Chapter 87 Elena Heart- POV
As the wine warmed our blood, I reached into the emerald ring. With a thought, the "Void-Anchor" responded.
I didn't just pull out gold; I pulled out a crate of high-end tactical gear I’d seen Grace stash in the first timeline, supplies meant for her elite "Shadow Guard."
"We can't hit the mercenary camps looking like beggars," I said, my voice turning professional again, though the heat in my eyes remained.
I pulled out a set of dark, reinforced leather armor for Xavier—midnight blue, lined with flexible chainmail and etched with silver runes for sound-dampening.
I found a pair of heavy, dragon-hide boots that would never slip on a wet roof. For myself, I chose a suit of charcoal-grey silk-steel, a material that felt like water but could stop a crossbow bolt.
We dressed in the flickering amber light. The act was slow, intimate. I helped him buckle the heavy leather guards over his forearms, my fingers lingering on the warmth of his skin. He, in turn, knelt to lace my boots, his hands steady and strong.
Finally, I pulled out two masks. They were masterpieces of the Guild’s craft, obsidian-glass visors that could read mana signatures in the dark.
"The King is dead," I whispered, sliding my mask into place. "And the Assassin is gone. Tonight, we’re just the Ghosts of the North Gate."
We emerged from the cellar not as fugitives, but as figures of mystery. Using a fraction of the stolen gold, I "summoned" a black, unmarked carriage driven by a silent, paid-off coachman.
The interior was lined with crimson velvet, the air smelling of old leather and rain.
As the carriage rattled toward the outskirts of the city, through the fog-shrouded landscape of the marshes, Xavier sat opposite me. He watched the way the emerald ring on my hand caught the faint moonlight, its shimmering green light pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
"You look like a goddess of war, Elena," he murmured, leaning forward. The carriage jolted, sending him closer, his knees brushing mine.
“Stop looking at me like that, Your Highness or we might end in the bed and jail the next morning.” The tension in the small, enclosed space was suffocatingly beautiful.
He sighed…”Yeah, you’re right. One kiss can wait.” He pouted, “For now.”
I rolled my eyes, and kissed him on the lips.
We reached the mercenary camp at the edge of the Whispering Woods an hour before dawn.
It was a sea of canvas tents and dying campfires, the air thick with the smell of roasting meat and wet horseflesh. These were the "Black-Iron Ravens"—the most lethal sellswords in the realm, and the ones Leo had intended to buy with the very gold now sitting on my finger.
As we stepped out of the carriage, the rain had turned into a soft, ethereal mist. The mercenaries stirred, their hands moving to their weapons as they saw the two masked figures.
Xavier didn't walk like a commoner anymore. He didn't even walk like a King. He walked like a force of nature. He stood in the center of the camp, the mist swirling around his dark armor, and I stood at his right hand, the emerald ring glowing with an unmistakable, predatory light.
"Who calls for the Ravens?" the captain demanded, a massive man with a scarred face.
I stepped forward, raising my hand. The emerald ring flared, a beam of pure, golden light shooting into the sky, illuminating the entire camp. I
didn't say a word. I simply reached into the void of the ring and let a literal cascade of gold coins spill onto the muddy ground at the captain’s feet, a fortune that could buy the loyalty of every man in the woods ten times over.
"The people who are going to win this war," I said, my voice amplified by the mask’s enchantments.
The camp went silent. The mercenaries looked at the gold, then at the shimmering ring, and then at the two dark, powerful figures standing in the rain.
That night, we slept in a single, rough-hewn tent at the heart of the camp. As we lay on the furs, the sounds of the camp, the sharpening of blades, the low murmur of men, faded away.
There was no throne, no palace, and no "Rebel." There was only the weight of his body against mine, the shimmering light of the ring in the dark, and the terrifying, beautiful certainty that the world was finally ours to break.
Meanwhile….
The high-arched ceiling of the Merchant Guild’s inner sanctum usually hummed with the quiet, clinical sound of coin being counted. Tonight, it echoed with the sound of a man’s pride being torn to shreds.
"Empty?" Duke Hallway’s voice didn't rise; it curdled. He stood at the head of the oak gray table, his knuckles white as he leaned over the Guild Leader.
"You are telling me that the most fortified vault in the Southern Hemisphere—a room protected by three-tier mana-locks and a blood-seal—is empty?"
“Yes—”
“How the fuck was that even posible?”
The Guild Leader, a man who had grown fat on the interest of a thousand debts, was trembling so violently that the wine in his glass slopped over the rim, staining the white lace of his cuffs like fresh blood.
"My Lord... the Light-Bender... it was gone. The gold, the cores... even the rocks from the lower crates. Everything. Vanished in a single minute."
CRASH.
The Duke didn't use his hands. A lash of raw, violet magic erupted from his form, sent the heavy crystal decanter flying across the room. It shattered against the far wall, drenching a priceless tapestry in vintage red.
"That was not just gold!" the Duke roared, his composure finally snapping. "That was the North Gate! That was Leo’s loyalty! Without that payment, the Ravens will not march, and the Silver Sun will look for a new head to place upon their altar—mine!"
Across the table, the representative of the House of Valerius sat in a shadow so deep it seemed to swallow the candlelight. Her eyes, cold and calculating, fixed on the Guild Leader.
"Who?" she asked, her voice a sharp contrast to the Duke's screaming. "Who has the knowledge of the vault’s internal sensors and the audacity to steal from the Crown's creditors?"
"The... the guards reported a ripple," the Guild Leader stammered, sliding out of his chair to his knees. "They said it felt like... like the King. But the King is dead! We saw the Sanctum collapse! We saw—"
SLAP.
The sound of the Duke’s hand hitting the Guild Leader’s face was like a whip cracking. The fat man’s head jerked to the side, a red welt blooming instantly on his cheek.
"Do not speak to me of ghosts!" Hallway hissed, grabbing the man by his velvet collar and hauling him up until their noses touched. "If Xavier were alive, he would be at the palace, not crawling through your damp sewers like a common thief! This was an inside job. It was the girl. The Heart assassin."
“Imposible!”
"It is not! Elena Heart is a rogue," the Valerius woman countered, her fingers tapping rhythmically on the table. "She is talented, yes. But to empty an entire vault into thin air? That requires a Subpocket Relic. A relic that was in that vault."
The realization hit the room like a second explosion. The silence that followed was heavy with the smell of spilled wine and impending death.
"If she has the Void-Anchor," the Duke whispered, his fury turning into a cold, paralyzing dread. "She didn't just steal the gold. She had the means to carry it."
“Imposible! We don't have that sort of relic!”
“Damn it!”
He turned, his eyes wild as he looked toward the window. Outside, the bells of the city were still tolling, a frantic, rhythmic sobbing that seemed to mock them.
"Search the slums!" the Duke screamed, his voice breaking into a jagged edge of hysteria. "Burn every wharf, every cellar, every rat-hole in the Lower District! If she is not found by dawn, I will have the Guild Leader’s head as the first payment for Leo’s silence! And send word to the North Gate—tell the traitors that the plan has changed. If we cannot buy the Ravens, we will slaughter them before they can flip their coats!"
He swept his arm across the table, sending the remaining glasses and golden plates clattering to the floor in a chaotic heap of silver and glass.
"I want her heart!" he bellowed, his magic flaring so brightly the candles blew out, leaving them in a suffocating, wine-scented dark. "And I want my gold back! FUCK!"
But deep in the shadows, the Valerius woman didn't scream. She simply watched the Duke’s meltdown with a look of growing disappointment.
She knew what the Duke didn't: that you don't hunt a Ghost with fire. You only give it more shadows to hide in.