The sky-bridge became the center of a closing circle. A dozen Vanguard operatives, their weapons trained, emerged from the shadows.
Kiera and Joric were hopelessly outmaneuvered, caught in a trap far larger and more sophisticated than they had prepared for.
From his rooftop, Ryu felt a wave of despair. There was no escape.
He was too far away, too weak to influence a battle of this scale.
The Quartermaster savored the moment, his cold eyes fixed on Kiera.
"You see, my dear Dragon," he said, his voice calm and conversational, "the difference between you and us is that you think in terms of battles. We think in terms of wars. You were so focused on capturing me, you never stopped to ask *why* I would risk coming here myself."
He didn't order his men to attack.
That was not his way. He was a spymaster, and his weapons were words.
"You want to know who gave the order to have your brother eliminated," he said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy.
"You believe it was Vex, or some other shadowy Vanguard leader. You are wrong."
Kiera's face was a mask of stone, but her knuckles were white on the hilt of her sword.
"Get on with it," she hissed.
"Your brother, Ronan, was a problem," The Quartermaster continued, circling her like a vulture.
"He wasn't just investigating us. He was investigating our *recruits*. He discovered that we had successfully infiltrated not just the lower rungs of society, but the high clans themselves. He found Vanguard agents within the Sunstone Jaguars, the Onyx Serpents... and even your own precious Azure Dragons."
Kiera's composure finally broke.
"Lies," she spat.
"Is it?" The Quartermaster smiled.
"Ronan compiled a list. A list of traitors within the clan leadership. He was going to present it to your clan council. An action that would have shattered the political stability of the entire Core Sector. He would have started a civil war, a witch hunt that would have destroyed the Azure Dragons from within."
He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in.
"We didn't kill your brother, Kiera. We simply... observed. The order to silence him, to make it look like a criminal ambush, did not come from us. It came from within your own clan. From a council that decided that the life of one idealistic warrior was a small price to pay to maintain the clan's 'honor' and stability."
He slid a datapad across the floor of the sky-bridge.
It activated, displaying a heavily encrypted audio file.
"The voice recording of hitched secret vote," The Quartermaster said softly.
"A gift. From us to you."
Kiera stared at the datapad as if it were a venomous snake.
It was a lie. It had to be a lie.
A trick. A piece of Vanguard misinformation designed to break her.
But in the deepest, darkest corner of her heart, a sliver of doubt took root. The way the investigation had been shut down, the way her superiors had warned her away...
it suddenly made a terrible, horrifying kind of sense.
Her entire world, her entire sense of purpose, was built on the foundation of avenging her brother against a shadowy outside enemy.
The Quartermaster was offering her a new foundation, one made of the rot and betrayal of her own people.
He wasn't just trying to defeat her.
He was trying to destroy her soul. As she stood there, paralyzed by the psychological blow, the Vanguard operatives began to advance.