Chapter 22 #2
Ivan inclined his head. “Yes.” He leaned back slightly in his chair. “The location is called Fenreach,” he continued. “And it is heavily warded. Layered perimeter sigils. Illusion fields along the eastern marsh to misdirect scouts. Void distortion along the southern approach.”
His eyes flicked briefly to Dominic. “And he will have improved it since I last saw it.”
“Last saw it,” Yoni echoed. “When?”
“Months ago.”
“And you expect us to trust your information.”
“By all means,” Ivan said. “Wait. I’m sure Osin will send notice when the prisoner becomes more convenient to reach.”
That silenced the table.
Dominic studied him in that infuriatingly patient way of his. “You’re certain.”
“I am.”
“And you still propose we go.”
“I propose you don’t use the road.”
Yoni barked a humorless laugh. “You think we can rift through layered warding and Void distortion without lighting the sky on fire?”
Ivan’s eyes slid toward him. “I didn’t say rift.”
“Explain,” Dominic said.
“You’re thinking in flares,” Ivan said. “Full breach. Power declaration. That’s how Osin does it.
That’s how the Legion does it.” Ivan reached for a scrap of parchment pinned beneath a dagger.
He pulled it free and flipped it over. Took the charcoal from beside the lantern and drew three intersecting arcs across the parchment.
“This is not a rift. It’s a pressure fold between currents. ”
“You can’t navigate that blind,” one of the lieutenants said.
“No,” Ivan agreed. “You can’t.” He added smaller marks. Intersecting arcs. Calculated angles. “But she could.” The words left his mouth before he had time to reconsider them.
Yoni’s eyes narrowed. “She?”
“Elara,” Dario said quietly.
Ivan dipped the quill into ink without looking at any of them.
“She mapped current seams. Pressure gradients in the Void. Places where reality thins but does not tear. She crafted two spells—called them the reactor and identifier,” he said.
“It isn’t full rifting. It’s…slipping between.
It’s quiet. There’s no flare. No displacement signature large enough to alert perimeter wards. ”
Yoni scoffed softly. “That’s impossible.”
“That’s mathematics.”
“Show me,” Dominic said.
Yoni’s head snapped toward him. “You can’t be serious.”
Dominic ignored his brother and stepped closer, studying the crude geometry. “You can execute this?”
“Yes.”
“With how many?”
“Six,” Ivan said. “Eight at most. Any more and the seam destabilizes.”
Yoni stepped in beside them, lowering his head over the parchment as though the lines might yield their meaning if he stared hard enough. Ivan watched him struggle with it for a moment before rolling his eyes.
“We’re not sending eight men into a fortified site,” Yoni said flatly.
Dominic said nothing. He dragged a hand down his face instead, weariness settling briefly into the lines around his mouth. “You’re certain this won’t flare?” he asked.
“If it’s executed properly,” Ivan said, “no.”
Dominic’s gaze lifted. “And if it isn’t?”
Ivan gave the faintest shrug. “Then you die quietly instead of loudly.”
That earned him another murderous look from Yoni that Ivan didn’t bother acknowledging. Behind him, Dario finally stepped away from the post where he had been standing watch. The man moved to the table and bent over the map.
“How far would it take us?” he asked.
Ivan traced the line he had drawn with the tip of one finger. “Close enough to avoid the outer illusion fields,” he said. “But not close enough to bypass the ground wards.”
Dario followed the path with his eyes. “So we would still need to breach the compound on foot.”
“We would.”
Silence settled briefly over the table as the implications arranged themselves in the minds around it. A faint crease appeared between Dominic’s brows as he considered the map. At last, he straightened and rolled his shoulders once, as if shrugging off a physical burden.
“The force returns toward Vredia at first light. They’ll draw the Legion north and pull the Shades with them.”
Yoni sat down petulantly. “You’re trusting him.”
“No,” Dominic replied calmly. “I’m using him.”
Ivan smiled faintly. Fair.
The tent flap stirred, canvas whispering against the pole as Bryn stepped inside, and conversation around the table faltered.
Yoni was on his feet before he seemed to know he’d moved.
His chair scraped harshly against packed earth.
The reflex was naked—unarmored—and for a beat even Dominic’s brow rose in mild surprise.
A lieutenant stood next, awkwardly, as though compelled by the motion rather than conviction. Then another. Chairs shifted. Boots scuffed. And before long, the small council table became a clumsy forest of half-standing men.
Ivan did not move.
“For the love of the Mother,” Bryn said, dry as winter wood. “Sit down.”
A few of the men ducked their heads, not quickly enough to hide the smiles tugging at their mouths. One of the younger lieutenants bent over the map, studying the charcoal lines as if they’d suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the world.
Yoni, to his credit, at least had the decency to look embarrassed. Color crept up his neck as he cleared his throat, muttered something under his breath, and lowered himself back into his chair with as much dignity as the moment allowed
Ivan watched the performance with mild interest, chin propped lightly against his hand. Some type of strange northern mating ritual, perhaps.
Bryn’s gaze slid briefly to his. Not hostile. Not warm, either. “Am I interrupting?”
“No,” Dominic said evenly. “We’re deciding whether to attempt the impossible.”
“Again?”
“Apparently,” Yoni muttered.
Ivan leaned back, folding his arms loosely across his chest. “You needn’t believe me,” he said. His tone was mild, almost conversational. “But you do need to choose quickly. When I saw Godfrey last, he was not in a condition to endure much more.”
Silence followed. Bryn was the one who broke it. “How do we know he’s still alive?”
It was the question that should have been asked first. The oath stirred beneath Ivan’s ribs—not as chain or command, but as memory.
“We don’t,” he said bluntly. “Not with certainty. But Godfrey understands Osin’s experiments better than any man still breathing under his employ.
Knowledge like that isn’t discarded lightly. Osin hoards what he finds useful.”