Kiera's surrender was a calculated act, but the humiliation was real.
Valerius stood over her, his chest puffed with pride, the victor. The crowd cheered his name.
Kiera had lost the duel, and with it, a significant amount of face within her clan. She was escorted from the arena by the clan guard, not as a hero, but as a curiosity, a fallen star.
But through the link, Ryu could feel the triumphant, savage glee burning beneath her calm exterior. They had won.
She met Jin and Joric in the designated rendezvous point, a forgotten storage room.
Jin was pale and shaking, but his eyes were bright with triumph.
"I got it," he said, handing Kiera a clean data-chip.
"The entire ledger. I wiped the original slate. They'll know it's been compromised, but they won't know what we've taken."
They hurried back to the substation, their hearts pounding with anticipation.
They plugged the chip into Jin's console.
The file 'LEDGER_771' opened.
It was not a simple list.
It was a complex, multi-layered accounting of the Vanguard's operations in their sector of the city.
There were payment records to informants like Cassian. There were weapons requisitions that matched the advanced gear used in the Rust-maze.
There were encrypted supply routes that led to the Correction Center.
It was the proof they needed, a detailed, undeniable map of the conspiracy.
But the most damning part was the last section, a file titled 'ASSET MANAGEMENT - HIGH CLAN.' It was a list.
A list of moles.
High-ranking members of other clans who were secretly on the Vanguard's payroll.
They saw the name of a Sunstone Jaguar general, a man renowned for his hawkish anti-Onyx Serpent rhetoric.
They saw a prominent Onyx Serpent merchant who controlled key shipping lanes. The Vanguard had been playing both sides, stoking the fires of their rivalry, preparing to profit from the ashes of their war.
And then, at the bottom of the list, Kiera saw it.
A name that made her blood run cold. Elder Valerius.
It was not her rival, the warrior she had just fought in the arena.
It was his father. One of the five ruling elders of the Azure Dragon clan.
A man who had sat in judgment of her. A man who had known her brother her entire life.
A man who had access to the clan's deepest secrets and strategies.
The Quartermaster's poisoned words on the sky-bridge came rushing back.
*'The order to silence him... did not come from us. It came from within your own clan.'* It wasn't a lie.
It was a half-truth.
The order had come from within the clan, but from a traitor's lips.
Elder Valerius, to protect his position and his secret allegiance to the Vanguard, had sentenced her brother to death.
He had used the clan's own honor code as his murder weapon.
Kiera stared at the name, her mind reeling.
The world had shifted beneath her feet once again. The enemy was not just at the gates.
The enemy was on the throne. How could they fight a conspiracy that went to the very top of their own clan?
Who could they trust? The datapad, which held the truth, had now become the most dangerous object in the world.
To reveal it would be to accuse a ruling Elder of treason, an act that would shatter the Azure Dragon clan and mark them for death.