The air grew thick as they descended into the caldera proper, quietly making their way towards Drak's Perch. Quistis held back shivers, though the forest was heating up as Neptas climbed higher into the sky. It was shaping up to be a humid day, the rain of previous tenday trapped among the trees, rising out of the ground as a thin fog to smother them.

She was drenched in sweat, and the morning had barely broken. It wasn't the heat to blame.

It was the smell.

Not since the ratmen warren had she gotten as pungent a punch to the nose as in the forest, and she didn't know if it was worse or better than the alternative. What had made the villages so terrible—aside from the explicit horror of hundreds of people disappeared into the night, their brains eaten and supplanted by scarabs—had been the absence of any and all proof of what had happened. There had barely been any smell out of place, even of blood, in the derelict remains of what had once been thriving communities.

But the forest reeked with death, worse the farther down they descended. It clung to the leaves, hung beneath the canopy, like a dead rat ripened inside a hothouse.

She would've paid an arm, up to the shoulder, to have the Enginarium masks again, chafing and all.

Over the course of their travel, she'd extracted information from Falor, word by precious word, about his concern, all the while fostering hope that she might somehow open up to him too. It was a vain hope, she knew, but one that kept growing day-by-day. Maybe if Falor could see the truth of his mother, the depths of her depravity, he could…

She had trouble even finishing the thought most days. How could she come clean to the second most powerful man in the whole empire? What would his love count for in the face of her betrayal?

However hard she tried to bring herself back into the moment, her mind back to the dense forest and its dangers, Quistis kept slipping her own leash. Mertle was here, her sister's lover and the one person Dreea cared about… and Quistis had led her into mortal peril, brought her on a mission that she wasn't even certain would end well for anyone. It was all becoming a confusing, terrible mess she had no way of predicting.

At least the Aztroa plan would've had a chance of success, controllable circumstances, and even a fallback in case of discovery.

A strong hand on her shoulder shook her gently.

"Mind yer step, Captain," Barlo whispered above her. "Snares 're laid out. And worse."

Quistis shook her head, then nodded, looking up into the vanadal's craggy face. He didn't stare back, eyes already digging farther into the forest, his presence as solid as ever. She envied him the simplicity of purpose. She missed having anything resembling that.

Mertle and Tummy followed slowly in their wake, silent as wraiths when they weren't loud on purpose. Whenever one of them rustled a leaf, or stepped in a puddle, or cracked a joint, Quistis was almost entirely convinced the slip was intentional. They moved with practised clumsiness, and she couldn't help but wonder if the others noticed it too. Did Barlo? Or, goddess forbid, Falor?

There and then wasn't the place and time to ponder such things. There could be any number of the walking dead waiting ahead and her mind was in a thousand pieces. It was beginning to get on her nerves.

Falor led. His shoulders had squared and his back had straightened now that they were in reach of their destination. However dark his mood had been, it now teetered on a dangerous edge that mixed weariness, anger, and excitement in her lover. She wished she could peer in his mind, snatch some of his guarded thoughts, understand what it was he would do with whatever he'd discover in the coming bells.

If Cinder was proved right, would that drive a wedge between him and his mother?

What would he do once that happened?

All Quistis could do for now was bide her time, watch, listen, and plan. With every passing step, the compulsion to offer her secrets to him grew stronger, more urgent, more demanding. In spite of herself, she felt excited for the reveals ahead.

What had the empress hidden here?

And what had brought this distant outpost low in such spectacular fashion?

She swatted fat flies away from her face. They roamed in clouds among the trees, aimless at times, terribly insistent at others. Their bite stung and drew her back into her itching skin.

Falor cast a look over his shoulder and she met his eyes. There was a question in them, but she couldn't figure what it meant. He'd likely sensed her excitement and was confused by it.

Without a word, he turned back to the path before she could find an answer to give him.

Mud squelched. Leaves rustled. Flies droned. Her borrowed boots scraped against buried steel traps, Barlo's steps opening the way for them, always a step aside from the danger. They were halfway down into the caldera and the day was already too hot, the air too thick, the danger too pressing.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Aside from the flies, she couldn't see or sense any animals shadowing their progress. Plenty of thing slithered underfoot or buzzed around her ears.

The deeper they went, the worse the stench and denser the clouds of rot flies. Now, they hung like thick spiderwebs among the trees, their noise growing into a waterfall-like roar. There was death ahead. A lot of it.

"Do we know how many people were supposed to be here?" she whispered when Falor called for a stop and rest. The shadow of Drak's Perch loomed high above them now, dark as pitch, silent as the grave. "How many soldiers would normally guard the prison?"

Her unspoken question was of how many freshly dead and reanimated by head scarabs would they need to worry here. These, unlike the villagers, would be armed and armoured.

Falor shook his head. "Mother shared nothing of Drak's Perch. Only her Justice would've known its garrison's strength, but that post has been lying empty since Cinder's defection." He shrugged as he cast a tendril of lightning about them. Flies dropped in piles at their feet, dead or stunned. "For all intents, we're blind."

She caught the note of chastisement in his voice. He had said the same before and wouldn't have withheld information if he had any reliable piece to hand out. Quistis's cheeks flushed bright and hot, and she dabbed at her forehead with a dirty sleeve. The reek of body odour was almost as bad that of the dead waiting ahead.

"No sentries," Barlo said. "Traps 've been sprung. Not all. Plenty, though."

They drank water and continued down the gentle incline, sliding inexorably towards the black shadow of the walls. Quistis fiddled with her pouch, touching her brews, taking and retaking inventory. Accelerant, bloodberry, night's tongue, a generous dose of rotclear. They were all there, as always, the flasks cool to the touch, grounding.

Barlo led them past open pits in which razor wire shone in the dregs of leaf-filtered sunlight. Flaps of skin clung to the mesh of wire, still bloody.

There were no corpses.

Pitfalls filled with spikes revealed similar sights. Blood on spikes. The edges of the pit collapsed inward as if something had climbed out. Deep gouges in the walls, as if hands had pulled them down to make ramps for escape.

Vegetation became trampled as they advanced, though not in the fashion of an invading army. There was sign of passage, but little destruction. Whatever traps had been sprung had also been cleared, leaving just the blood behind.

Quistis's stomach tightened into a knot. By Mertle's face, so had hers. Falor buzzed with power ahead, his strength electric in the humid air.

The creatures from the village would not have been daunted by traps like these. They would have survived and continued on, an inexorable tide of flesh that would not have slowed its advance for anything.

What would they want here? Was this where they were headed after stripping the villages? Why?

A shudder passed up her spine as a wet leaf touched her face. She smelled blood and felt it on her skin, still warm, sticky and thick. Wiping it off revealed a deep, dark colour on her sleeve.

It dripped in fat drops around them, as if something had been torn apart above. Nothing moved in the trees, save the flies. They kept the pace.

Soon the slope of the forest eased into the plateau and Drak's Perch darkened their approach. Now the noise of the came and went like the tides of the ocean. Quistis missed the gentle ocean breeze they'd felt the previous day, and the taste of salt on the air.

Thunder crashed through the trees and exploded into muffled echoes. Then another, louder, bouncing off the caldera's walls.

However, the sky was clear.

Falor raised his head and lifted a fist, halting them. More thunder followed, then sounds like wood splintering and rock shattering.

"There's a Metal Mind nearby. Fighting," Falor said, voice pitched low. "Don't move."

Quistis felt the electric pulse passing through her as he cast his spell. Moments squeezed by. More thunder rolled from the direction of the prison, accompanied by the faint glow of lightning atop the walls.

"Several heartbeats in the fortress," Falor said, eyes distant. "Strong. Powerful channelling. Can't pinpoint number. They're moving around too much." His face darkened. "What they're fighting has no heartbeat."

It wasn't the revelation that turned Quistis's blood cold, but the hint of dread in Falor's voice. She knew him well enough to know the tremble she'd just heard wasn't one of excitement.

"Do we help?" she asked.

Falor considered for several heartbeats. "No," he said, the word heavy in his throat.

The shocked silence that followed showed that she wasn't the only one amazed by his decision. Even Barlo's gaze swung from Falor to her, eyes widened in confusion.

"But… they're our people, Commander." Vial broke the silence just as Falor motioned them forward. "It's our duty. This don't sit right."

"I know one of the heartbeats in there," Falor said with a barely disguised hint of dread. "She doesn't need help. Stick to our plan. Don't engage unless you've no other choice. Move on."

They did. Thunder still rolled out of the prison, coiling around the outer walls, casting echoes that lingered. Nothing screamed. Quistis would've felt better to hear screaming rather than the cloying silence. After all, screaming meant life.

Drak's Perch now dominated the sky above the canopy. As it stood in the centre of the depression, the forest itself tried to crawl up the dark walls, the green clinging far up the stones like a tide frozen in time.

Mertle walked by Quistis's side. All traces of the jovial, amiable shopkeeper were erased off her face as she stole glances up at the walls. Tummy was right besides her, hand clutching his short, wide-bladed sword. Quistis did not doubt the smith's prowess with the weapon even if she hadn't yet seen him wielding it. She'd seen enough killers in her life to recognise one now, no matter how well he tried camouflaging it.

It seemed the duo had made their own assessment of the risk and had come to a conclusion. The danger was too real here, too palpable, to risk anything but their utmost competence. Which was just as well, since Falor's suspicion still hounded their steps.

The first clash happened in a blur. They nearly tripped over the naked corpse. A moment's pause. Falor signalled caution. Then chaos.

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