The three shadow-elders dropped over the mossy brick wall like black crows.
At Hour 425 of Kaelen’s slumber—with the Fallow Slate steady at a four hundred and twenty-six times multiplier—Wave Twelve entered the city as Patriarch Vulture’s final assassination squad. Each man was a veteran killer at Jade Meridian Mid, draped in sound-dampening silk and carrying poisoned garrotes.
Patriarch Vulture had promised them two hundred Mid-Grade Spirit Stones and the title of Mountain Elder if they brought back Kaelen Vance’s younger sister in chains.
“The girl is only twelve,” Ghost-Eye had told his men before departing. “Kidnapping a child is easy work. Once we have her in the gorge, the boy will surrender the tower without a fight.”
Their squad leader, Shadow-Elder Ghost-Eye, landed on his toes in the garden mud.
He crouched beneath the overhanging eaves of Kaelen Vance’s old courtyard residence, three streets away from the Guild Tower.
“The tower is an iron fortress,” Ghost-Eye whispered through his cloth face-mask. “Nine hundred guards, acoustic wards, and that Thorne woman with her storm-spear. Penetrating the main building is suicide.”
The two shadow-elders behind him nodded grimly, drawing their serrated bone daggers.
