Anja Kovac moved through the chaos like it was her native element. The shipyard was a maze of rusted steel and shadows, a perfect killing ground. She ran low, her boots silent on the slick concrete. Behind her, the Unremembered followed, a ragged mob armed with zeal and scavenged rifles. They were not soldiers. They were a weapon she had to aim. Katarina Volkova, their leader, ran beside her, a red scarf a slash of defiance against the grey smog.
— To the piers! — Katarina screamed, her voice raw. — For the Palimpsest!
Anja ignored the slogan. She pointed towards the skeletal cranes looming over the canal.
— West side. Suppressing fire. Now.
The revolutionaries obeyed, their ragged volleys of gunfire sparking against the iron hulls of the German gunboats anchored in the waterway. It was a distraction. A costly one. The response was immediate and overwhelming.
The Ordo Umbrarum gunboats answered with methodical fury. Heavy naval guns roared, the sound a physical blow that vibrated through the soles of Anja’s boots. Shells screamed overhead, exploding against the brick warehouses. Shrapnel, hot and jagged, tore through the air. One of the Unremembered, a boy no older than sixteen, was thrown backward, his revolutionary fervor extinguished in a spray of red. The cost of this diversion was being paid in blood. Anja felt nothing. It was a calculation.
She grabbed two of the remaining fighters, their faces pale under the flickering lights.
— You two. With me.
They scrambled after her, hugging the cover of stacked crates that smelled of creosote and damp. The air was thick with cordite and the metallic tang of fear. Ahead, three hulking oil barges were moored to the main pier, low and black in the greasy water. They were the true target. The key to Sineus’s ten minutes.
— Open the valves, — Anja ordered, her voice a low command that cut through the din of battle. — All of them.
She was sending them to their likely deaths. A stray bullet, a single spark, and the barges would detonate prematurely. The men knew it. They exchanged a look, a fleeting moment of terror, before nodding grimly. They were true believers. They believed in Katarina’s new world. Anja only believed in a paid debt.
As the men worked, their hands clumsy on the heavy iron wheels of the valves, Anja felt a familiar sensation. A faint, rapid ticking inside her chest. It was not her heart. It was the Syndicate’s Failsafe, the tiny clockwork device that owned her, its rhythm matching the frantic, unhealthy pulse of the district itself. The Ticker’s Rattle, as Sineus had called it. She felt it as a vibration, a sign that reality was stretched thin.
A thick, black liquid began to pour from the barges, spreading across the surface of the canal like a stain. The smell of raw petroleum filled the air, sharp and sickening. Fifteen thousand liters of fuel, waiting for a spark. The first man finished his valve and turned to run. A shell exploded on the pier behind him. The concussion threw him into the canal. He did not surface. One down. The price was being paid.
The second man scrambled back, his face white.
— It is done!
Anja looked across the shipyard. Through the smoke, she saw Katarina crouched behind a barricade of steel drums. Their eyes met. For a moment, there was no nobleman, no revolutionary. Just two women fighting for their home. Anja gave a single, sharp nod.
Katarina Volkova raised her hand, a signal to a lone figure perched high on the roof of a warehouse. The archer. A relic from another age, armed with a longbow. He was the most reliable part of this insane plan. He did not need ammunition. He did not jam.
The archer stood, a silhouette against the fiery glow of the burning buildings. He drew the bowstring back, a single arrow nocked. Its tip was a bundle of oil-soaked rags, already burning with a greasy, yellow flame. He held the aim for a long, silent second.
Then he let it fly.
The fire-arrow traced a perfect, silent arc through the smoky air. It was a single point of deliberate order in a world of chaos. It descended, a falling star of vengeance, and struck the center of the black oil slick.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the world erupted.
A low whoosh became a deafening roar as the entire surface of the canal ignited. A wall of fire, thirty meters high, tore down the waterway, a river of impossible heat and light. The orange flames consumed everything. The fog, the smoke, the screams. The two nearest Ordo Umbrarum gunboats were engulfed instantly, their steel hulls glowing cherry-red before their munitions cooked off in a series of secondary explosions that shook the very foundations of the shipyard.
The intense heat washed over Anja, a physical force. The rapid, frantic ticking in her chest ceased. It was replaced by a slow, heavy, and purposeful thrum. The sound of a debt being honored. The sound of time being bought.
The river of fire had cut the battlefield in two. The remaining German forces were trapped on the far side, their primary assault route a churning inferno. The naval bombardment faltered, their targets obscured by a curtain of black smoke and shimmering heat.
The air was still filled with the roar of the flames and the crackle of burning steel. The water itself burned with a furious, cleansing light.
