Chapter 5: The Price of Information
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Chapter 5: The Price of Information
The lieutenant, who introduced himself as Malakor, led Elara away from the roaring pit and into the foundry's labyrinthine depths. The air grew colder, the clang of the arena fading behind them, replaced by the unsettling hum of contained energy. They passed cells where failed aspirants groaned in misery and alchemical labs that reeked of ozone and decay, the sickly purple glow of the Veil’s runes staining the iron walls. This was their nest, a place of shadow and pain.
Malakor guided her into a small, private chamber, furnished with little more than a heavy iron table and two chairs. The single door clanged shut behind them with a sound of grim finality. The room was a trap, a cage. He clearly believed she was the one being tested.
“The Grinder is a crude filter,” Malakor began, leaning against the table with a sardonic smile. He gestured for her to sit, an offer she ignored. “It weeds out the weak. But what you displayed… that was something else. Finesse. Control. You’re not some back-alley brawler.” His black eyes appraised her, cold and calculating. “We have a place for someone with your talents. But loyalty must be proven. Tell me, who are you, and why should the Ashen Veil invest in you?”
This was her desired moment, the confrontation she had bled for. The obstacle was his arrogance, his belief that he was the one in control. It was time to disabuse him of that notion.
Elara didn’t answer his question. Instead, she asked one of her own, her voice a low, dangerous whisper that cut through his condescension. “A few nights ago, two of your men paid a visit to an apothecary in the River Ward. They carried a mace with an obsidian head. They were clumsy.”
Malakor’s smile didn’t falter, but a flicker of surprise registered in his eyes. “Many things happen in this city. We are a busy organization.”
“They destroyed something,” Elara continued, taking a slow step forward. The faint emerald glow in her eyes intensified, the air in the small room growing heavy and tight. “A Jade Soulstone. They were looking for its power.”
The lieutenant’s composure finally cracked. The sardonic mask slipped, revealing a predatory alertness. “You know a great deal about our private affairs,” he said, his voice losing its smooth edge. He pushed himself off the table, his hand drifting toward a wickedly curved dagger at his belt. “Perhaps too much.”
“Not enough,” Elara countered. She raised a gauntleted hand. “I want the name of the one who gave the order. I want to know why you targeted that stone.”
Malakor laughed, a short, ugly sound. “You are in no position to demand anything. You are a potential asset, nothing more. You will be of use to us, or you will be… recycled.” He drew his dagger, its edge glowing with the same corrosive purple energy as his bracers.
This was the moment of action. Brutal. Efficient.
The door behind her, which Malakor assumed was his only way out, suddenly groaned. Lines of pristine green crystal shot across its iron surface, sealing it shut with the screech of tortured metal. A thick, translucent jade barrier, inches thick, encased the door in a tomb-like shell.
Malakor’s eyes widened in shock. He lunged, not at her, but back towards the door, realizing his mistake too late. He was trapped. With her.
Elara moved with a speed that defied the eye. Before he could turn back, she was on him. She didn’t strike him with her fist. She laid her palm flat against his chest, right over his heart. He flinched, expecting a blow, but nothing happened. Nothing he could see.
Then, he gasped. His face went ashen, his eyes bulging in sudden, uncomprehending agony. He choked, a strangled sound catching in his throat as he clawed at his own chest.
“What… what are you doing?” he rasped, his legs buckling.
“You wanted to see control, Malakor,” Elara said, her voice utterly devoid of heat or passion. It was as cold and hard as the jade sealing the door. “I am demonstrating.”
She was not just channeling her power outwards; she was weaving it with terrifying precision inside him. Microscopic, ice-hot needles of pure jade were crystallizing within his very bloodstream, collecting in the delicate muscles around his heart and lungs. It was an agony beyond any simple blade. He was being unmade from the inside out.
He collapsed to his knees, the dagger clattering from his nerveless fingers. His breath came in ragged, painful hitches. He stared up at her, his arrogance completely shattered, replaced by the primal terror of a man facing a force he could not comprehend. He finally saw her not as a recruit, but as an executioner. He saw the Destroyer.
“The name,” she commanded.
“Mercy… please…” he choked out, blood flecking his lips.
The pressure in his chest increased. He screamed, a raw, high-pitched sound of pure torment.
“I am fresh out of mercy,” Elara stated. “The name. And the reason. Now.”
“Vardok!” he shrieked, the name torn from him. “Master Vardok! He’s the one who divined the location… of the Soulstone.”
“Why?” The pressure eased infinitesimally, a small reward for his compliance.
Malakor gasped for air, his body trembling violently. “The Ritual… The Grand Ritual to cast the city in shadow… it requires an immense source of pure, elemental life-force. A nexus of power. Vardok’s scrying led him to the Soulstone. He said it contained a lifetime of condensed, stable energy. Perfect for what we needed.”
The pieces clicked into place, forming a picture far more sinister than simple, malicious destruction. Her personal tragedy was just a footnote in their grand, nihilistic ambition.
“You were meant to steal it, not destroy it,” she said, the realization dawning on her.
He nodded frantically, his eyes wild with pain and fear. “Yes! We sent our best… enhanced agents. They were just supposed to retrieve it. But… but something went wrong. The stone… it was more volatile than Vardok predicted. It overloaded their containment matrix when they tried to drain it. The resulting feedback shattered it. It was an accident!”
An accident. The obliteration of Lyam’s soul, the anchor of her life, the one thing she cherished above all else, was a miscalculation. A workplace error. A cold, hollow laugh threatened to bubble up from her chest.
“And the power?” she asked, her voice dangerously quiet. “The energy you wanted so badly? Where did it go?”
This was it. The final, horrifying truth.
Malakor stared at her, at the emerald light burning in her eyes, at the pulsing green scars visible on her neck, at the oppressive, overwhelming aura of power that was causing the very iron of the room to hum. The last vestiges of his comprehension slotted into place, and what he saw in her face was a dawning horror that mirrored his own.
“It… it had to go somewhere,” he stammered, his voice cracking with a new kind of terror. “An energy nexus like that doesn’t just… dissipate. It seeks the nearest, most compatible vessel. The one it was already attuned to.” He stared at her, choking on the revelation. “Oh, gods. It’s in you. The power we were hunting… it’s all inside you.”
The world tilted. The white-hot core of her rage was doused in ice. Her quest for simple revenge, a straightforward path of blood and retribution, was suddenly a tangled, horrifying knot. They hadn’t just taken everything from her. They had inadvertently turned her into the sacred artifact they so desperately craved.
The hunter had just become the ultimate prize.
The price of information was a truth more terrible than she could have ever imagined. She wasn't just settling a score anymore. This was a fight for her very soul, for the catastrophic power now fused to her grief.
Malakor saw the shift in her eyes. “You… you have to protect me!” he pleaded. “If Vardok finds out the power is inside you… he will tear you apart to get it! I’m the only one who knows! I can help you!”
Elara looked down at the broken man at her feet. He was a loose end. A witness. A liability. Her future was no longer a clear path to a single man’s throat, but a desperate flight into shadow. And shadows didn’t have companions.
“Thank you for the information,” she said, her voice flat.
She closed her hand into a fist.
The screaming was blessedly short. What was left of Malakor collapsed to the floor, a heap of armor and robes suddenly devoid of life. A moment later, his form began to crystallize, turning into a rough, impure jade statue, his face locked in a silent plea. With a final, contemptuous thought, she shattered it into a cloud of green and grey dust.
She stood alone in the silent room, the hum of her own power the only sound. Her enemies were no longer just the murderers of her husband’s memory. They were her hunters. And all of Veridia was their hunting ground.
Characters

Captain Kaelen Thorne

Elara
