In the days that followed, Nemoria took to the skies. Her wings carried her high above the kingdom, over its winding rivers and stone-walled cities, over the great roads where men marched in ordered ranks. She watched and learned marking the larger outposts, counting the banners that flew above them. She traced the fastest routes the army favored, the paths their scouts cut through forest and field. She watched where the wealthy gathered, halls of gold and laughter standing apart from the lives of common folk. She even watched the royal quarters, where she had seen the prince reading on the balcony, the queen praying late at night, yet the king never entered her vision, just as she had predicted, a hard man to reach.

  The more she saw, the heavier her heart became. The kingdom’s grip was tighter than she had imagined, its reach stretching to every village, every stretch of road, every corner of forest. Human progress had marched farther than she would have believed, the weight of their order pressing down like iron chains.

  Was it her fault? Should she have acted sooner, pressed harder when the first shadows fell?

  She pushed the thought aside, but it returned in the following days, whispering. No… this was not the steady creep of men alone, this speed, this sudden strength, it was fed by something else, something hidden…the hand of another, moving unseen upon the board.

  Nemoria’s feathers ruffled against the cold wind as she wheeled above a fortress town, eyes narrowing. Unknown players shifted the pieces, and she would have to uncover them before she could make her move. Until then, every step she took might already be within their design. She had spent too much time enjoying the wilds, too much time in communion with the forests. Years had passed like days, and while the world soared to heights unknown, she had lingered, still and unchanged, a watcher when she might have been a mover.

  At last, she settled her gaze on the jewel of the kingdom, Caldrithorne. The city shone like a crown upon the land, its markets rich with color, its towers gleaming beneath banners of gold and green. Wealth had long favored it, for Caldrithorne lay close to Vireth Tal and the deep veins of Karn Vereth’s mines. The mark of that fortune was plain for all to see. Orange crystals from the mountains adorned its every street, set in polished bands across walls and gates, catching the sun by day and the lamplight by night. Tall poles lined the corners of its avenues, each crowned with crystal globes that glimmered when darkness fell, so that the city’s nights burned with a soft, unearthly radiance.

  Here food was art, and music as common as the air. Stalls in the squares overflowed with spice and roast, smoke rising like banners of their own above the crowd. Songs spilled from taverns, bright and loud, while minstrels played on corners for the laughter of passing nobles. In spring and summer the city swelled with travelers, folk from every reach of the kingdom come to lose themselves in its festivals. They brought coin to spend and tales to trade, and Caldrithorne gave them wonder in return, so long as their purses were full.

  Yet Nemoria’s eyes were not for its beauty…her gaze turned always toward the great manor that stood above the rest, the seat of the King’s Master of Coin.

  It was a choice made with care, every lord and every minister of the high court came to him in time, whether to fill their coffers, to balance their ledgers, or to beg indulgence. If she wore his face, then the doors of the kingdom would open to her.

  She soon realized the Master of Coin was no simple prey. The man was far sharper than his looks would have one believe. His paunch and easy smile hid a mind that measured everything, from the weight of a purse to the pause in a servant’s step. He spoke with the air of one distracted, fumbling through small talk, yet his eyes missed nothing. She watched him walk the markets, greeting merchants with the warmth of an old friend, only to press them later for a tally that left no copper unaccounted for. In the council chamber he laughed at jests as though they were the whole of his wit, but the moment men grew careless, his words cut clean as razors, binding them to bargains they had not meant to make. His manor was bound with wards, subtle lines of power that pricked even her senses when she drew near. His office, too, bore the marks of protection, and even his carriage rolled within a net of charms. Guards trailed him wherever he went, trained men whose eyes measured every shadow, clad in armor traced with runes and bearing weapons wrought by the finest artisans of the kingdom.

  A clean swap would not come easily… so she would have to wait. The moment must be chosen as a hunter chooses the strike, when the deer bends its head to drink, unknowing. Patience would be her weapon, for one misstep would see the whole plan unraveled.

  Nemoria shadowed the Master of Coin, Lord Orlyn Draemyr, as a hawk shadows its prey. She watched him at table and at court, weighed the way he lifted his cup, the twitch of his fingers when he spoke of sums too great for most men to fathom, the way his back stiffened when he lied. Each habit, each tick, each subtle tilt of his voice was stored away, until a plan began to form in her mind, swift, daring, and sharp-edged enough to cut both ways.

  The first piece of her plan was set in motion under cover of night. A maid, young and weary after her duties, never reached her home, Nemoria descended on silent wings, and the girl vanished into the shadows. When the girl opened her eyes again, the Crown of Thorns rested upon her brow, its cruel gleam sinking into her thoughts. Nemoria’s voice wove gently through her mind, reshaping without breaking, bending without shattering.

  The second part of the plan was not set in stone...she needed to test the strength of Orlin Draemyr’s wards, to know if they barred only the touch of sorcery from without, or if they consumed it utterly, leaving nothing to take root within. To that end, she placed her special boots upon the maid’s feet, whispering the commands until the girl’s steps carried her through the manor’s halls. Her task was to mark the entrance to Orlin’s chamber with care, a touch no mortal eye would see, then, with cold precision, to strip the boots from her feet and cast them out through the window into the waiting dark. Nemoria herself would don them now, to see if the wards would bend to her art or rise to deny her.

  If the wards would deny her passage, then she would have to turn to the second design, a plan that was more gamble than craft. The maid, still bound to her will, was instructed to slip into the lord’s chamber while he slept, a knife clutched in trembling hands. It was all theater, no true intent of blood, for Nemoria had no wish to harm Orlin Draemyr…not yet. The sight of cold steel at his throat would be enough. In that moment of fear, when even the shrewdest mind faltered, the girl would deliver a letter written in Nemoria’s own hand.

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  Its words were simple, yet sharp, an appeal not to honor or duty but to greed. Riches promised, opportunities whispered, all set to lure a man who weighed the world in coin. The meeting place was in the town below, chosen for its noise and shadow, far from the protection of his wards. There, Nemoria would wait…she wagered that he would take the bait, for men like him could no more resist the scent of gold than wolves the smell of blood. Even if he came wrapped in guards and armor, she would have the advantage. Beyond the walls of his manor, he was flesh and bone, and she was the hawk circling above.

  All her careful weaving unraveled in a heartbeat the next morning, as so many schemes in life do. She had been playing with powers she did not fully grasp, and the wards showed her the price of such folly. The moment the maid crossed the threshold of the manor, the air shivered, and unseen threads snapped taut. Lightless fire rippled across the doorway, and the bindings in the girl’s mind shattered like glass. Thoughts and memories, once chained, surged back in a torrent. She screamed, the sound raw with agony and terror, before her body seized and crumpled to the polished floor in convulsions.

  The guards were upon her in seconds…they did not know what had been done, yet training guided them as if the moment had been long rehearsed. Protocols were followed, commands barked with crisp precision, and within breaths the manor had shifted into a fortress. Bolts were drawn, wards strengthened, patrols doubled and what had been a lord’s dwelling became a bunker, iron-clad against intrusion.

  For a few moments Nemoria hung in the sky, stunned…she had not anticipated this turn, though in hindsight the truth should have been plain as dawn. She should have known better but regret was a luxury she could not afford. Nemoria had, at most, an hour before the maid stirred, before broken memories were given voice, and when that happened, all her work would be ashes.

  She had no time for a new plan, and no chance to flee…not without the boots. Something that powerful could not be left behind, not in the hands of Orlin Draemyr. The only piece still in her favor was the hour and the lay of the land. It was early morning, when the maid reported for work, and few souls stirred upon the streets below. The manor itself sat high upon a private hill, apart from the bustle of the city, its walls looking down upon tiled roofs and winding lanes. At this hour no merchants climbed its path, no petitioners begged its gates.

  That isolation was her one advantage, no witnesses or prying eyes. She could not slip away, so she would turn the hill into a cage, lock the manor within her grasp, and break it from the inside. It was no easy task, she knew well the strength of the wards and the steel within those walls, but it was the only card left to her. To seize the lord and retrieve her boots, she would have to seal the domain, bind every living soul within, and fight them on their own ground.

  With a piercing shriek she shed her guise, wings unfurling as her body stretched into its hybrid form, talons caught the wind, and she plummeted from the air like a falling star. Her impact struck the courtyard with the force of a comet, stone groaning beneath her as the ground shuddered. She wasted not a heartbeat. From her pouch she drew a cluster of dark seeds, flung with the speed of a striking hawk against the manor’s walls.

  In an instant they burst to life…vines surged upward, thick and green, bristling with spines sharp as daggers. They wrapped themselves around stone and gate alike, binding and squeezing as though the manor itself were prey. Within breaths, blossoms as broad as a man’s chest unfurled, violet petals glistening in the light. From their throats poured a heavy pollen, sweet as honey, pungent as rot. It spread swiftly, carried by the morning breeze through yard and over rooftop.

  Nemoria breathed it without pause, for she was immune, but the guards nearest the wall faltered, staggered, and dropped, their eyes rolling as sleep took them. The pollen was no spell, no conjured force, and so it slid past the wards unhindered. Yet she knew well enough the men within were not fools…already they would be working against her, scouring their stores for charms or draughts to blunt its power. Her time was measured in grains of sand, slipping faster with every breath.

  She reached into her pouch once more and drew forth a single seed, red and swollen as a ripe plum. This one was no simple trick, she knew its cost all too well. With a hiss she raked her talon deep across her flesh, blood welling bright and hot, she pressed the seed against the wound, and in an instant it came alive. Roots split from its shell and burrowed into her veins, drinking deep of her strength.

  Pain lanced through her body, white and blinding, but she did not falter. The roots spread like fire through her blood, coiling, binding, reshaping. From her arms and back they burst forth in living cords, writhing and sharp, tentacles of flesh and wood bound together. This was blood magic, the oldest and most forbidden kind, a craft born not of study but of sacrifice, shaping the body itself as vessel and weapon.

  Her time was measured now, she knew, every heartbeat a drop of her life drained away. But the gamble proved true and the wards did not stir against it. They were woven to turn aside the common paths of sorcery, the known weavings of men, not this wild and alien growth. With a roar, Nemoria hurled herself forward, roots lashed, stone cracked, and the manor’s great doors burst beneath her charge. She tore through them in a frenzy, a storm of wings and blood and writhing roots, as she entered the lord’s house in a berserk state, no longer hunter or spy, but a force of ruin.

  The soldiers fought as best they could, their rune-etched blades slashing deep, points striking home. Yet no blood spilled…the vines that filled Nemoria’s body clenched each wound shut, holding fast to their source of power, refusing to let it scatter so easily. She moved with terrible speed, crashing through doors and shattering windows, her roots tearing wood and stone alike. She paid little heed to the men around her, their deaths were no prize worth the time it would cost. What she wanted was the air itself filled with the sweet, suffocating pollen, enough to drown the manor in sleep.

  As she pressed deeper, resistance hardened and troops came at her with cloth and leather tied across their faces, makeshift masks against the pollen. It slowed her, but not enough…she tore the masks away with lashing roots, and when she could not, she simply ripped the men apart, flinging broken bodies aside as though they were straw. The path narrowed, the air thickened, and her pulse roared in her ears…she was close now. Orlin Draemyr had wrapped himself in every shield coin could buy, but he was no king, his wards had failed to account for her. His men had never seen the like of her. He did not know her.

  At last she reached his chambers. With a roar she drove her shoulder into the heavy door, wood exploded into splinters, fragments scattering across the chamber like shards of light. Inside, Orlin cowered behind his desk, pale and trembling, while before him stood the captain of the guard, steel drawn, runes burning along the blade’s edge. One last push, one final strike, and the manor would be hers…then would come the hard part.