The heavy iron gates of the tower groaned as they settled into the stone floor, the sound echoing through the vaulted entryway like a tomb sealing shut. Outside, the magnesium flares continued to hiss, casting long, jagged shadows across the stone walls, but inside, the air was cold and smelled of old parchment and the metallic tang of unsheathed Rose-Iron. Deacon dismounted in a single, fluid motion, his longsword held in a low guard. He didn't look back to see if the militia had followed; he knew Renna would have the courtyard secured within minutes. His focus was upward. Valois was a bureaucrat, but he was a cornered one, and cornered men in this world often reached for the most dangerous relics they could find.
Deacon moved through the primary workshop on the second floor, his boots silent on the stone. The room was a wreck; Miller's workbenches had been overturned, and the Mark II prototype lay on its side, its brass guts exposed like a slaughtered animal. Two Imperial soldiers, left behind to guard the "spoils," lunged from the shadows near the furnace. Deacon didn't break his stride. He parried the first man's spear with a sharp, circular motion and stepped into the second man's guard, driving his elbow into the soldier's throat. It was a brutal, efficient display of modern close-quarters combat that left both men gasping on the floor before they could even scream for reinforcements. He didn't finish them; he didn't have the time. He needed the stairs.
The climb was a blur of stone and shadow. On the third floor, he encountered a pair of Rose Guard knights attempting to barricade the library doors. These weren't the blinded men from the camp; they were fresh, their violet-glow blades illuminating the narrow corridor with a sickly, pulsating light. Deacon felt the familiar hum of the Rose-Iron vibrating in his teeth. He knew he couldn't take them in a straight duel—not with his muscles still twitching from the shock of the woods. He reached into his belt and pulled a small, heavy ceramic flask—a "Flash-Bang" prototype Blake had filled with a mixture of fine iron filings and volatile salts. He smashed it against the floor at their feet.
The explosion wasn't deafening, but the cloud of metallic dust it released was instantly ionized by the magical hum of their blades. A chaotic web of static electricity arched between the knights' armor, short-circuiting the enchantments on their swords and sending them into convulsive fits. Deacon stepped through the cloud, using the hilt of his sword to hammer their visors shut, effectively blinding them within their own helmets. He left them fumbling at their neck-seals and pushed through the heavy oak doors into the High Library.
The library was a cavernous space, filled with the accumulated knowledge of a dozen Cassian generations, but tonight it felt like a cage. At the far end, standing before the great arched window that overlooked the valley, was Valois. The Herald had discarded his noble's mantle; beneath it, he wore a breastplate etched with forbidden sigils that glowed with a deep, angry crimson. In his hand, he held not a sword, but a "Siphon-Rod"—an ancient piece of mechanica that functioned as a primitive, high-output energy weapon.
Valois looked at Deacon, his face twisted in a mask of desperate, high-functioning mania. "You think you've won because you've mastered the gear and the furrow, Cassian? You are a flea jumping on the back of a titan. The Empire has spent a thousand years buried in the dirt so that we could find the things that truly rule this world. You found a plow. I found a god."
He raised the Siphon-Rod. A bolt of crimson energy hissed through the air, vaporizing a stack of priceless scrolls inches from Deacon's head. The heat was immense, smelling of ozone and burnt hair. Deacon dove behind a heavy oak reading table, the wood splintering as a second bolt tore through the tabletop. He was pinned. The "David" in him was calculating the recharge rate of the rod—roughly three seconds between pulses. The "Lord" in him was mourning the library.
"Julian was right about you!" Valois screamed, his voice cracking as he fired again. "You're a ghost! A hollow man! The Inquisitors will pull the memories from your skull like thread from a spindle!"
Deacon waited for the third pulse. One. Two. Three. As the rod hummed with a fresh charge, he didn't move away; he moved toward the fire. He slid across the polished floor, using a discarded silk rug to maintain his momentum. He wasn't aiming for Valois; he was aiming for the heavy brass chandelier hanging directly above the Herald. He threw a weighted throwing knife—a simple, non-mechanical tool—at the tension-release pin Miller had installed for cleaning.
The chandelier, weighing nearly four hundred pounds of solid brass and tallow candles, plummeted. Valois looked up, his eyes widening behind his monocle, and fired the Siphon-Rod upward in a blind reflex. The crimson bolt hit the brass, causing a localized explosion of molten metal and white-hot light. The force of the blast threw Valois backward through the great window.
There was a moment of absolute, terrifying silence. Then, the sound of glass shattering against the rocks below.
Deacon stood up slowly, his doublet singed and his face covered in soot. He walked to the broken window and looked down. Valois was gone, a splash of crimson against the white snow of the moat. The Siphon-Rod lay shattered on the battlements, its energy dissipating in a series of weak, pathetic sparks. The "Purge" was complete.
He felt a presence behind him. He turned to find Julian standing in the doorway, supported by a grim-faced Renna. The younger brother looked at the shattered window, then at the man standing in the center of the ruined library. Julian's sapphire eyes were no longer filled with the sharp, corrosive hate of the previous days. They were filled with a profound, hollow exhaustion. He looked at the scorched books and the broken glass, and then he looked at Deacon.
"Is he dead?" Julian asked, his voice a dry whisper.
"He's gone," Deacon replied, sheathing his sword.
"The Empire will send more," Julian said, stepping into the room. He walked to a pile of burnt scrolls and picked up a charred fragment. "They won't forgive the loss of a Herald. And they certainly won't forgive the loss of the Rose Guard."
"Let them come," Deacon said. He walked over to Julian and placed a heavy, soot-stained hand on the boy's shoulder. This time, Julian didn't flinch. He didn't pull away. He simply stood there, two brothers—one from this world, one from another—standing in the wreckage of their shared history. "We have the iron. We have the coal. And for the first time in three hundred years, Oakhaven has a wall they can't climb."
Outside, the green flares were finally dying out, replaced by the soft, natural white of a new snowfall. The siege was over, but as Deacon looked at his brother and his ruined home, he knew the "Audit" had merely been the opening salvo. They were no longer just survivors. They were a sovereign power. And the Sergeant First Class was finally ready to stop running and start building an empire of his own.