The wax seal on the bone cylinder bore the twin serpents of the Imperial Regent, but the wax was smeared with greasy ash and fresh arterial blood.
Lady Vespera stood at the threshold of the tent, her sea-green eyes grim. She kept her gaze politely averted from the intimate disarray of Aurelia’s linen tunic and Malakor’s bare, scarred torso, though the admiral’s hand never drifted far from the pommel of her sidearm.
"The courier took two crossbow bolts through his brigandine," Vespera said, her voice clipped. "He lived long enough to pass this to the perimeter sentries, whispered the words 'The Sunken Gate has fallen,' and choked on his own blood."
Malakor rose from his knees with fluid, predatory grace. He pulled a dark woolen tunic over his head, concealing the burns across his chest, though nothing could conceal the lethal malice radiating from his frame. He stepped beside Aurelia’s chair, crossing his massive arms over his chest like an executioner awaiting his sentence.
"Give it to me," Aurelia said, extending a hand.
Vespera placed the cylinder into her palm. Aurelia didn't bother using a knife; a single flare of starlight from her fingertip liquefied the hardened wax, popping the bone cap free. She slid the rolled parchment out, uncurling the stained vellum against her knee.
The script was hasty, penned in the spidery hand of Grand Chancellor Sean, the only man in the Capital whose loyalty had not been purchased by the merchant lords.
To Her Imperial Majesty, Aurelia of the Veil,
The silence from the east gave the traitors their courage. Regent Cassian declared your expedition perished within the Valley of Runes three moons ago. In your absence, the Conclave of High Barons opened the Iron Vaults beneath the capital and ratified a pact with the Sunken Syndicate.
The Sea-Gates of Val-Khor are occupied. The fleet of the Iron Patriarch has anchored in the bay, their canons trained on the Citadel. They have placed the Crown of Thorns upon Cassian's brow and named you an outlaw, apostate, and necromancer of the fallen gods.
Do not return with mere words. If you march without a fleet, you march into a slaughter.
The gods preserve the true Empress.
Aurelia stared at the parchment, her silver-violet eyes narrowing until they were slivers of cold crystal.
"Cassian," she whispered, the name tasting like sour wine on her tongue. "The coward spent three years hiding behind silk tapestries while we marched through frozen mud and drake-fire, and now he crowns himself with stolen thorns."
"The Sunken Syndicate controls eighty war-galleys," Lady Vespera noted, her brow furrowing deeply as she stepped closer to the map table. "If their cannons command the bay of Val-Khor, our naval forces at Anchorhead cannot breach the harbor without suffering catastrophic losses. It's a natural bottleneck. High cliffs, sunken chain-booms, and coastal mortar batteries."
"Then we don't sail through their harbor," a low, gravelly voice rumbled.
Malakor leaned over the table, placing both heavy palms flat against the wood. His dark eyes flickered with the brutal, tactical genius that had broken the siege of Mor-Thal.
"Let the Syndicate sit in the bay with their guns pointed at the sea," Malakor said, a savage, razor-sharp grin curving his scarred lips. "We take the Vanguard through the Razorback Spine. We cross the high passes that the Conclave believes impassable in winter, descend upon the capital from the landward gates, and gut Cassian in his own bedchamber."
"The Razorback Spine in the dead of winter?" Vespera scoffed, though there was a glimmer of reluctant awe in her eyes. "Half the horses will freeze to death before we reach the western crest."
"The horses won't freeze," Aurelia spoke, rising from her chair with imperial finality.
As she stood, the Six Shards beneath her sternum pulsed in synchronous resonance. A warm, golden-silver aura radiated outward from her body, washing over the tent, instantly driving away the creeping chill of the night. The scent of ozone and living aether filled the air, vibrant and undeniable.
"The Veil does not answer to the weather of men anymore," Aurelia said, her voice ringing with the quiet, terrifying certainty of a sovereign who wielded the power of creation and destruction combined. "I will melt the snow ahead of our vanguard. The earth will yield to our march."
She looked at Malakor, finding her own ruthless hunger mirrored in his gaze.
"Prepare the legions, Vespera," Aurelia ordered, her ancestral sword resting at her hip once more. "Sound the horns at dawn. We march on the capital—not to reclaim our throne, but to execute the fools who dared sit upon it."