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PREVIOUSLY...
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Ari tried to convince Azura not to go to the Empire and risk her life, reminding Azura that the sygil on her wrist was still active. Azura was convinced the sygils didn't work and made Ari promise to leave the Order and forget his quest to seek damning information about Palmira. Ari gave Azura a necklace that was his mother's and they embraced, Azura aware that it may have been the last time she'll ever see him.

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I breathe in the air beyond the school, willing the cold that chills my lungs to freeze my nerves. It doesn't, but I can at least hope.

I stow my bag amongst the shrubs, hidden from view. I leave it there though a part of me doubts I'll make it out of the Empire to recover it.

Vera's cold gaze looks me up and down when I approach her beyond the gates of the school, the rain having washed away the stench of blood and death that permeated the air.

"You're ready?" she questions, clear disdain in her eyes as she glances at the single sword strapped to my hip.

"Are you? Palmira told me you have a plan to get me inside."

Her lips quirk. "I hope you're not squeamish."

I scoff but follow her to where she's prepared two horses for our short journey to the Empire. Night has already graced us with shadows, the time is now or never, before the Empire recovers from their losses.

We mount the horses and ride towards the talons of the Empire's palace. It's a nerve-wracking journey, one I question with every moment that passes. What am I willing to do for my vengeance? Will this ease the yawning abyss that fills my chest and continues to grow? I hope the blood spilt this night will be able to fill it. I don't know what else to do if it doesn't.

"No one knows where the emperor is," Vera tells me, shattering my thoughts and my gaze drifts to her rigid back. "Not even Palmira's spies within the palace. He's kept himself shut away."

"So, wherever resistance is strongest," I mutter.

"You won't be able to cut down the entirety of the Empire's forces within those walls." Her slanted eyes narrow at me. "No matter how special Palmira thinks you are, it'll kill you."

I snort. "Palmira thinks I'm special, does she?"

"She claims you're the only one who can assassinate the emperor," Vera replies with a shrug. "I offered."

I scowl at her words, the same words that Erasmus spoke, leaving me to wonder. Why am I the only one who can kill him? I voice my question but Vera shakes her head.

"I assumed you knew that answer," she says. "But I think finding him is the bigger problem right now."

I blow a strand of my hair from my eye, already exasperated by this mission. With a barely formulated plan, some half-arsed information, and no reinforcements, the chances of my survival are getting slimmer by the second. But still I continue riding forward, because going back isn't an option. Not with Suri gone.

No, this is something I must do. For every time I've failed, this will be the time I succeed. Even if it costs me everything. Even if it costs me my life.

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The Empire's jagged spires rise up before me, glowing torches illuminating the black stone and twisted iron. A sprawling encampment resides on the flat ground in the palace's shadow, fire displaying the neat rows of tents and figures moving through them. Part of the Empire's army, though most of it is spread across Rupteran at villages and towns. There's no point for the Empire to keep the entirety of their army together when they can't march it across the Midland anyway.

I turn my gaze away from the distant soldiers to instead focus on the palace I must infiltrate. "How are you going to get me inside?" I ask Vera.

"You're a rat of the gutters and I'm a rat of the sewers," she says. "I know the tunnels beneath the Empire. They dump their sewage into the tunnels that then go into the canal in Warroll to eventually lead to the Blood Ocean. They're old, gross, and no one patrols them because the Empire has no maps of them."

"They date back to the Old World?" I enquire, curious how she could know all of this.

"They do. I grew up studying everything there is to know about the labyrinths of the Old World." She glances at me. "We're all useful to Palmira somehow."

We dismount our horses, Vera leading the way through the dark. She takes us into a thick thatch of trees and bushes, the ground muddy from the recent rain.

"There's an entrance down here, though it's been corroded shut."

"Great," I mutter as I squint in the dark, the moon no longer able to pierce the trees around us. Vera pulls a hatchet from her belt and hacks at the vines and brambles. "How did you learn about this?"

"I told you, I've spent my life studying them."

"Without maps?"

"The Empire doesn't have maps." She flashes her teeth at me as she shoves away the overgrown weeds. "My people do."

"And who are your people?"

Her grin slips and she glances away from me. "Now? They're ashes." I swallow at her words but she gestures me forward before I can think of anything to say. "Help me with this." She reveals a slab of circular stone and I frown at it as she wedges her hatchet into the edge. I slip my fingers into the space she creates and she counts down. Then we both heave, strength pouring through my muscles, hardening beneath my skin like marble, until the slab lifts and I roll it away. I blow out a breath and brush my hands on my pants before peering into the black abyss we've revealed.

"You want me to go down there?"

"We're both going down there," she says, then clambers down the hole without another word, the dark swallowing her.

I look around me, searching for guidance amongst this madness, but find none. I shake my head and—with a hefty sigh—I follow her down into the unknown.

As I descend, the stench is what hits me first and I gag, nearly losing my grip on the rusted ladder.

"I did say I hope you weren't squeamish," Vera says with a chuckle somewhere below me.

I grumble a retort, but keep moving down. I drop to the ground, my boots splashing in... something I'd rather not identify. I pinch my despairing nostrils but the taste of sewage layers my tongue and clogs my throat. I nearly retch again, the only thing that saves me is the hard lining of my stomach from years of eating rotted food.

We splash through the tunnel in the dark for a time before Vera strikes flint and lights a torch. I wish she hadn't.

"Gods," I gasp, lurching away from the decaying body that floats past, maggots wiggling from their eyes and spilling from their gaping mouth.

"Guess this is where the Empire dumps their bodies."

I cover my nose and mouth in the crease of my elbow, revulsion quaking through me. I'm used to bodies, corpses were a familiar sight in Warroll, but at least the dead in Warroll were offered the respect of being sent on the barge to the Blood Ocean. But this—left to rot in the sewers to eventually drift to the ocean—is beyond disrespect for the dead.

"Let's keep going."

I follow her, wanting to leave this wretched place behind as quickly as possible. I try not to look down as I walk, not wanting to see the hollowed cheeks and sunken skin of the corpses that float around us, knowing I could be one of them by the end of the night. Nothing is making this mission any easier.

Vera stops and holds up a fist. That's when I hear the thudding footsteps above us. Vera plunges the flame into the murky water, snuffing out the light just as a grate ahead of us grinds open. I hold my breath, eyes wide as a body tumbles down from the open hole in the tunnel and splashes into the water to join the river of corpses. Then the grate is shoved back into place and the footsteps retreat above us.

Vera turns, her face bathed in shadow. "That's your way into the palace."

I purse my lips. "Of course it is." I approach the grate beside her, not daring to look down at the body that drifts away from us.

"This should lead into the prison; the lowest level of the palace. You'll have to find your way up on your own. Are you ready?"

I glance at her, the words to tell her that I'm not ready forming behind my lips.

But then I remember Suri's broken cries beneath the school, I remember Dax's tears, I remember the screams of the street rats.

I nod. "I'm ready."

She kneels, cupping her hands on her thigh, then looks at me. "Up you go," she says.

I wrinkle my nose as I place my soiled boot into her gloved palms and glance up at the grate. "Here we go," I mutter, my fingers twitching with anticipation

"Azura?" Vera says and I glance at her. "For what it's worth, I hope you succeed."

"I hope so too." Then she heaves me up and I latch onto the grate. She holds me up while I shove the grate aside and drag myself onto the stone above, my muscles straining. I roll into the dank interior, the musty smell of mould a welcome relief from the overwhelming stench of the sewer.

I kneel by the grate and cover the hole again, cringing at the noise it makes. I don't stick around to see if anyone comes to investigate the sound though.

Darkness surrounds me as I move, the prison nothing more than stone and steel and shadow. Moans of the damned and the dying reach me from the cells and if I had the time, I'd consider releasing them. But right now I need to reach the emperor before I'm discovered and he buries himself deeper into the bosom of his palace.