The descent back into the earth felt like sinking into a warm, familiar grave. Caelan moved through the hidden passages with the ease of someone who had been born in darkness, every twist and drop remembered in muscle and bone that still weren't quite his. The wound at his side throbbed with each step, a steady, nagging reminder that Thorne Ironfist had marked him, even if only with steel.
The air grew thicker the deeper he went, heavy with the scent of damp stone, burning torches, and the faint metallic tang of blood from last night's sparring rings. Bioluminescent fungi clung to the walls like living stars, their slow pulse the only heartbeat the tunnels needed.
When he finally stepped into the main cavern, the lair was alive with the quiet chaos of people who lived on the edge of everything.
Lira spotted him first. She was perched on a crate near the central fire pit, tuning her lute with quick, clever fingers. The moment she saw the blood staining his cloak, her teasing grin vanished.
"Shade," she called, voice sharp enough to cut glass. "You look like you danced with a wyrmbeast and lost."
Caelan gave her his best crooked smile. "Wyrmbeasts are kinder."
She hopped down, lute slung across her back, and closed the distance in three long strides. Her silver hair caught the firelight like liquid mercury. "Let me see."
He lifted the edge of his cloak without protest. The makeshift bandage was soaked through, dark and sticky.
Lira whistled low. "That's Ironclad work. Clean cut. Precise. You're lucky it wasn't deeper."
"Luck has nothing to do with it," Caelan muttered.
From the shadows near the healer's alcove, Grom emerged. The dwarf moved with the slow, deliberate weight of mountains. His one good eye scanned Caelan from head to toe, then lingered on the wound.
"Sit," Grom ordered. It wasn't a request.
Caelan obeyed, dropping onto a low stool near the fire. The heat licked at his face, welcome after the cold night above.
Grom knelt, thick fingers surprisingly gentle as he peeled away the torn cloth. He made a low sound in his throat—half growl, half sigh. "You're an idiot, boy. Going topside alone, against orders."
"I got the intel," Caelan said, voice steady despite the fresh sting as Grom cleaned the wound with a cloth soaked in something that smelled like pine and fire.
Lira leaned against a nearby stalagmite, arms crossed. "And what did our clever thief learn while he was busy getting carved up?"
Caelan met her eyes. "The Ironclad are moving on the primary vault. Week's end. Thorne Ironfist is leading the expedition himself."
The names landed like stones in still water.
Lira's expression darkened. "Thorne himself. That's… inconvenient."
Grom grunted as he pressed a poultice against the cut. The mixture burned cold, then warm, spreading relief like sunlight through veins. "Inconvenient is one word for it. The man's a walking fortress. Honor-bound. Unbending. If he's coming for the Heartstone, he won't stop until he has it or he's dead."
Caelan watched the fire dance. "He almost had me tonight."
Neither of them missed the way his voice roughened on the word almost.
Lira tilted her head. "And yet here you are. Bleeding but breathing."
"He's good," Caelan admitted. The words tasted strange on his tongue. "Very good. Fast. Strong. Focused."
Grom finished binding the wound with clean linen, tying it off with a knot that would hold through a fight. "Sounds like admiration."
"It's observation," Caelan snapped, too quickly.
Eros, who had been invisibly circling the fire, let out a delighted squeak only Caelan could hear. "Oh, he's good. Very good. I'm keeping score, darling. That was definitely a point for tension."
Caelan ignored him.
Lira studied him for a long moment, then sighed. "Vesper wants you. Council chamber. Now."
The council chamber was carved higher up the cavern wall, reached by swaying rope bridges and narrow stone steps worn smooth by generations of thieves. Torches burned in sconces shaped like screaming skulls. The air here smelled of old parchment, wax, and secrets.
Vesper waited alone.
The Veil Thieves' leader was a lean, dangerous man in his forties, hair the color of storm clouds, eyes like chipped obsidian. He wore black robes embroidered with silver threads that caught the light like spider silk. When Caelan entered, Vesper didn't look up from the map spread across the stone table.
"Report," he said simply.
Caelan told him everything. The outpost. The missive. The vault timeline. Thorne's name.
He left out the part where their blades had crossed inches from each other's throats. He left out the heartbeat that had stuttered when blue eyes met green. Some truths were too dangerous to speak aloud, even here.
When he finished, Vesper finally looked at him.
"You're wounded."
"A scratch."
Vesper's gaze lingered on the bandage visible beneath the torn cloak. "A scratch from Thorne Ironfist is never just a scratch."
Silence stretched, taut as a bowstring.
Then Vesper spoke again, voice low. "The guild is fracturing. Half want to sell the Heartstone fragment to the highest bidder. The other half want to use it—turn it against the Ironclad, against Vaelthar, against anyone who's ever chained us. And now the captain himself is coming."
He leaned forward, palms flat on the map. "We can't afford mistakes, Shade. Not from you."
The words weren't a threat. They were a warning. And they landed heavier than any blade.
Caelan met his gaze. "I don't make mistakes."
Vesper studied him for another long breath. Then he nodded once. "Good. Because tomorrow night we strike the secondary vault. We take the rest of the Heartstone before Ironfist can. And if he stands in our way…"
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
Caelan left the chamber with the weight of that unfinished threat pressing against his ribs.
Down on the main floor, the night had deepened. Most of the thieves had drifted to their alcoves or the sparring rings. The fire pit burned low, casting long shadows that danced like ghosts.
Caelan found a quiet corner near the edge of the cavern, where the fungi glowed brightest. He sat with his back against cool stone, knees drawn up, staring into the soft violet light.
Eros settled beside him, cross-legged on nothing at all.
"Big night tomorrow," the spirit said quietly. "Big stakes. Big, brooding warrior standing between you and success."
Caelan didn't answer right away.
When he spoke, his voice was soft. Raw. "I don't know how to do this."
Eros tilted his head. "Do what?"
"Feel… things. Real things. Without running. Without lying. Without turning it into a game."
The spirit's golden eyes softened. "That's the point, darling. You're not supposed to know. That's why it matters."
Caelan pressed his palm against the bandage on his side. The wound throbbed faintly, a reminder of steel and fury and eyes that had seen straight through every mask he wore.
Somewhere far above, in the stone fortress under the twin moons, Thorne Ironfist would be standing watch, sword across his knees, mind replaying the thief's face in the torchlit corridor.
And somewhere in the space between them—between hatred and hunger, between duty and desire—the first fragile spark of something impossible had begun to glow.
Caelan closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he would steal from the man who had almost killed him.
Tomorrow, he would look into those blue eyes again.
And tomorrow, he would begin to discover whether love could be stolen the way a dagger was stolen, or whether it could only be given, freely, foolishly, terrifyingly.
The fungi pulsed around him, slow and steady, like a heartbeat that refused to be ignored.
And in the dark, the game grew deeper.