Radeon and Fay flew out through the gates of Ossuary Necropolis Court, the bison's new wings beating the air with a leather snap and a windstone hum.

He found the camp. An unassuming mountain, the kind you would pass without a second glance.

Below, the undead that roamed the lands lifted their heads as the shadow passed over them.

Hungry eyes followed. Mouths curled. Some snarled.

Some only stared with the patience of graves. None gave chase.

Radeon held the sect token in his hand, letting it show.

Authority made even the dead hesitate. He glanced at it one last time.

A hooded figure with six wings stamped into the face, the mark of a core disciple.

Then he tucked it into a secured bag and cinched it shut.

Fay sat in the back seat, the saddle straps tight across her waist.

He found the camp. An unassuming mountain, the kind you would pass without a second glance.

Questions piled up in her throat. Where were they going. What were their plans. What was in that golden scroll.

Why did Claudius speak like the north was a mouth that ate men.

She could not hold it any longer.

Fay scooted forward, leaning close enough to be heard over the rush of air, ready to ask what their plan was, and what it meant for her.

"Where are we going, Master?" Fay asked.

"We'll pick up a few treasures on the way," Radeon said.

Radeon answered Fay's questions by reaching into the bag and pulling out a leather map.

He pinned it against his knee with two fingers.

"Goldkeep Crownmarket," he said.

Their main destination. Even with the speed they had, it would take half a month to reach.

Radeon pinned the map with qi, his freed fingers traced a line, then tapped a point near the city.

"I divined the next person we need. It points here."

Radeon knew he could not tell Fay about the children of heaven.

She might start thinking herself a chosen one and let it go to her head.

So he kept his focus on the destination. Goldkeep was crowded. Millions of citizens.

With that many lives packed together, it was easier to assume heaven's chosen would be hiding in the noise than standing alone on some wind cut ridge.

Fay swallowed and looked again, trying to make the ink become certainty. Another question rose at once.

"And the supplies, Master?" Fay asked.

Radeon only shifted his finger to a chain of small mountains along their route.

"Right here. This is where the treasures I mentioned can be found," he explained

Fay had no knowledge of those peaks. They were only names on paper to her.

But Radeon had taken the three bandit leaders' belongings, and in those scraps and seals he had found the truth.

Those mountains held their caches, buried in their own strongholds.

As he explained it, Fay's stomach tightened. Those men would not simply keel over and surrender their hoards.

They would fight, and fighting meant blood, and blood meant debt.

She looked at Radeon with concern.

He waved his hand as if brushing away smoke.

Then he placed a scroll into her hands.

"Read it. You'll need it later," Radeon said, turning his attention back to the sky ahead.

Fay opened the scroll. Inside were array diagrams.

Not the kind drawn for beauty, but the kind drawn to be used. Lines, angles, nodes, and small notes that told you where intent should sit.

How to create them. How to dismantle them. What each pattern was meant to do when a stranger tried to touch what was not theirs.

These were arrays meant to keep greedy hands out.

Fay studied the first page and found the logic slipped into place fast. The symbols felt like a language she had always almost known.

The steps were clear. The purpose was clear. She thought it would be easy to understand.

Fay didn't know why Radeon suddenly let her study all this, but it left her uneasy.

The sun slid behind the broken hills and darkness crept in, bringing a starless sky.

Wind worried at the wings and the saddle straps. The leather creaked. Fay kept reading until her eyes ached.

Radeon found the camp. An unassuming mountain, the kind you would pass without a second glance.

He pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write against his knee.

His divine eye probed the land below, not looking at what was obvious, but at what was hidden.

A crude wooden divide cut across its lower slope. Men moved inside in bands of black, red, and gray.

Radeon's gaze went past them. Past the watchfires. Past the noise.

Three small vaults sat tucked into the mountain's belly. Simple on the outside. Nasty underneath.

Arrays stacked just clever enough to keep treasure sealed, and stubborn enough that even a few gilded core experts would need hours to force them open.

By the time Radeon finished writing, night had thickened into something close to midnight. He handed the paper to Fay.

Fay took it with both hands and felt a flicker of admiration before she even read the ink.

Radeon's work was clean. Too clean. Then her eyes dropped to the bottom.

A list. Crack the three vaults. Get out undetected. Carry the treasures out safely.

Her throat tightened. For a heartbeat she assumed it was a mission for both of them.

Then, a hand seized her by the collar. The knot at her waist loosened fast, like it had never been tied by her at all.

Air slammed into her lungs. The saddle vanished under her, and the world turned into rushing wind and falling dark.

Fay flung her arms wide into the night air, fingers splayed.

There was no time to curse. No time to plead. Only the roar of wind and the sick pull in her stomach.

She poured qi into her whip. The bone length answered, stiffening, eager.

She twisted her body and angled her fall, shaving off speed by degrees instead of letting it become a straight plunge.

Qi also ran through her eyes, not sight alone but measurement, searching for stone that would not crumble, a landing that would not kill her.

There. A cliff face, dark against darker, with a seam of rock that looked like it could take a bite.

Fay turned toward it. In a few dozen breaths she was close enough to smell cold stone and dust.

She snapped her whip out. It struck and caught. The pull nearly tore her shoulder from its socket, but it held.

She slammed her buckler against the rock on the other side, wedging it hard, using it as a brake.

Her descent slowed, turning from a fall into a grinding slide.

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