Night of Phantoms

The only thing more hollow than a lie is the ghost who tells it.

There was no more discussion. The time for words, for plans and for humiliating concessions, was over. The instructions had been read, the roles assigned. All that remained was the performance.

Night had fully claimed Lenspear, swallowing the bruised colors of dusk and leaving only the cold, artificial light of street-lamps and the distant silver of the moons. In our room, a new kind of silence had settled, one of grim purpose. Asverta had already changed. She wore a suit of dark, supple leather that did not reflect the light, making her a figure of pure shadow. She moved with a silent efficiency that was unnerving, her every motion economical and precise. She tossed a bundled dark cloak onto the bed where I sat. It was for me. I pulled it on, the rough fabric a strange weight on my shoulders. It felt like a costume for a play I had no desire to be in.

We left Mu sleeping, a small, still form in the quiet of the room, oblivious to the monstrous errand we were about to run. The city we moved through was a different entity at night. The bustling crowds were gone, replaced by solitary figures and hushed conversations spilling from tavern doorways. I saw a guard leaning against a wall, his eyes heavy with boredom. I saw a young couple walking arm-in-arm, their laughter a faint, happy sound that felt like it belonged to another reality. These were the living, participating in the simple, mundane theater of their lives. We were phantoms, moving through their world on a path they could not see, our purpose a dark poison we carried in our hearts.

The Citadel was a monolith of dark stone that clawed at the night sky, a monument to order and strength. It seemed to exude an aura of cold, unyielding authority. We approached the western gate, the one designated for service and late-night couriers. The guards, cloaked and armed, stood like statues.

"Iron Lily," Asverta said, her voice a low murmur.

The guard barely glanced at us. The password was a key, and he was just a part of the lock. He grunted, pulling a heavy lever that opened a smaller door set within the massive gate. We slipped inside.

The corridors of the Citadel were cold and vast, our footsteps echoing in the oppressive silence until Asverta made a subtle gesture, and a spell of quiet settled around our feet, muffling the sound. We moved quickly, a pair of shadows navigating a stone labyrinth. The only sounds were the distant, rhythmic marching of a patrol and the faint hum of the magical wards that pulsed through the fortress like a slow, sleeping heartbeat.

We reached the General's study on the third floor. The door was heavy oak, bound with iron. A faint, blue shimmer clung to it—the ward.

"Stand back," Asverta whispered.

She did not blast it or unravel it. Her work was far more subtle. She placed her palm flat against the wood, and I felt the mana in the air shift. She was not fighting the ward; she was listening to it, humming along with its frequency until she found a dissonant note. With a delicate twist of her fingers, she pulled at that note, and the entire magical structure unraveled like a poorly knit sweater, its light fading into nothing without a sound. Then came the physical lock. A whisper of magic from her lips, a faint click from within the mechanism, and the heavy door swung open.

The study was exactly as I had imagined it from Kael's description. It was the den of a lion. Masculine, orderly, and smelling faintly of old leather, steel polish, and expensive tobacco. Trophies and commendations gleamed on the walls, maps of strategic importance were pinned to a large board, and a massive, ornate sword was mounted above the fireplace. This was the personal space of the man whose ghost we were about to desecrate.

I did not hesitate. The plan, my plan, was a cold, clear map in my mind. I crossed the room to the large oak desk. As Asverta stood watch at the door, a silent sentinel, I knelt and found the loose floorboard she had read about from the slate. It came up with a soft groan of protesting wood. I placed the forged ledger inside the dark space, its false numbers a quiet poison waiting to be discovered.

Next, the letters. I opened the top drawer of the desk. It was filled with official-looking documents, reports, and requisitions. I slipped the forged letters from Linura among them, burying them just deep enough to be found by anyone searching with intent. Each action was mechanical, precise. My body was a tool, performing its function. I felt nothing. I was a phantom, planting the seeds of a dead man's ruin.

My task was complete. As I was about to close the drawer, my eyes caught something out of place. A small, silver picture frame, lying face down on the corner of the desk, as if knocked over in a moment of haste or grief. It was not part of the plan. It was an anomaly.

Driven by an impulse I did not understand—a flicker of Einar's need for all data, or perhaps a faint, dying echo of Nora's empathy—I reached out and turned it over.

The portrait was of the General. But this was not the stern, decorated soldier from the official paintings in the hall. Here, he was smiling. It was a genuine, unguarded smile, one that reached his eyes. He had his arm around a woman with kind eyes, and a small boy who looked no older than Mu was perched on his shoulders, laughing. His family.

The image struck me with the force of a physical blow. It was a detail Kael had not provided. A variable my perfect, logical plan had not accounted for. This "target," this abstract concept whose reputation I was systematically destroying, was a man. A husband. A father. The realization did not bring guilt. It brought a sickening, profound sense of wrongness.

A sharp hiss from the doorway broke the spell. Asverta was gesturing frantically. Our time was up.

I placed the frame back on the desk, face down, exactly as I had found it. We slipped out of the room. Asverta sealed the door behind us, her magic weaving the wards back into place as if they had never been disturbed. The first part of our task was done. We were ghosts once more, melting back into the stone corridors of the Citadel. But as we moved through the darkness, I was no longer empty. I was haunted. Haunted by the image of a dead man's smile, a single, inconvenient human detail that had just stained our perfect crime.