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Blackwater Port earned its name from the oil slicks that rainbowed the harbor—industrial runoff from the smelters mixing with sewage and the occasional corpse. The city was a tumor on the Iron Coast, swollen with vice and violence, where The Covenant's presence wasn't hidden but celebrated.
Riven stood on a rooftop overlooking the warehouse district, watching workers load crates onto ships bound for the Ashen Plains. Human cargo mixed with legitimate goods. Nobody cared. In Blackwater, slavery was just another industry.
Marcus Vey's procurement meeting was happening in three hours. An abandoned blood-pit on the city's eastern edge, repurposed as a trading floor where flesh merchants conducted business away from even Blackwater's minimal oversight.
Riven had spent two days studying the location. Four entrances. Two guard rotations. Underground holding cells where "merchandise" was stored before transport. The pit itself was a circular arena, fifty feet across, with stadium seating rising on all sides.
Once, people had paid to watch slaves fight to the death there. Now they paid to buy the fighters wholesale.
The void whispered approval. This place reeked of suffering. Blood had soaked into the sand so deep it would never wash clean.
Perfect place for Marcus Vey to die.
Riven shadow-stepped from the rooftop to an alley below, the void folding space around him. The corruption was worse today—he'd vomited black bile this morning, his veins had spread to his neck, and his reflection showed something that barely looked human anymore.
Six months. Maybe less now.
He needed to move faster. Strike harder. The list of targets was too long and his timeline too short.
But rushing meant mistakes. And mistakes meant death.
He made his way through Blackwater's twisted streets, hood up, avoiding eye contact. The city was too crowded for his enhanced senses—every heartbeat, every whispered conversation, every stink of fear and desperation crashed against him like waves.
The Northern Ember had taught him to filter it. To narrow focus until only relevant data remained. But the void-corruption was making that harder. Sometimes the sensory input just overwhelmed, left him dizzy and disoriented.
Not ideal conditions for an assassination.
He ducked into a tavern called the Rusty Anchor—the kind of establishment where questions got you stabbed and anonymity was the default. Ordered ale he wouldn't drink and found a corner table with good sightlines.
The target reconnaissance had revealed something interesting: Marcus Vey didn't travel alone. He brought muscle—four personal guards, all ex-arena fighters who'd won enough matches to buy their freedom. They were loyal because Vey had given them that freedom. Had plucked them from the pits and offered them purpose beyond bleeding for entertainment.
Noble, in a twisted way. Gave them something to fight for beyond survival.
Made them dangerous.
Riven was studying the ale he wasn't drinking when someone sat across from him.
Female. Mid-twenties. Dark skin, darker hair, with scars that marked her as a fighter. She wore leather armor that had seen use and carried herself with the casual confidence of someone who knew exactly how dangerous she was.
"You're new," she said. Not a question.
Riven said nothing. Watched her hands. Both visible. No immediate threat, but that could change in a heartbeat.
"Blackwater doesn't get a lot of tourists," she continued. "Especially not ones who smell like the Void Marches." Her smile had no warmth. "So either you're stupid, or you're here for something specific."
"Passing through."
"Bullshit. You've been casing the eastern district for two days. I know because I've been watching you." She leaned back. "Name's Renna. I work for Marcus Vey."
Riven's hand moved toward his blade. Stopped when three more fighters materialized from the tavern's crowd—subtle, professional, forming a perimeter.
Renna raised her hands in a peaceful gesture. "Easy. If I wanted you dead, you'd already have a knife in your spine. I'm here to talk."
"About?"
"About the fact that you're planning to kill my employer." She said it casually, like discussing weather. "You're good—really good—but you made one mistake. You didn't account for augury."
"Augury."
"Vey keeps a blood-seer on retainer. Old woman who reads futures in animal guts. Completely mad, but accurate enough that he listens." Renna's expression was neutral. "Three days ago, she had a vision. Shadow with black eyes coming to kill him. Said you'd strike during the procurement meeting."
Riven processed this. The plan was compromised. Every advantage he'd built through reconnaissance was gone. Walking into that blood-pit now meant walking into a trap.
"So what?" he asked. "You're here to warn me off? Threaten me? Kill me?"
"None of the above." Renna signaled to the bartender. Two drinks arrived—actual liquor, not the watered-down swill most patrons got. "I'm here to make you an offer."
"I don't take contracts."
"This isn't a contract. It's a trade." She drank, watching him over the rim. "You want Vey dead. I want him dead. Seems like we have aligned interests."
Riven studied her. Looking for deception, ulterior motives. "You work for him."
"I work for whoever pays. Vey paid well for five years. But the blood-pit business is getting worse. More kids. Younger kids. Things that make even hardened fighters sick." Her jaw tightened. "I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of. But there are lines. Vey's been crossing them."
"So kill him yourself."
"Can't. Blood-oath." She pulled back her sleeve, showed a scar that pulsed faintly red. "Bound me to his service. If I raise a hand against him, the oath kills me. But it doesn't stop me from helping someone else do it."
"Why should I trust you?"
"You shouldn't. I'm a mercenary with flexible morals and a talent for betrayal." Renna finished her drink. "But you're walking into a trap. The blood-pit will have fifty guards tonight. Not the usual rotation—elite fighters pulled from Morghul's personal forces. They know you're coming. They'll be ready."
"Let them be ready."
"You're good. Maybe even legendary. But fifty enhanced fighters in an enclosed space?" She shook her head. "You'll take down twenty, maybe thirty. Then they'll swarm you. Wear you down. Capture you alive if possible—Vey wants to make an example. Dead if necessary."
Riven considered this. Fifty fighters changed the mathematics significantly. He could kill that many given time and space to maneuver. But in a confined arena, exhaustion would claim him before he finished.
"What's your offer?" he asked.
Renna leaned forward. "I get you inside through the underground entrance. The holding cells connect to the arena through a maintenance tunnel—it's not guarded because it's not on any official blueprints. You come up through the floor, surprise them, kill Vey before they can organize."
"And you get?"
"Freedom. The blood-oath breaks when he dies. I walk away, start fresh somewhere The Covenant doesn't know my face." Her eyes were hard. "I'm not asking to be friends. I'm not asking for trust. I'm offering you a better angle on a target you want dead anyway."
Riven's void-enhanced senses picked apart her micro-expressions. Heart rate elevated but steady. Breathing controlled. Pupils dilated slightly—stress, but not deception.
She believed what she was saying. Whether it was truth or just a very good lie remained to be seen.
"The underground entrance," he said. "Where?"
"Drainage tunnel three blocks east of the blood-pit. Leads to the old sewer system. From there, maintenance access to the holding cells." Renna produced a crude map from her coat, slid it across the table. "Guard change is at sunset. Ten-minute window when the tunnel's unwatched."
Riven studied the map. The route made tactical sense. Coming from below would split the defenders' attention, force them to cover multiple entry points.
Or it was a perfect kill-box where they'd corner him underground with nowhere to shadow-step.
"Why help me?" he asked. "Really."
Renna was quiet for a moment. "I had a daughter once. Sold her to pay a debt when she was seven. Told myself it was necessary. That she'd be fine." Her voice went flat. "She ended up in a blood-pit. Fought in the children's division for three years before someone killed her."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Sorry doesn't help anyone." She stood. "Vey's procurement meeting is selling forty kids tonight. Ages five to twelve. Prime fighting age, he calls it. They'll be shipped to the Ashen Plains tomorrow if you don't stop it."
She left the map and walked away. Her backup fighters melted back into the crowd.
Riven sat alone, studying the route she'd provided. Every instinct screamed trap. The void whispered warnings. His training said walking into an enemy's prepared position was suicide.
But forty children.
He thought about Lyra. About the children Sylus had saved from the convoy. About Kessa's dead brother and Ash's burn scars and all the small bodies broken for profit.
Thought about Marcus Vey sitting in that blood-pit, orchestrating suffering, enriching himself on screams.
The trap didn't matter.
The odds didn't matter.
Riven folded the map, tucked it into his coat beside Lyra's wooden horse.
Three hours until the procurement meeting.
Two hours until sunset and the guard change.
He left the Rusty Anchor and made his way toward the eastern district. The void-corruption pulsed beneath his skin, eager and hungry.
Tonight, the blood-pit would live up to its name.
Whether Renna was ally or enemy, he'd find out soon enough.
And if it was a trap?
Then he'd kill everyone involved and burn the place down around their corpses.
The children would be free either way.
That's what mattered.
That's all that mattered.