Chapter 38
Elora
Elora caught it before anything else—that unmistakable copper tang cutting through the tunnel’s wet stone musk, announcing blood had been spilled ahead.
“This way,” she murmured.
They had disregarded Florence’s orders to scout their quadrant of the red district.
Elora felt a deeper instinct guiding her.
The tunnels beneath the crumbled rally site would lead them directly to Symond, or at least to a more accurate location than the spool.
She took a breath, focusing on the lingering scents in the air, hoping to catch a trace of Symond’s essence that would guide them through the darkness.
The air grew colder as they descended, musty with disuse and the acrid tang of gunpowder residue from the explosives, and beneath it all, that persistent thread of fresh blood.
“How far?” Rell whispered from behind her, his boots nearly silent on the stone. The leather of his coat creaked softly with each movement, a sound so familiar it had become comforting.
“Not far,” Elora replied, pausing at a fork in the tunnel. She drew a long breath, sifting through the city’s factory chaos. “Left. The blood’s stronger this way.”
Violette stalked alongside them, unsheathed blade held low, its polished surface gleaming faintly under the distant streetlight that seeped through the overhead grates. “Any sign of Symond?”
“Nothing yet.”
Water dripped somewhere ahead, each splash echoing like a tiny heartbeat in the enclosed space. Elora’s pupils had expanded in the darkness, transforming the shadows into varying shades of gray and blue rather than impenetrable black.
She rounded a corner and froze.
Two bodies lay sprawled on the tunnel floor. A shaft of faint light from above caught on the spreading pool beneath them, turning the black liquid to molasses as it crept across the uneven stone.
Violette brushed past Elora, sinking to her knees beside the smaller figure. “It’s Renna.” Her voice caught, then steadied. She leaned closer, fingers hovering above the girl’s neck where a dark line gaped like a second mouth, its edges clean and precise.
Elora stepped toward the second body—a uniformed soldier slumped against the wall.
His head lolled at an unnatural angle, revealing a gash across his throat so deep his spine gleamed white in the dim light.
His face, half-shadowed, sent a jolt through Elora’s chest. Her mouth went dry.
She knew him. She was certain of it, though the memory remained frustratingly out of reach.
“What is it?” Rell asked, stepping closer. “Elora?”
A chill crawled up her spine as she stared at the dead soldier.
The face triggered a flash of memory. Not someone she’d known well, but someone she’d seen.
The Institute. That was the only possibility.
Her stomach twisted as she realized he must have been one of Thorn’s men, perhaps a guard she’d passed in the corridors or spotted during one of the countless “lessons.”
“I’ve seen him before,” she whispered. “At The Institute. I’m sure of it.”
Violette’s head snapped up, her eyes narrowing. “An apprentice and a dead institute guard.” Violette’s words came out level, but Elora noticed the subtle clench of muscle along the edge of her jawline. “This isn’t a coincidence. The bombing might not have been the empire directly.”
Elora stepped away from the bodies, inhaling deeply.
The tunnels reeked of death and human waste, but Symond’s scent was frustratingly absent.
She concentrated harder, filtering through the layers of smells—mildew, rat droppings, old smoke, the lingering traces of unwashed bodies that had passed through here before.
Nothing. No hint of Symond at all.
“I can’t pick up his scent,” she admitted, frustration edging her voice. “But the spool pointed this way. He has to be somewhere in the Red District.”
“Then we keep moving,” Rell said, already heading deeper into the tunnel. She drew strength from his certainty, though her own conviction wavered.
The passage narrowed further, forcing them to duck beneath low-hanging pipes that dripped foul-smelling water onto their shoulders. The air congealed around them, clinging to her skin like the cold sweat of a fever dream.
A metallic tang pricked at her awareness, cutting through the tunnel’s fetid air. Elora slowed, crouching lower to examine the ground. Her enhanced vision caught what human eyes would miss entirely: a dark smear against the darker stone, barely visible in the gloom.
“Wait.” She knelt, pressing her fingertips to the wet streak. Blood.
She brought her fingers closer to her face, inhaling the essence trapped within the crimson fluid.
The blood had dried slightly, but the scent signature hit her with stunning clarity.
There were sharp notes of fear, the bitter edge of pain, and beneath it all, the telltale essence that was uniquely Symond.
“It’s his,” she said, wiping her fingers against her robe. “Symond’s blood. He came this way.” She looked ahead, her vision piercing the darkness to reveal more smears, forming a trail that led deeper into the tunnels. “There’s more. Looks like he was dragged northeast.”
A slight tension rippled through Violette’s shoulders—so subtle anyone else might have missed it.
Her face remained impassive, all business and focus, but Elora’s heightened senses caught the change in her scent.
Beneath the leather and weapon oil came something new: the sharp, vinegary note of fear, invisible to everyone but unmistakable to Elora.
They followed the blood trail through winding passages that grew narrower and damper until they reached a rusted metal ladder bolted into the stone wall. Elora tilted her head back, nostrils flaring as she caught the scent of night air filtering down through a grate above.
“He went up here,” she said, already reaching for the first rung.
She climbed into the night, finding herself in a rain-slicked alley where the air hung heavy with the Red District’s signature cocktail: sour alcohol, bodies that hadn’t seen soap in weeks, and the cloying sweetness of bargain fragrances trying to mask it all.
But Symond’s blood trail had changed. The smears were gone.
Elora inhaled deeply, filtering through the assault of city smells until she caught it again—faint droplets of Symond’s blood, spaced farther apart now. She tracked the pattern they made, leading away from the alley toward a main thoroughfare.
“The trail’s different,” she murmured as Rell and Violette climbed up behind her. “No more dragging. Just drops now, spaced apart. Someone was carrying him.”
She moved with purpose, following the invisible trail that only her senses could detect.
Each drop of blood pulled them deeper into the Red District’s maze, past raucous taverns and perfumed brothels, through alleyways where even moonlight feared to venture.
The surrounding buildings transformed, growing more austere with each turn, until they halted abruptly at a corner.
Rising above the squat buildings of the district, a tower stretched toward the night sky like a monolith, dominating the district’s humble structures.
A bright light burned at its pinnacle, pulsing with a steady rhythm that cast eerie shadows across the cobblestones.
Empire soldiers made their rounds, the moon tracing silver outlines along their polished breastplates as they paced their assigned paths.
“The communication tower,” Rell whispered, pulling Elora back into the shadows of an adjacent building. “Every district has one.”
Elora stared up at the imposing structure, her enhanced vision picking out the armed guards stationed at intervals along its height.
The blood trail led directly to the ornate doors at the base, where two guards stood at attention, their faces impassive beneath their helmets.
This was it. This was where they’d taken him.
“Symond is inside.”
Violette tensed beside her, hand tightening on her blade. “How many guards can you sense?”
Elora closed her eyes, focusing on the sounds and scents emanating from the structure. Boots on stone. Metal against leather. The sharp tang of weapon oil. At least eight, maybe more further up.
“Too many for a direct approach,” she answered, opening her eyes.
Rell nodded, already scanning the tower’s perimeter. “We’ll need a to—”
“You were assigned the southeast corner.”
Their whispered planning shattered at the sound of a familiar voice.
Florence materialized at the alley’s entrance, her outline carved against the feeble glow of distant streetlamps.
Elora’s pulse thundered in her throat as she forced the beast to retreat—claws withdrawing, fangs shrinking—completing her transformation to human form before Florence could glimpse her true nature.
The world dulled around her as her heightened senses ebbed away, leaving her momentarily light-headed.
“Did you find something worth abandoning your quadrant for?”
Rell straightened, angling his body slightly to place himself between Florence and Elora. A protective gesture that Florence didn’t miss, her gaze sharpening as she registered the movement.
“He’s in the communication tower,” Rell said, not bothering with excuses. “We followed his blood trail through the tunnels. It leads directly inside.”
“And you were planning to do what, exactly?”
“We were assessing,” Violette replied, her voice steady. “Gathering intelligence before reporting back.”
Elora studied Florence’s face—no flared nostrils, no tightened jaw, just the same analytical detachment she’d come to expect. Florence seemed to take their independent investigation in stride.
She stepped deeper into the alley, gesturing for them to follow her into a recessed doorway that offered better cover from prying eyes. “Stay here,” she instructed, then disappeared around the corner.
Elora pressed her back against a wall. She glanced at Rell, who stood tense beside her, his jaw tight with unspoken frustration.