Chapter 33 – Azaria
AZARIA
The safe house sat in the old quarter of Tempest, tucked between crumbling warehouses and abandoned shops. From the outside, it looked like every other forgotten building on the street: boarded windows, rotting wood, the roof sagging like it might collapse at any moment.
I slipped through the wards without triggering them, stepping into the narrow alley that led to the back entrance. My hand brushed the door: old wood, splintered, covered in grime. Illusion magic. I pushed it open and stepped inside.
The interior was nothing like the exterior.
Clean wooden floors, solid walls, and a small sitting area with worn but comfortable furniture.
A kitchen in the corner, stocked with basics.
A narrow staircase leading up to two bedrooms and a washroom.
The wards shimmered as the door closed behind me, sealing out sound, sight, and magical detection.
Darann’s place. We both had access. No one would find us here unless we wanted them to.
I moved to the small table near the window, pulled out the chair, and sat.
The view showed the street outside—empty and quiet, exactly as it should be.
I set the dissection report on the table beside Korr’s dossier: the list of names, locations, and connections his network had compiled. Everything I needed.
Now I just had to wait.
Dusk settled. The wards shifted. Not in alarm, but in recognition. Someone keyed to the safe house approaching. I didn’t move from my seat. Just listened as boots hit the back steps, the door opened, and a familiar presence filled the room.
“Well, well,” a smooth, amused voice drawled. “Miss me, Princess?”
I turned my head.
Darann Tahlor stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with that cocky grin.
He looked exactly as I had seen him last: dark hair falling past his shoulders, longer on one side, tattoos curling up his left arm and neck in intricate patterns.
Dark eyes gleaming with intelligence and mischief.
The face that could charm information from nobles or blend into shadows without a second glance.
Dangerous in all the ways that mattered.
“You made good time,” I said.
“Got your message and rode straight through.” He pushed off the doorframe, crossing the room with easy confidence. “Figured if you were calling for help, it had to be important.” He dropped into the chair across from me, boots propped on the table, arms crossed. “So. What happened?”
I didn’t explain. Just slid the dissection report across the table.
He picked it up, boots coming down, posture shifting as he read. I watched his face—the amusement draining line by line, replaced by something harder. His jaw set when he reached the blood analysis. His eyes narrowed at the behavioral section. By the time he finished, the charm was gone entirely.
He set the pages down. “High-priority threat. Specific objective.”
“Someone in Kareth sold my location to Dravareth,” I said. “The council has been working with them. Months. Maybe years.”
“And the hounds?”
“Designed to counteract light magic.” I held his gaze. “Sent specifically for me.”
Darann went still. The kind of stillness I’d only seen a handful of times in nine years of knowing him.
“Light,” he said slowly. “Your magic is light.”
I saw him go back. To the camps. To a sixteen-year-old girl sitting in the dirt behind the supply tents, leaning against his chest while she practised.
Palms cupped together, coaxing a tiny orb of warm white light into existence.
He’d rested his chin on the top of her head whilst she practiced in the safety of his embrace.
That’s all I could do. That’s what I’d told him.
And it was true: I could make the orbs flicker to life, hold them for a few seconds, and that was it.
He asked me about it again over the years.
Why I never trained it. Why I didn’t push further.
I always had an answer—no time, no point, it never worked properly, I was better with blades. Eventually, he stopped asking.
He never knew what it was. Neither did I back then.
“Yes,” I said.
He stared at me. I watched it move through him—surprise first, then something like horror, then something deeper. Awe, maybe, or fear. Hard to tell with Darann.
“Well, fuck me, Princess,” he breathed. “Those little light orbs in the camps. That was light magic. The real thing.”
“I didn’t know what it was then.”
“And now you do.” His eyes sharpened. “So why the hells haven’t you trained it? If you’ve got the one magic that can?—”
“I can’t use it, Darann.”
“What do you mean you can’t use it?”
“I mean, it’s not available to me. It hasn’t been since I left the camps.” I kept my voice level. Gave him enough to understand. Not enough to trigger the thing coiled around my tongue that would punish me if I said more. “That’s all I can tell you.”
He read my face. Darann was sharp; sharper than most people gave him credit for. He heard what I wasn’t saying. The gap between “I can’t use it” and “that’s all I can tell you” was wide enough to drive a carriage through, and he saw every inch.
“Someone did this to you,” he said.
I didn’t answer. Didn’t have to.
His jaw clenched. Something dark moved behind his eyes—rage. The kind that had kept us both alive in the camps. Then he closed his eyes. Breathed in through his nose. Let it out slow. When he opened them again, the mask was back, controlled and focused.
“I only found out what it was recently,” I said. “And the circumstances haven’t changed. I still can’t access it. Knowing what it is doesn’t give me control over it.” I held his gaze. “So there’s no point discussing it. The focus is on Torven and his associates.”
He held my gaze for a long beat. I could see him filing it away: every question he wanted to ask, every thread he wanted to pull. Darann was patient when it suited him. He’d come back to this. But not tonight.
“They sent abyssal hounds after you because of it,” he said.
“Yes.”
His expression turned cold. “Tell me we’re about to kill those fuckers.”
I met his eyes. “We are.”
The grin returned, but different now. There was no charm in it. “Good. Thought you’d gone soft on me, Princess.”
“Not anymore.”
I pulled Korr’s dossier toward me and opened it. “I have a list. Torven’s associates. Council members and noblemen connected to Dravareth. Everyone who had a hand in this.”
Darann leaned forward, scanning the names. “And we’re hunting them.”
“Yes,” I paused. “And when we’re done, we’re bringing Hallen and Vareck back to Tempest. To face justice.”
His eyebrow raised. “They fled outside the city. That will not be easy.”
“I don’t care if it’s easy,” I said. “They locked me in a cell for six days, then ran like cowards. They’re coming back, one way or another.”
Darann studied me for a long moment. “Ghost and the Reaper. Back in action?”
It had been nine years since I wore that name. Nine years since the camps, since the work we did to survive, since the blood we spilled because no one else would.
I thought I’d left her behind. The Ghost. Buried her beneath rank and duty and the careful respectability of a captain’s commission. But she’d been waiting, patient and ready.
“It appears so,” I said.
Darann laughed, low and dangerous, full of anticipation. “Fuck, I’ve missed this.” He leaned forward. “Does the old man know?”
Tywin.
I shook my head. “He will. When the first body drops.”
Darann’s eyes gleamed. “And your squad? That brooding Second of yours? The Thornvales?”
“They don’t know. And they won’t. Not until it’s done.”
“They’re going to figure it out eventually,” Darann pointed out. “You can’t hide bodies forever.”
“I’m not trying to hide them.” I met his gaze. “I’m sending a message.”
Silence.
Then Darann sat back. “When do we start?”
“Tonight.” I pointed to the top name on the list. “Merrik Voss. One of Torven’s primary contacts. Runs messages between the council and Dravareth operatives. Lives alone in the merchant district.”
Darann read the details, nodding. “Quiet. Quick. In and out.”
“Exactly.”
He looked up. “You’ve thought this through.”
“I’ve had three days.”
“Good.” He stood, rolling his shoulders. “Then let’s not waste any more time.”
I stood, moving toward the stairs. “I need to change.”
Darann nodded, heading for the second bedroom. “Same. Five minutes.”
I emerged dressed in black leathers: fitted, silent, designed for movement. Hair pulled back tight, weapons secured at my hips and thighs. Not my usual set, but they were perfect for the job. Plain and unrecognizable.
Darann was already downstairs, similarly dressed in dark leathers, his tattoos hidden beneath long sleeves. His mask hung loosely around his neck. He looked up when I appeared. “Ready?”
I fastened my mask over the lower half of my face, then pulled the hood up. Darann did the same—black cloth covering nose to chin, leaving only his dark eyes visible.
We moved toward the door, wards parting to let us pass. The streets were dark. Empty.
“Just like old times,” Darann murmured as we slipped into the shadows.
The in-between opened like a wound in the air: cold, silent, swallowing us whole.
We stepped through, the world twisting for a heartbeat before spitting us out three blocks away. The merchant district materialized in the shadows of a narrow alley, quiet and still.
I knew these streets. Had walked them as a captain, as a spy, as an academy trainee.
Knew every corner, every exit, every place to vanish if things went wrong.
Darann knew them too. He’d memorized the map of Tempest: every district, every lane, every building worth knowing. His mind magic made it permanent.
He glanced at me. “Second floor. Third window from the left.”
I nodded.
We moved.
The building’s back entrance was locked. Darann had it open in seconds. We slipped inside, boots silent on worn wooden stairs.
Second floor. Third door on the left.
I pressed my ear to the wood. Movement, footsteps, the scrape of a chair. He was awake. I glanced at Darann. He nodded once, stepping to the side of the door, hand on his blade. I tested the handle. Unlocked.
Arrogant bastard.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Merrik Voss stood at his desk, back to the door, shoulders hunched over a stack of papers. Middle-aged, balding, soft around the middle. The kind of man who’d never held a blade in his life.
He turned at the sound of the door, eyes widening. “Who?—”
I crossed the room in three strides, blade at his throat before he could finish.
His breath hitched. Hands raised, trembling. “Wait—wait, please?—”
“Sit,” I said.
He obeyed, dropping into the chair. I kept the blade pressed to his throat, angling him so Darann could slip in and close the door behind us.
The lock clicked.
Merrik’s eyes darted between us—black leathers, masks, hoods. No insignia. No rank. Nothing to identify us.
“What do you want?” he stammered. “Money? I have?—”
“Information,” I said. “And you’re going to give it to me.”
His throat bobbed against my blade. “I don’t know anything?—”
I pressed harder. A thin line of blood appeared. He gasped.
Darann stepped closer, crouching beside the chair. He pulled a dagger from his belt, turning it between his fingers. “Let’s make this simple,” he said, voice smooth as silk. “You talk. We listen. You lie—” He let the blade catch the candlelight. “Well. Let’s not find out what happens then.”
“I’m just a clerk!” Merrik’s voice cracked. “I don’t?—”
Darann’s hand shot out, grabbed Merrik’s wrist, and slammed it flat against the desk. The dagger followed, punching through his palm and into the wood beneath.
Merrik screamed.
“Wrong answer,” Darann said pleasantly.
I kept my blade steady at his throat, watching blood pool around the embedded dagger. “You run messages between the council and Dravareth operatives. You’ve been doing it for months. Maybe years.”
His face went ashen. “I swear—I swear I just deliver letters! That’s all!”
Darann twisted the blade. Merrik shrieked, whole body convulsing.
“Locations,” I said. “Now.”
He broke.
Words tumbled out in a panicked rush—addresses, street names, coded drop sites scattered across Tempest and beyond. Darann’s eyes sharpened, cataloguing every detail with that mind of his.
“And the council?” I pressed. “Who gave you the contracts?”
“Hallen—Hallen Greaves!” Merrik gasped. “He gave me the first one. Said it was routine correspondence. I didn’t know?—”
“You knew,” I said.
“Not at first!” his voice cracked. “But then Vareck started asking questions, and I—I just did what they told me! I’m nobody! I don’t matter?—”
“You’re right,” I said. “You don’t.”
His eyes widened. “Wait—please?—”
I pulled the blade across his throat. One clean cut, surgical and precise.
His free hand flew to his neck, blood pouring between his fingers. He tried to speak, gurgled, then slumped forward onto the desk.
Silence.
Darann yanked his dagger free, wiping it clean on Merrik’s sleeve. “Efficient.”
I stared down at the body. Blood pooled on the desk, dripping onto the floor. The cut identical to every other throat I’d opened in my years back in those camps. I waited for guilt. For horror. For regret. Nothing came. Just cold satisfaction.
One down.
Darann moved to the desk, rifling through the papers. “Correspondence logs. Delivery schedules.” He pocketed a few folded letters. “This’ll be useful.”
I turned toward the door. “Let’s go.”
He followed, pausing at the threshold to glance back at the corpse. “You good?”
I looked back one last time.
“I’m fine.”
And I was.
We slipped back into the in-between; the world folding around us as we vanished. When we emerged two blocks away, the night was quiet. Still.
I glanced back toward the building. “We’re leaving him?”
Darann raised an eyebrow. “You want to clean it up?”
“No,” I said. “Let them find him.”
His mouth curved. “Sending a message, Princess?”
“They tried to kill me. Now they’ll know I’m coming for them.”
“And the others?” Darann asked. “Every kill left in the open?”
I shook my head. “Some found. Some vanished. Keep them guessing.”
“Unpredictable is always better.”
No one had seen. No one would know. Not yet.
But they would.