Smoke filled the clearing.
Not clean smoke.
Not campfire smoke.
This was thick, bitter, chemical-grey stuff that clung to wet fur and armour, crawling between the trees in low sheets until the whole forest looked half-erased.
Somewhere in the distance, tyres screamed.
The sound tore through the woods, sharp and ugly, followed by the roar of an engine being driven too hard over roots and mud. The unmarked van vanished deeper into the trees, taking most of the stolen cases with it.
For a few seconds, no one moved.
They stood among churned earth, shattered branches, and bodies in black Godiad armour, listening to the raiders escape.
Topsy coughed first.
Then Mezzo.
Then everyone.
Ray waved smoke from her face with one hand, Heartbreaker still gripped in the other.
“Status!”
“Alive,” Hughes said.
“Annoyed,” Topsy said.
“Same,” Mezzo wheezed.
Arcade was already at the Godiad van, scanning the side panel.
His expression tightened.
“Definitely Godiad.”
The word sat badly in the air.
The van was ugly up close. Matte black plating. Reinforced windows. No public markings except the small half-hidden symbol near the rear wheel, almost swallowed by mud. It looked less like transport and more like a secret that had learned to drive.
Silver stepped over one of the fallen guards without looking down.
“Any of them alive?”
Hughes crouched beside the nearest body.
He checked the pulse.
Then the throat.
Then another.
His face did not change.
“No.”
Diana’s mouth flattened.
“Check the van.”
C.H.I.P. moved to the rear doors and pulled them open fully.
Inside were empty racks where most of the cases had been stored.
Metal restraints lined the walls. Slot brackets. Numbered clamps. A half-torn inventory sheet fluttered beneath one collapsed shelf, rain already creeping across the ink.
One long case remained, wedged crooked beneath the shelf where the raiders had missed it in the smoke and haste.
And behind it—
A raider.
Young.
Mud-streaked.
Masked.
Pressed into the corner, one hand clamped over his own mouth.
For one second, he and C.H.I.P. stared at each other.
C.H.I.P.’s lights brightened.
“Hello.”
The raider bolted.
He scrambled over the case, threw himself out the back doors, hit the mud badly, and tried to run.
Silver caught him in three strides.
The raider twisted, saw Silver’s eyes, and made the unfortunate decision to swing.
Silver caught his wrist.
There was a small, ugly click.
The raider gasped and dropped to his knees.
“Unwise,” Silver said.
Mezzo winced.
“Could’ve gone worse for you, honestly.”
Ray stepped forward, Heartbreaker low but ready.
“Mask off.”
The raider shook his head.
Pitch lifted Lady Luck.
The raider removed the mask.
He was younger than expected.
Too young, really.
All sharp cheeks, frightened eyes, and rain-dark fur plastered to his forehead.
His gaze darted from Ray to Silver to Hughes.
Then he saw Diana.
His entire face changed.
Not fear of being caught.
Fear of recognition.
He scrambled backward so violently he nearly fell over.
“No. No, no, no.”
Diana stepped into the clearing light.
Her white-and-gold armour was muddied, scorched, and no longer backed by the Church that had once obeyed her.
But she was still Diana Lockhart.
And the raider knew it.
“Supreme Paladin,” he whispered.
Diana’s expression did not soften.
“I’m not that anymore.”
The raider looked as though this did not help.
Ray glanced at Diana.
Then at the Godiad van.
Then at the remaining case of collars.
Hughes stood behind the raider, blocking the trees.
Silver remained at his side, still holding the injured wrist with exquisite restraint and no mercy at all.
Diana looked down at the boy.
Her voice came calm.
Cold.
“We have some questions.”
His eyes widened.
“Oh, hells.”
Diana stepped forward.
The raider flinched so hard he nearly fell over.
“Where did you get them?” she asked.
“I didn’t! I mean, I did, but not personally. We hit the transport.”
“What transport?” Ray asked.
The raider swallowed.
“Church one. Came out of the lower roads. Boss knew it would.”
Silver’s eyes sharpened.
“Your boss knows about the Church moving control collars through the woods?”
The raider hesitated.
Hughes crouched beside him.
He did not raise his voice.
That made it worse.
“Lad.”
The raider looked at him.
Hughes smiled faintly.
It was not comforting.
“Answer.”
The raider answered.
“Boss knows about the Church. And Godiad.”
The clearing went colder.
Crystal pressed closer to Diana.
Arcade’s hands went still.
Ray’s expression did not move.
Silver’s did.
Only a fraction.
Enough.
“What about Godiad?” he asked.
The raider looked at him and seemed to realise, far too late, that he had fallen into a clearing full of exactly the wrong people.
“They’re using collars. Not just on prisoners. On junior Council members.”
Ray’s grip tightened around Heartbreaker.
“Junior Council members?”
“Assistants. Clerks. Aides. Younger delegates. People who can get close without anyone thinking they matter.” The raider swallowed hard. “They’re going to use them inside the Council quarter.”
Diana’s face drained.
Silver took one step closer.
“For what?”
The raider’s gaze flicked to him.
Then away.
“To assassinate Umbranox Arcturus.”
For one second, the forest vanished.
Silver did not seem to breathe.
Then he moved so fast Mezzo grabbed his arm on instinct.
Silver did not look at him.
His eyes stayed on the raider.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Silver lunged.
Mezzo caught him properly this time.
“Silver!”
“Where?”
“I don’t know!” the raider shouted, terror breaking through. “I swear! Boss only said the collars were proof they could do it. Church has people inside. Godiad tech, Church blessing, whatever you want to call it. I don’t know names!”
Silver’s scales flashed along his jaw.
“We go now,” he said.
Ray turned toward him.
“Silver—”
“We go now.”
Hughes stood slowly.
“Look at the footage.”
Arcade flicked the feed back to the Council quarter.
The image showed the siege line tightening.
Church forces outside the Council gates.
Ward pylons.
Barricades.
Paladins moving supplies into place.
A second feed showed another street blocked.
A third showed Council messengers turned back.
A fourth showed civilians being pushed away from the district entirely.
Hughes’s face was grim.
“We’ll be outnumbered before we get within three streets.”
Silver’s voice cut like glass.
“My mother is in there.”
“I know.”
“Then stop speaking as if arithmetic matters.”
“It matters when arithmetic has spears.”
“She is going to be murdered.”
“Possibly,” Hughes said. “Which is why we don’t charge in and make it easier.”
Silver stared at him.
Then turned sharply toward Ray.
Ray had not taken her eyes off the feed.
“This siege may be the point,” she said.
Plum looked up.
“A cover?”
“Maybe. Keep everyone watching the gates while the real weapon is already inside.”
Pitch’s ears angled back.
“Controlled junior members.”
Ray nodded once.
“They don’t need to break the Council doors if they can make someone trusted open one.”
Silver’s face had gone white beneath the silver fur.
“Then rescuing her is the priority.”
No one contradicted him.
Not even Ray.
Celeste’s voice came from the van doorway.
“Yes.”
Everyone turned.
She stood there wrapped in a blanket, pale and unsteady, one hand braced against the doorframe. Topsy hovered beside her like a very small guard dog with explosives. Mezzo’s face immediately did something complicated and worried.
“Sunshine, you should be sitting.”
Celeste ignored him.
Her eyes were on Silver.
“If Umbranox is in danger, we help her.”
Silver looked at her.
For a moment, all the anger in him faltered.
Not gone.
Never that easy.
But something moved beneath it.
Gratitude, sharp and startled, like he had not expected her to stand on his side after the way he had spoken to her.
His voice came quieter.
“Thank you.”
Celeste nodded once.
Then winced, because even nodding apparently hurt.
Mezzo sighed.
“Heroic. Stupid. Very on brand.”
Ray rubbed at her temple.
“Fine. Rescuing Umbranox is now priority.”
Silver opened his mouth.
Ray pointed at him.
“But we do it with a plan. Not whatever dramatic widow behaviour you were about to suggest.”
“I am not a widow.”
“You were seconds from throwing yourself at a siege line in a coat.”
“It is a very good coat.”
“It is not siege-proof.”
C.H.I.P. bobbed helpfully.
“Few coats are.”
Silver glared.
Hughes turned back to the raider.
“One more question.”
The raider looked deeply unhappy to still be alive and involved.
“What?”
“Why do your people want the collars?”
The raider’s expression changed.
Fear stayed.
But something else came in under it.
Defensiveness.
Shame.
Anger.
“We’re not using them on people.”
Diana’s eyes hardened.
“You will forgive me if I do not take that on trust.”
“We’re not,” he snapped, then immediately seemed to remember who he was snapping at and lowered his voice. “We’re trying to make them work on zombies.”
Arcade blinked.
“What?”
The raider nodded toward the stolen cases on Plum’s distant feed.
“Not full control. Just enough to push them back. Hold them at a distance. Make one dead thing keep other dead things away.”
Ray’s brows drew together.
“A zombie barrier.”
“Something like that.”
Arcade stared at him.
Then, despite himself, said, “That’s clever.”
Everyone looked at him.
He shrugged sharply.
“What? Horrible, yes. Morally covered in fleas, absolutely. But mechanically? Clever.”
The raider gave him a grim little nod, as if grateful someone understood the shape of the problem.
“It’s slow. We can barely get one collar to hold a command for more than a few minutes before the zombie either burns it out or starts chewing through its own neck. But it works sometimes.”
Hughes studied him.
“Why not take it to the Council?”
The raider laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it hurt.
“The Council?”
Silver’s eyes narrowed.
“Careful.”
The raider looked at him, then around at all of them.
“You know what the Warrens look like right now?”
No one answered.
“Do you know how many hybrids down there don’t have suppression runes? Not because they’re rebels. Not because they’re dangerous. Because they’re poor. Because the registry missed them. Because their parents hid them. Because buying food mattered more than paying some office to stamp permission on their bodies.”
Crystal’s face tightened.
Diana looked away for half a second.
The raider’s voice got rougher.
“When zombies come through, nobody sends enough help. Not fast enough. Not to us. Council says resources are stretched. Church says pray. Goadiad says register properly next time.”
His mouth twisted.
“So boss decided we’d make our own wall.”
The clearing went quiet.
Arcade looked down at the broken relay box in his hands.
“Using stolen mind-control collars.”
“Using whatever stops kids getting dragged screaming out of basement shelters,” the raider said.
No one had an easy answer to that.
Those were becoming rare.
Ray lowered Heartbreaker slightly.
“What’s your boss’s name?”
The raider’s jaw snapped shut.
Hughes gave a tired sigh.
“Course not.”
Silver looked furious enough to argue, but Celeste spoke first.
“Let him go.”
Several heads turned toward her.
Silver’s brows lifted.
“You cannot be serious.”
Celeste leaned against the doorframe, looking like a ghost who had borrowed a blanket.
“He told us what we needed. His people are trying to protect hybrids.”
“With collars.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “That is bad.”
The raider looked down.
Celeste continued, “But if we keep him, his people may not know the Church is moving. And if they’re in the Warrens, they need to know.”
Ray watched her for a long second.
Then looked at Hughes.
Hughes nodded once.
“Go,” Ray said.
The raider blinked.
“What?”
“Run before we change our minds.”
He scrambled up so fast his injured leg nearly folded under him.
C.H.I.P. extended one hand.
“Medical note: your ankle is damaged.”
The raider stared at him.
“Thanks?”
“You will run poorly.”
“Still running.”
He backed away.
Then paused.
His eyes flicked to Celeste.
Then to Crystal.
Then to the glowing camera feed of the Council under siege.
“Church roads are watched,” he said. “If you go in, don’t use main routes. Warrens have old drainage ways under the west quarter. Some still come up near Council service houses.”
Ray’s gaze sharpened.
“Which service houses?”
The raider shook his head.
“Don’t know. Boss does.”
“Where’s your boss?”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
“Not telling you that.”
Pitch lifted Lady Luck slightly.
The raider paled.
“But I’ll tell them you’re not Church. If they see you first, maybe they don’t shoot immediately.”
“Comforting,” Silver said.
The raider turned and limped into the trees.
After ten steps, he broke into the ugliest run any of them had ever seen.
C.H.I.P. watched him go.
“Confirmed. Poorly.”
Mezzo exhaled.
“Well. That was grim.”
Topsy hugged her rocket launcher closer.
“Everything is grim today.”
Ray looked back at Arcade’s feed.
The Council quarter flickered in blue static.
The siege line held.
Somewhere inside that district, Umbranox might already be standing beside someone with a collar hidden beneath their collar.
Silver’s hands curled into fists.
Ray straightened despite the pain in her skull.
“All right,” she said. “We need routes. We need numbers. We need to know where the Church line is weakest, where the Warrens connect, and whether we can get a message inside before we move.”
Arcade looked down at his broken relay box.
Then at the feed.
Then toward the trees where the raider had gone.
His face was still pale.
His eyes were still wrong.
But his hands had stopped shaking.
“I can map the cameras,” he said. “Patch the old security lines together. Maybe find drainage access if any service schematics are still alive.”
C.H.I.P. bobbed.
“And I can continue being magnificent.”
“Helpful,” Arcade corrected.
“Both may be true.”
Silver looked toward Clawdiff.
For once, he did not make a cutting remark.
Celeste watched him from the van doorway, one hand over the place where her core had finally stopped burning.
Behind them, the forest dripped quietly.
Ahead of them, the city waited.
And somewhere inside it, the Church had laid a knife close enough to touch Umbranox’s throat.
