The catacombs beneath the capital were a flooded, treacherous labyrinth of ancient stonework that predated the Sovereign Imperium by three centuries. The Ministry of Whispers occasionally used the upper levels for secure prisoner transit, but the lower depths—the flooded aqueducts and collapsed burial chambers—were left to the dark.
Sera Myrvalis navigated the freezing, knee-deep water entirely by memory.
She carried no light source. Lighting a lantern in the depths was a beacon that would draw the attention of the Ministry's automated disruption wards near the surface. She moved slowly, her unadorned gray robes heavy with freezing water, her soft boots sliding precariously on the algae-slick stones.
At thirty-nine, Sera had spent the last four years building a shadow network composed almost entirely of illicit mechanists, smugglers, and disenfranchised archivists. She was a scholar of raw data. She had no combat training. She carried no weapons.
