The silence in the stone tunnel was a sharp contrast to the fading roar of the crowd. Alaric kept his back to the stranger, his hand tightening around the hilt of his iron sword. The "Dragon's Rage" inside him was clawing at his throat, sensing a threat.
"Oakhaven is a graveyard," Alaric said, his voice a low, distorted growl. "Dead men don't have styles."
The man stepped forward, the clicking of his boots echoing against the damp walls. "And yet, I just saw a 'dead man' use a low-guard transition that only the Silver Rose elite are taught. Tell me, Cinder, how does a pit-brawler learn the secret techniques of the Church's finest?"
Alaric turned slowly. The man was thin, with sharp features and eyes that seemed to catch what little light remained in the tunnel. He wasn't a knight, but something more dangerous—an Inquisitorial Seeker, a specialist trained to find heretics hiding in plain sight.
"Maybe I killed a knight and took his memories," Alaric countered, his golden eyes flashing beneath his hood.
The Seeker chuckled, a dry and mirthless sound. "If you had killed a Silver Rose knight, you wouldn't be fighting for scraps in the pits. You'd be running for the border." He leaned closer, lowering his voice. "I don't care about your soul, and I don't care about the Church. I care about the Star-Steel. You're the only one here with enough 'weight' to actually win it."
"What do you want?" Alaric asked.
"A deal. You win the tournament and take the steel. In exchange, I'll make sure Sir Gareth's scouts keep looking in the Upper District while you're down here. I want the byproduct—the mana-residue left in the forge after the steel is shaped. It's worth a fortune to the right people."
Before Alaric could answer, the sound of heavy armor approached the tunnel entrance. The Seeker vanished into a side-passage with a fluid, unnatural speed.
"Think about it, Ghost," his voice drifted back from the darkness. "Or wait for Gareth to find you. I hear he's brought a specialized 'Purge-Blade' just for the occasion."
Alaric stood alone as a squad of city guards marched past the tunnel. His arm burned where the limiter met his skin. He realized then that Oakhaven's Shadow was a nest of vipers, and every step he took toward getting his new heart was a step closer to a trap he might not survive.
"We're leaving," Alaric whispered to Evelyn as she met him at the end of the corridor.
"What happened?" she asked, seeing the tension in his shoulders.
"The hunt just changed," Alaric replied. "We're not just hiding anymore. We're being used."