Thorne’s teeth rattled against the cold mud as Malakor’s boot pressed harder against his windpipe.
"In the breastplate!" Thorne choked out, his manicured hands clawing uselessly at the rim of Malakor's heavy leather boot. His eyes bulged, bloodshot with panic as he stared up into the sovereign’s ruthless, amber gaze. "The inner seam! The key is there! Don't kill me—by the Light, don't kill me!"
Aurelia knelt beside the pinned officer. Without a word of comfort or hesitation, she reached into the torn silk lining beneath his breastplate and withdrew a small, heavy cylinder of black iron, banded in brass and etched with concentric solar runes. Attached to it on a braided silver wire was a flat, notched key.
She held the cylinder up to the gray morning light. The runes hummed faintly with minor warding magic, but beneath her touch, the silver light in her palms flared, instantly unravelling the enchantment and rendering the mechanism inert.
"It is the cipher," she said, looking up at Malakor. "The routes to the western mercenary encampments and the treasury vaults at Val-Roc."
Malakor’s gaze never left Thorne’s terrified face. The corner of his mouth twitched in cold disgust.
"What of the High Inquisitor?" Malakor asked, his voice low and vibrating with dangerous weight. "Where does he gather the Grand Host?"
"The Sunken Spire," Thorne wheezed, spit flecked with blood bubbling at his lips. "He marched from the capital three days ago. He believes the northern rift broke open... he went to claim whatever crawled out of the dark. He doesn't know you survived! He thinks you're dead under the mountain!"
Malakor held the captain’s gaze for a heartbeat longer. Then, with a single, brutal downward snap of his heel, he broke the man’s neck.
The sickening crunch echoed off the stone walls of the courtyard, followed by immediate, heavy silence.
Malakor stepped over the corpse, wiping the mud from his boot on Thorne's embroidered surcoat. He looked across the ruined courtyard where the six massive wagons sat, their canvas covers dripping rain over the iron-bound chests of bullion.
"Val-Roc," Malakor said, turning to Aurelia. His chest was heaving with the remnants of the battle, his dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and river mist. "If we hold the silver of Val-Roc, the Southern Lords will refuse the Inquisitor's levies. He will have an army of zealots and conscripts, but no iron, no grain, and no sell swords."
Aurelia stood, pocketing the iron cylinder at her belt. She stepped close to him, unbothered by the carnage surrounding them. The scent of him—smoke, rain, blood, and sovereign heat—was the only clean thing in the reeking courtyard.
She reached up, her fingers catching the leather strap of his gorget, gently nudging it straight where it had slipped during the slaughter. Her knuckles brushed the hot, scarred skin of his throat, and the resonance in their veins flared in an instant, intoxicating and bright.
"The Sunken Spire is two hundred leagues south," she murmured, her dark eyes locking with his. "He is looking for me in the ashes of Mount Sorrow. Let him search the dirt while we strip his empire to the bone."
Malakor caught her wrist in a grip that would have crushed weaker bone, his thumb pressing into the rapid thrum of her pulse. His eyes burned with an unbridled, feral intensity that made her breath catch in her throat.
"You look beautiful covered in their ruin," he whispered, his voice rough and laced with dark promise. He pulled her flush against his chest, heedless of the armor between them, his mouth taking hers in a fierce, possessive kiss that tasted of victory and cold rain.
When he finally released her lips, he looked down at the six wagons of silver with a ruthless grin.
"Burn the draft horses we can't take, hitch the strongest to the two lead wagons, and dump the rest of the iron into the river flume," Malakor commanded, stepping toward the stables. "We leave Oak haven before the smoke clears the hills."