Chapter 8: A Dance of Lies

Chapter 8: A Dance of Lies

“He’s the one,” Kaelen’s voice was a flat, cold line of certainty through the comms. “Councilor Valerius. He’s our Silent Tongue.”

From his perch in the ventilation shaft, Rhys watched the man in question schmoozing with a group of bejeweled aristocrats. Councilor Valerius, the self-proclaimed staunchest defender of the truth-pact, was a snake in a tailor-made suit. The hypocrisy was so thick it was suffocating. “So what’s the plan, Marcus Thorne?” Rhys whispered, the false name a wry jab. “Politely ask him to surrender?”

“The plan has evolved,” Kaelen replied, a dangerous edge to his tone. “I’m going to create a diversion. A loud one. When the screaming starts, the guards will be drawn from the gallery to the ballroom. That’s your window. Get the Oculus and make for the west-side service elevator. I’ll meet you there.”

“And what kind of diversion are we talking about?” Rhys asked, a knot of unease tightening in his gut.

The line went silent for a moment before Kaelen answered, his voice low and grim. “The kind they can’t ignore.”

Down below, Kaelen moved. He pushed off the pillar with a fluid grace that was utterly at odds with his brutish disguise, weaving through the glittering crowd with predatory purpose. He intercepted Councilor Valerius just as the man was accepting a flute of shimmering liquid from a passing server.

“Councilor,” Kaelen’s voice was pitched to carry just to their small group. “A moment of your time.”

Valerius turned, his public smile firmly in place, though his eyes were like chips of flint. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“You could say we have a mutual interest,” Kaelen said, his gaze unwavering. “The preservation of Veridia’s foundational principles. For instance, the one that makes it rather painful to lie about, say, attempting to acquire the pieces of the Heart of Silence.”

The smile on Valerius’s face didn’t falter, but a flicker of pure panic flared in his eyes. A bead of sweat traced a path down his temple. The truth-pact was a subtle torture device; the closer one came to speaking a direct lie, the more the magical pressure built. Valerius was trapped. He couldn’t deny the accusation without convulsing in agony in front of the city’s elite.

“My security chief will handle this,” Valerius said through a tight jaw, taking a small step back. He gave a nearly imperceptible nod to two men standing nearby. They were built like tanks, their suits straining at the seams. “This man is a threat. Escort him out. Quietly.”

The two bodyguards moved in, their faces impassive. “Sir, you’ll need to come with us,” one of them grunted, reaching for Kaelen’s arm.

Kaelen didn’t move. “I don’t think so.”

That was the spark. The bodyguard’s hand clamped down, and Kaelen moved with impossible speed, twisting the man’s wrist until the bone snapped with a sickening crack. The second guard lunged, and Kaelen met him with a brutal elbow to the throat.

Guests screamed. Champagne flutes shattered. The carefully constructed civility of the gala burst like a soap bubble.

The two bodyguards staggered back, but there was no pain on their faces, only a cold, focused rage. The one with the broken wrist snapped it back into place with an unnatural crunch. From inside their jackets, they each produced a thin, metallic injector, pressing it into their own necks. Rhys watched from above as thin, red lines pulsed up their veins, their muscles seeming to swell in real-time. It was the same feral energy he’d felt from the thugs high on unpasteurized demon blood in the Low Town alleys, but this was a refined, weaponized version.

Up in the vents, the first alarms began to blare. This was it. Rhys dropped from the grate, landing in a silent crouch on the polished floor of the gallery. The two guards stationed there were already moving towards the door, drawn by the commotion and the urgent calls on their comms.

“Ballroom breach! All units converge!”

Rhys became a fleeting shadow, darting past them as they exited. He sprinted to the central pedestal. The Oculus of Aethel floated within a crackling energy field. He didn't have time for subtlety. He slammed his hand against the pedestal’s control panel, flooding it with a chaotic burst of umbrakinesis. The field flickered, shorted out with a shower of sparks, and died. He snatched the polished obsidian lens, its surface unnervingly cold, and shoved it into a pouch inside his jacket. He was back in the shadows of the doorway just as a new set of guards rounded the far corner. A tense cat-and-mouse game began through the pristine, deserted corridors of the penthouse.

In the ballroom, all hell had broken loose. The two enhanced bodyguards were no longer human. They were blurs of speed and strength, their punches strong enough to crack the marble pillars. Kaelen was on the defensive, his movements precise and brutal, but he was being forced back. He was holding back, trying to maintain his cover.

They are puppets juiced with demonic filth, Cryos roared, thrashing against Kaelen’s control. You hold back? You insult me! Let me show them a true demon!

One of the bodyguards caught him with a blow to the ribs that sent him skidding across the polished floor, crashing into a table laden with exotic food. The crowd shrieked and scrambled away, a wave of silks and jewels fleeing the raw violence that had invaded their sanctuary.

That was enough. The pretense of ‘Marcus Thorne’ was over. Lying on the floor, surrounded by shattered crystal, Kaelen surrendered.

The temperature in the grand ballroom dropped fifty degrees in a second.

Frost exploded from his body, racing across the floor in intricate, deadly patterns. The remnants of spilled champagne flash-froze. The bodyguards’ advance slowed as the floor became a sheet of slick, treacherous ice. Kaelen rose to his feet, no longer a man in a suit, but a force of nature. His eyes glowed with that terrifying, glacial blue light.

“You wanted a threat, Councilor?” Kaelen’s voice echoed, layered with the demon’s chilling resonance. He raised his hand, and the grand, ornate chandelier above them groaned, thick icicles forming on its crystals. “You’ll have one.”

He unleashed a storm. A blizzard of razor-sharp ice shards tore through the ballroom. It wasn’t aimed to kill the fleeing guests, but to control, to terrify. He herded them with fear, clearing a battlefield. The enhanced bodyguards charged through the gale, their demonic strength allowing them to weather the storm.

Kaelen met them, no longer dodging but attacking. He forged a blade of black ice in his hand and engaged them in a dance of brutal lethality. He moved like the heart of winter, every motion a killing blow, every parry a wall of impenetrable frost. He shattered one bodyguard’s arm with a frozen gauntlet, then impaled the other through the chest with an ice spear summoned from the ground.

The city’s elite watched in horror. This wasn’t the measured, controlled justice of an Arbiter. This was raw, terrifying, elemental fury. This was the dark, monstrous power that underpinned their perfect, truth-bound city. Councilor Valerius stood frozen, his face a mask of abject terror, his greatest secret weapon being dismantled by his greatest nightmare.

Rhys, meanwhile, was darting through the hidden passages behind the walls. He could feel the vibrations of the battle, the supernatural cold seeping even through the thick plasteel. He reached the west-side service elevator and pried the doors open, waiting in the darkness of the shaft, the cold Oculus pressed against his chest.

Kaelen finished it. He left the two bodyguards as frozen, shattered statues in the center of the ruined ballroom. He locked eyes with Valerius one last time—a silent promise of retribution—then turned and smashed through a panoramic window, the enchanted glass exploding outwards. He didn’t fall. A ramp of ice instantly formed beneath his feet, a bridge to the sky leading to the service section of the building.

He landed beside the elevator shaft just as Rhys pulled himself up. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Kaelen slammed his hand on the elevator’s emergency release, and they began to plummet down the shaft, the emergency brakes screaming in protest.

They burst out onto a loading dock fifty floors below and melted into the chaos of the Mid-Town streets. Behind and above them, the Vertigo Spire was lit up like a beacon, the flashing red and blue lights of Arbiter cruisers and city patrol craft converging on it from all directions.

They had the Oculus. They had exposed a traitor. But as they looked at the city now hunting them, they knew the truth. They were no longer just a reluctant team. They were Veridia’s most wanted fugitives.