Fire crept along the shelves behind him. Parchment curled inward, collapsed, drifted down as ash. Smoke pressed low against the ceiling. The quill scratched steadily across the page, never pausing.
Lethren took a step forward. "Master. We have to leave."
Luwan raised one hand.
Lethren stopped.
Footsteps reached the corridor outside. Steel brushed stone. A sound ended mid-breath.
Lethren backed away, pulled the door shut, and dropped the bar into place. His fingers found the small knife at his belt, meant for trimming vellum. He turned toward the stair.
He never reached it.
The impact came without warning. Steel punched through his chest and drove him backward. The knife fell and spun across the floor. He struck the stone hard, breath tearing out of him.
His hand closed around the knife anyway.The blade scraped armor and skittered away.
Blood filled his mouth, hot and thick. He stared up at the ceiling as it blurred, dimmed, and went dark.
Inside the study, Luwan finished the line.
He set the quill aside and folded the page, once, then again. He tied it to the pigeon's leg with careful fingers. The bird shuddered, wings twitching in the heat and smoke. Luwan stroked its neck and opened the window.
The pigeon vanished into the night.
The vial waited on the desk.
The liquid burned. His body stiffened, then shook. Blood spilled from his mouth and soaked into the wood, darkening the page beneath him. He slumped forward, breath hitching once before stopping.
The door broke inward moments later.
The men entered the study and took in the fire, the ash, the empty shelves, the scholar already dead over his work. One checked his neck and withdrew his hand.
Blades came free.
Bodies fell among the burning shelves. Blood spread across stone and ash alike.
The fire climbed into the beams.
Smoke poured from the fort's windows and drifted into the night. Blood ran down the steps in slow, dark streams. Above it all, the blue moon hung low and unmoving.
By morning, the fort stood empty.
Shelves were blackened.Desks lay split and scorched.
The windows stared out over the city, and no one answered them.