Harper was far from eager to descend into the city's depths, but she had grown weary of the quarrelling. The Enforcer and the Lord-Mayor had been at it for hours—trading the same barbs, circling the same ground.

The Enforcer had pressed for their camps to descend one after the other. The Lord-Mayor swore his band would follow immediately behind. She could not forbid it without shedding blood in her own ranks, yet neither would she march her people to certain death.

So they argued.

And they argued still.

Even now, their voices scraped the air—barbed and biting, each word another prick against Harper's frayed patience.

Dusk came without resistance, the day-sun bowing to the pale glow of night. Across the camp-side flame, Harper sat in quiet repose. Fire crept along the logs like an ethereal swarm, brittle wood snapping embers into the dark.

She held her fingers splayed to capture the heat, warmth threading up her arms, seeping into her chest, her legs, her face.

If someone had told her that morning she would later savour a fire, she might have struck them. The sun had burned too hot through the day—its swelter inescapable from dawn to dusk. Yet with night came a biting cold, the kind that stiffened fingers and numbed the cheeks.

Harper was no stranger to Heureux; she knew its mild seasons and gentle climes. The sudden shift was no cause for alarm, but it raised brows and wrinkled noses. Such extremes belonged to the Vanguard. On the Settled Floors, they begged questions.

More concerning were the tremors. They had come with the heat. Sudden shudders and subtle shakes—sloshing ale in tankards, sending flatware clattering to the floor. As if the earth turned in uneasy slumber, the rumbling struck without warning, only to vanish as though it had never been.

The tremors came and went with little remark, yet each vibration rattled morale. The fighters drawn from the slums knew the cult held the initiative, and every shudder teased their fears. With each rumbling wave, their minds conjured visions of the Beast of Undoing—its chains broken, its prison undone.

It was true for Harper, at least. And from the ashen faces and wide eyes around her whenever the ground quaked, she suspected it was true for everyone else as well.

A crisp snap of brittle wood pulled her gaze from the fire. To her right, two of her band approached—Cornelius, with Rosella close at his side.

Without invitation they settled by the flames, blind to Harper's warding glare. They sank into place as if the fire had been kindled for them, exhaling long, yawning sighs of comfort—obnoxiously at ease as they trampled over her repose.

'Why'd you build your camp way out here?' Rosella asked, her intruding tone carving lines between Harper's brows.

Her intentions had been plain enough—or so she thought. She had shifted her supplies and pitched her tent at the border of her band's camp, as far from the centre as she could without breaking ranks. Clearly, she had not gone far enough. Wherever she moved, she suspected those two would follow.

It was not that she disliked the men in her band. They were agreeable enough, in their way. But after weeks crammed into shared lodgings, and days spent marching, resting, eating, and shitting alongside the pack, what she craved was solitude. That every member of the strike force had not seized the chance to spread themselves as far apart as possible within the vast garden baffled her more than any tricker-imp's riddles ever could.

Harper grunted a response, hoping the two would take the hint. They did not. Cornelius leaned closer, lips already parting, words tumbling before he could catch them.

'This is mad, isn't it?' he said, raking his fingers through mud-brown hair. 'Couldn't have dreamt any of this a few months ago. I barely Inherited, my purity's nothing special—and now I'm fighting on the same side as Calamity's Edge himself.'

Harper's eyes widened at the moniker. Among the most notable Inheritors, it was tradition for the people to bestow a name—one that followed them wherever they went, carried from mouth to mouth as if pressed there by the Dungeon itself. Such titles usually came after one rose to Champion—standing among the Dungeon's elite.

Like her, Havoc was only a Soldier. But after his deeds, a name was inevitable. Though, she had not expected to hear her own whispered thought—her private words—echoed back from another's lips.

Calamity's Edge. She had mumbled the words the day he stormed the dark guild's lair—cutting down fiends and setting her free. It was in the way he moved: like a disaster with spite, like a storm that would not relent. He was the blade of destruction itself—irresistible, unavoidable, inevitable. Havoc was not a foe to fight, but a force to endure—praying to your gods he paid you no heed and passed you by.

'When do you think he'll get here?' Cornelius asked, tugging Harper from her reverie. 'It'd ease a lot of nerves, having him lead the charge. Best thing short of a Champion. Though if you ask me, he might be better—you never know what feats he'll pull off.'

With a sharp, solitary cackle, Rosella drew Harper's gaze. The woman's head lolled side to side, eyes rolled so far back Harper half-feared they might stick. She gave Cornelius a look as if he'd sprouted a second head, then leaned back with a sigh, more laughter slipping loose.

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'You don't actually believe all they say about him, do you?' Rosella teased, her tone edged with the smugness of one who thought herself too shrewd to be fooled. 'It's propaganda—meant to stiffen spirits. Makes us fight harder, thinking there's a saviour in the wings. Hold out longer when things get tough, thinking we could be saved at any moment.'

She straightened her back and stretched, joints cracking as she rolled her shoulders. Another sigh slipped free, and she flipped onto her stomach, propping herself on her elbows as she crawled a comfortable distance from the flame.

'It's a clever trick. But it is a trick,' she murmured, settling into the dirt. 'I've seen it before. My guild did the same—we were up against more than fifty Scratchers, run ragged head to toe. Captain told us to keep pushing, said help was on the way. No help came. But in the end, it didn't matter. It was the belief, you see. Thinking help was on the way kept us all going.'

Harper might have struggled to deny Rosella's claims, had she not seen for herself what Havoc could do. His feats might have carried the weight of myth, but the boy was real enough. A rebuke rose to her lips, yet she held it back. Rosella had only come to the slums after Wolf's Requiem's fall—limbs, guts, and head cast from the sky. Her ignorance was boastful, pestiferous—but harmless all the same.

'Bullshit,' Cornelius coughed, drawing Rosella's angry snarl.

'And how would you know?' she shot back. 'You joined the same time I did. You'd never have seen him—even if there was something worth seeing.'

Cornelius rolled his eyes, shrugged, and shifted closer to the fire.

'I've got friends who've been with us since the city fell. Bereft, sure—but honest. They've no reason to lie. Told me he saved them from ghouls, led a pack of hell-hounds off their trail. On their word, he killed a Champion.'

'You don't believe in the gods, but you'd believe that?' Rosella quipped.

'When someone I know tells me they've seen a Steward walk the streets, maybe I'll rethink my—'

The ground rumbled, and every spine went rigid. Even the quarrel between the Enforcer and Lord-Mayor faltered. A wave of heat rolled through the frosty night, sweat beading Harper's skin before it ebbed away. For an instant, it was as if the world itself groaned—pained, perturbed, like a mother expectant. Then, as quickly as it came, it passed. Normalcy returned, yet Harper's unease only deepened.

'What do you think it is?' Cornelius asked after a while, his voice faintly trembling, as if still shaken by the rumbling.

'It could be anything,' Harper replied, forcing her tone steady so as not to betray her unease.

'Yeah, it could be—but it's not,' Rosella murmured. 'It's them. We all know it. While they're prying at that seal, we're sat out here like dolts—with our thumbs jammed up our arses.'

Rosella leaned forward, fixing Harper with a steady gaze.

'You should say something. I've got parents back in the slums. That's the only reason I let myself get conscripted instead of slipping away with the rest. They're common, Bereft—they can't fend for themselves. We have to act, because no one else will.'

Her face fell to a frown. The frown deepened.

She had settled in Heureux, but she could have gone anywhere. Even after seven years, the city held no roots to bind her. There was no one she loved. Nothing she cherished. Nothing she could not abandon. Not if she had to—if shove came to ram. Her home was in the Vanguard, with the saints of seven bells. Her heart had been chained and dragged into hell during a Cataclysm—the Vanguard Territories' resistance against its settlers.

She understood why her band looked to her to fight their cause. She was a Soldier; they were only Servants. Not one of them could press her in an exchange—how much less could they hope to defy their field marshal, the Enforcer who burned through hordes with rays of light?

And having spoken up once during the assembly, people had begun to expect it of her. The voice of reason had been murmured her way. Even now, in the glow of the campfires, expectant glances flicked toward her.

She felt their hopes pressing down on her shoulders. She caught the breath of whispered prayer. She knew what people wanted from her—deeply, instinctively—some longing in dread, unwilling to stand idle yet fearful of the descent below.

But that was not her business. She had no wish to be involved. Were it not for securing Havoc's favour, she would have slipped loose from the slums and sought shelter elsewhere. The surface was madness—that could not be denied—but it could not be more perilous than what waited beneath.

With a drawn, mournful sigh, she rose. A sharp crack of leaves and twigs broke the air as Cornelius and Rosella stood and moved to her side.

She marched toward the rest of her band. Wordlessly, they fell in line at her heel. Together, they strode on toward the quarrel between the Enforcer and the Lord-Mayor, all eyes following their trail. The Enforcer cast her a questioning glance, but Harper paid it little heed, leading her men deeper through the nobles' garden.

Foliage scattered and shifted as the other bands rose to their feet when Harper approached the mausoleum.

'What are you doing?' the Enforcer called, her scarlet hair aflutter in the breeze. 'Stand down. I have yet to give the order.'

Harper met her gaze, her expression stern, her fist clenched tight.

'While you argue among yourselves, the Bleeding Hand presses their advantage,' she called back, her voice ringing with more conviction than she felt. 'So keep on fighting. But me...'

She paused, her eyes meeting each member of her band in turn.

'...We don't care for your games. We won't be a part of them.'

Her people cheered, their faces set with resolve.

'We'll stop the Bleeding Hand ourselves if we have to.'

'That's what Havoc would do,' Cornelius added, stealing the bootlick from her mouth.

She had been about to say it herself, hoping it would curry his favour. Everything she did here, she did in his name—for only he could free her parents. From what she knew of the boy, he was the hero type, rushing in where angels falter.

After everything, she was still a woman of faith. And as the cracks lining the mausoleum burst into light, runes sparking across its surface, she placed her faith in survival. Faith that he would notice. Faith that he would claim her hand—and that together they would close tight around a blade, sharp enough to stab through hell.

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