The ringing of more than two dozen Golden Spirit monks’ bells could be heard long before the procession entered Halirosa’s northern Gold District.

  Each step landed with the same slow, deliberate weight, a cadence that echoed down the immaculate streets until it felt like the march itself carried its own drumbeat beneath the bells. Sandaled feet, bare soles, and boots struck the stone streets in unison. Robes rustled. Prayer beads clicked softly. Ornamental chains chimed against polished metal. Layered together, the sounds built into something that might have felt like a war song to anyone who knew how to listen.

  Maggy kept her shoulders square and her chin level, matching the pace of the man beside her.

  High Priest Halden, acting head of the Western Prima Temple, walked with his hands folded in his sleeves, his expression carved from stone. His gray-and-gold robes moved without a single wrinkle. He looked exactly like what he was: a man arriving to pass judgment.

  His Golden Spirit cultivation pressed outward in slow, deliberate pulses, like a second heartbeat felt through the air. The pressure was less meant as a threat to anyone foolish enough to block their path, and more a declaration — he had business to attend to, and the wise would step aside.

  On Maggy's right, Hugo strode half a step behind and to the side, the way they’d practiced. His armor turned him into a faceless insect of black and silver — smooth plating, overlapping pauldrons, and an angular helm with no visible visor or openings, only two large compound eyes made of dozens of hexagonal facets, like the eyes of an ant. The man who had once acted as little more than muscle for one of Icefinger’s lesser enforcers was nowhere to be seen. Tonight, he was the perfect image of a Guild heavy: silent, imposing, and just threatening enough to tell the watching nobles this was no ceremonial stroll.

  Maggy’s own clothes felt almost wrong in the middle of all this. Instead of the soft scholar’s robes she preferred, Dr. Maria had marched into her room, ignored every protest, and fished out an old dress robe Maggy had bought years ago for some formal gathering during her apprenticeship under Archmage Leonardo. She’d barely worn it back then — she’d always tried to dodge the political side of her studies — but even she hadn’t escaped the occasional summons to stand beside her teacher and look presentable. The dress had been her compromise: overly formal, stiff at the shoulders, and absolutely nothing she would have chosen on her own.

  A half-cloak pinned at one shoulder completed the outfit, the metal badge of the Halirosa Adventurer Guild marking her as a Guild-Appointed Senior Scholar. It wasn’t as eye-catching as Garrelt’s A-Rank badge, but it carried its own kind of weight, an authority people recognized even if they didn’t understand it. A matching token hung at her hip, polished until it gleamed like she actually belonged here.

  The monks walked in formation behind them, three rows of eight, the lead monk of each row raising a banner stitched with the insignia of the Western, Northern, and Southern Prima Temples. That alone snapped the district’s attention to the procession. Even though all three temples belonged to the same order, everyone in Halirosa knew about their long-standing, “friendly” rivalry. With the Eastern Temple still in ruins after the Cult of Iris incident years ago, it was rare to see the remaining three acting with such unified purpose.

  More than that, every monk in the column radiated the steady, disciplined weight of high to peak Golden Spirit cultivation. It wasn’t the strongest force Halirosa could muster — not even the strongest the temples could field — but it was a display impossible to ignore. Even by the standards of the City of Adventurers, this was a statement.

  And the Gold District took notice.

  Curtains twitched on the upper floors. Balconies that had been empty moments before suddenly filled with silhouettes. Robed clan heirs leaned over railings. Merchants in fine coats paused halfway to their carriages. A pair of sect disciples in embroidered tunics stepped smartly out of the way.

  Whispers rushed ahead of them, a low ripple that outran the bells.

  “Temple monks—”

  “Western, Southern… are those Northern colors as well?”

  “So many Golden Spirits? Here?”

  “What happened?”

  Every window felt like an eye. Every balcony a witness.

  The [Wasp] beneath her cloak buzzed, sharp enough to vibrate through the chain of her clasp. The next moment, a voice sounded in her ear.

  “You’re two streets away. Extraction team in position. Estate alert level elevated but not decisive. Maintain course.”

  She let the next breath slide out carefully, keeping her voice low enough that even the nearest monk wouldn’t hear over the bells and footsteps.

  “How does it look inside? Are they aware of us?”

  A faint click answered her ear again.

  “They know the temple is up to something, but not the motive. With how paranoid Orion is, she will connect the pieces once she sees you, though. Don’t rush.”

  Maggy flexed her fingers behind her back, trying to coax strength into joints that had gone stiff.

  A small, wry current threaded his tone.

  “Calm down, Miss Greenwood. You’re doing your job. Every step you take, every word you say, buys the others another minute. Let them work.”

  “Right,” she murmured, “buy minutes.”

  Her jaw tightened and she made herself nod once, sharp and contained.

  She didn’t picture Sister Audrea in a cell beneath the estate, sitting alone in the dark. She didn’t picture Kira Shadowclaw standing between them and the exit. She focused on the feel of stone under her boots and the beating of her heart, then swallowed it all, steadying her shoulders again.

  High Priest Halden’s gaze slanted her way.

  “Miss Greenwood?”

  She straightened, shoulders lifting that fraction closer to rigid. “Nothing, High Priest. Just… not fond of the attention.”

  A faint chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Nor am I, young one.” His eyes turned forward again, voice dropping to something almost conversational. “I will be glad when Sister Audrea is returned to us, and I can set this mantle aside and go back to my studies.”

  The warmth left his tone as quickly as it had come. “And by the Hearthmother,” he said, each word clipped and firm, “she will be returned.”

  The pulse of his Golden Spirit cultivation swelled then, a slow, steady tide pressing outward. The onlookers lining the street instinctively leaned back, leaving just that bit more space between the procession and their doorways.

  They rounded the last corner.

  The avenue ahead opened like a polished corridor, lined with villas that glowed soft gold under the setting sun. Spirit lanterns washed their facades in warm light; ornamental trees dripped rainwater from carefully groomed branches. It smelled faintly of wet stone and expensive incense.

  At the end of the avenue, the councilor’s estate waited.

  It rose from the street like something out of a sect recruitment pamphlet. High walls of pale stone framed the grounds, the surface inlaid with thin veins of sky-blue crystal that caught the lantern light. The main gate was ironwood painted a glossy black, carved with three overlapping circles above a stylized wave.

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  A group of young clan heirs watched from a second-story terrace, their hair ornaments and jade pendants catching the light. One of them whispered something behind his sleeve; another’s eyes darted from Halden’s robes to Maggy’s Guild badge. A merchant couple hung beside an elegant carriage further down the avenue. The man pretended to fuss and swoon over the well-dressed woman, but it was obvious that both pairs of eyes were firmly locked on the monks.

  “Movement inside. They know you’re coming,” Alpha said quietly against her collarbone.

  Maggy’s heartbeat jumped, and her hands clenched, but she only nodded.

  As Alpha warned, the moment the procession drew within sight of the estate’s open gates, Maggy saw movement — shadows tightening, shapes stepping into order. A line of guards formed just past the threshold, shoulder to shoulder.

  Three of them slipped out through the gate itself.

  Two took up flanking positions on either side, boots planted wide, hands resting on the hilts of their weapons in an attempt at casual authority. The third stepped forward alone, swagger sharp as the smirk tugging at his mouth. And to be fair… it was earned. His cultivation pressed faintly against the air, the unmistakable weight of a low Shackle Breaker.

  Intimidation, then. Of course.

  Too bad for him, Alpha had already mapped their strength.

  Three Shackle Breaking captains, nine Golden Spirit squad leaders. The rest — the hundred or so guards and staff — sat somewhere between Bronze and Silver Spirit.

  While a single Golden Spirit cultivator might struggle against even a low Shackle Breaker, the temple’s group of twenty-five Golden Spirit priests and monks, plus Maggy and Hugo, could have wiped this place clean. If not for Orion and Kira, two Second Greater Realm monsters lurking behind the walls.

  They likely knew that.

  More importantly, they didn’t know that Maggy knew that.

  So bluster and posture were the obvious response.

  The guard stopped several paces ahead, chin angled upward just enough to imply annoyance. He paused, letting his aura wash over the group, clearly expecting someone to stiffen or flinch away. When no one did, his own smirk faltered. Instead of letting it show, his gaze flicked over the group, pausing with narrowed eyes on Hugo, before glancing over Maggy, dismissing her, and finally landing on Halden.

  “Halt and identify yourselves,” the guard demanded. “The Councilor was not made aware of any—”

  Before he could say any more, High Priest Halden took a single step forward.

  His staff touched the stone with a light tok.

  Spirit-infused sound carried like a chime through the courtyard, cutting across the quiet murmur of onlookers and the faint rustle of robes. It was also the signal they had agreed on with the extraction team. Somewhere beneath their feet, Alpha’s people would now be moving.

  The guard blinked.

  “By authority of the Western Prima Temple,” Halden said, infusing his voice with spirit energy so that carried across the estate, “acting under joint mandate with the Northern and Southern branches, and under the eyes of the Sister and the Divine Star, I, High Priest Halden Corus, request audience with Councilor Varian Delev for matters of grave import.”

  The Shackle Breaking guard’s eyes narrowed. He straightened, shoulders angling back, the smirk turning rigid at the edges — a man trying very hard not to look at the twenty-five cultivators behind Halden.

  “The Councilor… uhm, was not expecting visitors at this hour,” he said. “If you would allow us to—”

  Halden tapped his staff again. The sound cut clean through the guard’s words.

  “The Temple was not expecting to be attacked,” he said, tone still measured, but with iron beneath it. “Nor for one of its Sisters to be taken from sanctified grounds. Yet we adapt.”

  A murmur rolled through the onlookers like a wave against stone.

  Maggy watched the guards closely. They exchanged a rapid series of glances — not the confused looks of house soldiers caught off guard, but the tight, evaluative flickers of professionals running through contingencies.

  “They’re relaying inside,” Alpha murmured.

  “Orion knows you’re here. Kira has already moved.”

  Her heart kicked. “Any issues?” she breathed.

  “None so far. She’s still a sublevel below the extraction team. They’re already moving. She hasn’t pinned them down yet.”

  The gate captain cleared his throat. “If you would give us a moment to inform the master—”

  Halden lifted the staff slightly. Light flared along the carved sunburst at its head, a soft, golden glow that painted lines in the air.

  “This is not a request for a social call, Captain,” he said quietly. “The Councilor may invite us inside in an orderly manner, or we may proceed under emergency writ and assume there is something here he does not wish us to see. Which impression would you prefer your employer to make in front of so many witnesses?”

  The man blanched.

  A voice floated from deeper within the courtyard, smooth and trained. “That won’t be necessary.”

  The guards parted.

  Councilor Varian Delev emerged from the grand front steps, robe hastily fastened over a set of plain indoor clothes. He was slimmer than Maggy expected, more scholar than a politician, his dark hair threaded with silver at the temples. A circlet marked his office, clear for all to see.

  At his side, half a step back, walked a woman.

  Maggy might have overlooked her if she hadn’t been warned. The woman’s black hair was drawn into a simple knot at the nape of her neck. Her dove-gray gown was modest, cut cleanly but without extravagance. A leather folder rested against her hip, one thumb stained with a small smudge of ink.

  Pretty, Maggy thought. But forgettable — the exact sort of forgettable that took work.

  Alpha’s voice crackled softly against her ear.

  “Be careful. The estate registry lists her as Lina Ardent. Officially, she’s the secretary and assistant to the Councilor. But don’t be fooled… that is Orion.”

  Maggy swallowed hard. Her heartbeat crawled up into her throat, a faint ringing buzzing beneath her hearing. Her fingers closed around the edge of her cloak, knuckles whitening beneath the fabric.

  This was the plan. She knew that. She’d agreed to this, rehearsed for this.

  But none of that stopped the cold realization settling behind her ribs: they were about to stall — and perhaps confront — someone who could, if pushed, wipe out every single person standing around her.

  And now she had to look that woman in the eye and pretend she wasn’t afraid.

  If Orion noticed Maggy watching her, she didn’t show it. She matched the Councilor’s pace with unhurried grace, face composed and eyes lowered just enough to appear deferential. Every movement projected the effortless calm of a trained assistant suddenly thrust into public scrutiny. Only the faint tension in her jaw — a single tight line beneath the polite mask — hinted at strain.

  “High Priest Halden,” Councilor Delev said, spreading his hands in welcome. “What an honor. To what do we owe this… impressive visit?”

  Halden did not return the smile. “Councilor. We are here on Temple business. Serious business.” His gaze cut briefly to Maggy. “Allow me to present Maggy Greenwood, Senior Scholar of Halirosa, and Apprentice to Archmage Leonardo. She serves as acting Guild advisor in this investigation. And her partner.”

  Hugo inclined his helmeted head a fraction. Maggy bowed with the formality Dr. Maria had drilled into her.

  Delev’s eyes lingered on Hugo’s armor before returning to Maggy. “Guild involvement, too,” he said lightly. “Then I must assume the rumors reaching my desk were not exaggerated after all.”

  “Some, no doubt, were,” Maggy said, keeping her tone even. “But not the ones that brought us here.”

  Halden planted his staff. “Councilor Varian Delev,” he said, voice ringing across the square, “you stand accused of complicity in the assault on the Western Prima Temple and the kidnapping of Sister Audrea of Halirosa.”

  The murmurs from the gathering crowd sharpened, rising into gasps and whispered disbelief. A woman on a balcony dropped her fan; it clattered loudly in the sudden quiet.

  Delev recoiled as if struck. “That is absurd,” he said, color draining from his face only to rush back, mottled and hot. “I have never— I would never— The Temple has my full respect. I have donated—”

  “We have records,” Maggy cut in gently, before he could spiral into offended generosity.

  Orion’s eyes flicked toward her, narrowing into thin blades that looked far too predatory to belong to a mere secretary.

  Halden continued, voice smooth as parchment. “Multiple testimonies and ledgers acquired by the City Guard and confirmed through Guild channels indicate that funds under your authority were diverted through a series of shell accounts.” He spoke with the steady neutrality of a man accustomed to reading declarations before a crowd. “Those accounts have been linked to known associates of an individual tied to the assault.”

  A faint crackle sounded in Maggy’s ear — Alpha patching in a line from Seren’s report. She let the words rise naturally.

  “Transfers through the Silver Tally Exchange,” she added, “masked as refugee aid and road repair. All approved with your seal.”

  Delev’s composure frayed. “Those were legitimate allocations,” he snapped. “Every coin accounted for.”

  “Then you will have no objection to sharing your private copies of the ledgers,” Halden said mildly. “And answering a few questions.”

  Orion stepped forward smoothly, her smile warm and polished. “High Priest,” she said, voice all velvet professionalism, “if I may. I am Lina Ardent, the Councilor’s administrative secretary. I assure you our financial records are meticulously kept. If there has been any misunderstanding, it can be resolved swiftly.” She inclined her head, the picture of diplomatic grace. “Perhaps we could move this discussion inside? The Councilor would be happy to cooperate away from the… excitement.”

  Her gaze flicked briefly toward the growing crowd.

  The unspoken message was clear: let’s not make a scene.

  But Halden didn’t budge. “Transparency serves us all,” he said evenly. “If this is a misunderstanding, witnesses will lay it to rest. If it is not…” His eyes hardened. “Then witnesses will still be necessary.”

  A ripple went through the monks at his back — the subtle shift of men and women who agreed.

  Orion’s smile held, but the lines of her posture tightened. Her fingers curled around her folder, knuckles blanching for half a second before she forced them to relax.

  Alpha’s voice murmured in Maggy’s ear.

  “Her pulse just spiked. Sublevel two wards cracked. Kira is on the move. Estimated contact in five minutes. Keep Orion occupied. She knows something’s happening — do not let her reenter the estate.”

  A chill went down Maggy’s spine. She kept her face neutral and her breathing steady.

  The real fight had just begun.