CHAPTER 191: FULFILLING THE SAID ORDER

Elise smirked and set the cups down. Lyra took hers and drank without waiting, as if the heat might steady her pulse. Inigo only held his, letting the steam curl into his face.

Thorne leaned back in his chair, the map between them weighted like a battlefield. "You leave tonight. The convoy departs at dawn two days hence, which gives you one full day to prepare ground. Choose wisely where you cut."

Lyra’s fingers drummed once against her cup. "You want us invisible until the last minute."

"I want you effective," Thorne corrected. "Invisible would be a kindness, but fear works too. Make them think the road has teeth."

Inigo stood, rolling the map closed with crisp precision. "We’ll need more than luck and oil."

"Which is why," Thorne said, reaching under the desk, "you’re requisitioned for this."

He placed a wrapped bundle on the table. Cloth peeled back to reveal three things: a small case of sparkstones, a coil of braided wire fine as hair, and a set of compact steel caltrops, each wicked point glinting like frozen fire.

"Road toys," Lyra murmured, picking up one of the caltrops and balancing it on her fingertip.

"Nonlethal until a horse finds them," Thorne said. "I trust you to place them where only your enemies walk."

Elise’s eyes gleamed. "They’ll regret ever thinking wood across a road was clever."

Inigo repacked the kit with deliberate care, as if arranging kitchen knives. "We’ll return what we don’t use."

"No," Thorne said. "You won’t."

The weight of that hung a moment, then dissolved as he pushed the folder aside and lifted his own tea. "Platinum prerogative. Your call. Your consequences."

Lyra rose. "Then we’ll start now."

By dusk, the JLTV was loaded—extra fuel tins lashed to the side, crates of supplies wedged between tied-down nets, and the requisitioned gear stowed with the same care Inigo gave his fryer baskets. Lyra checked her bowstring twice, then slid a fresh coil of arrows into the rack behind her seat.

"You know," she said as she buckled in, "this isn’t so different from prepping for a lunch rush."

Inigo grinned faintly. "Except here, if we burn the order, we don’t get to send out another plate."

The road north lay quiet, dust pale under a sliver of moon. They rolled with lights hooded, engine rumbling low, an iron beast slipping between hedgerows. Villages shrank behind them, lanterns winking out until only fields stretched on either side, flat and watchful.

At Harrows’ Notch the world changed. The ground rose, cutting into cliffs that flanked the road like jaws. On one side: sheer rock, scarred by old quarry picks. On the other: a drop into mist and broken stone. A perfect choke point. A perfect trap.

Lyra whistled low. "Feels like walking into a throat."

"Then let’s give the throat indigestion," Inigo said.

They parked off the spur where scrub clawed at old stone. Inigo killed the engine. Silence rushed in—wind through pine, the creak of settling cliff, a raven croak somewhere above.

Lyra moved first, scouting the upper ledge. She crawled the ridgeline like a shadow, marking sightlines with a stub of chalk on stone. Inigo followed at ground level, measuring distances the way cooks measured time: steps, breaths, heartbeats.

Here, a curve that would hide a cart until it was already committed. There, a patch of road soft with old erosion where caltrops could vanish until hooves screamed.

By midnight, the place looked the same as before, but their invisible handprints were everywhere—wire strung waist-high across a side path, sparkstones buried in shallow cups of dirt to throw up a wall of light at the right strike, caltrops seeded in a scatter only they knew the safe way through.

Lyra crouched at the bend and whispered, "Vane will expect scared guards, not traps that think."

Inigo placed the last stone and wiped his hands on his trousers. "Then he’ll be disappointed. I warned him I like physics."

Dawn brought a mist that rolled off the cliffs like steam from a fryer. They lay low, JLTV hidden under netting and brush, the air thick with damp.

Lyra perched on a ledge, bow across her knees, eyes scanning the southern trail. Inigo sat in the cab, radio set to guild frequency, watching the convoy markers glow faint on the map board.

The hours stretched. Ravens wheeled above. Once, a deer picked its way across the road, ears twitching. Otherwise, only waiting.

Lyra broke the silence. "Do you ever miss it?"

"Miss what?"

"The simplicity. Just hunting for meat, cooking for ourselves. No lines, no guilds, no Platinums."

Inigo thought about it, then shook his head. "No. I miss quiet sometimes. But never small."

She studied him, lips quirking. "You’re hungrier than you look."

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

By late morning, the first rumble came—hooves, wagon wheels, the steady creak of leather harness. The convoy rolled into view: six wagons, two dozen guards, banners of the Alchemist and Blacksmith guilds snapping damp in the breeze.

And above, faint but certain: a wink of glass on the ridge.

Lyra’s eyes sharpened. "Signal."

Inigo nodded. "Wait."

Minutes later, shadows moved ahead. Men with axes and ropes dragged toward the road’s narrowest pinch, intent on laying timber. Others lingered with spears, crossbows slung. At their center, a man in a leather coat the color of dust—sharp-faced, hawk-eyed, barking orders. Vane.

Lyra’s bow came up, arrow nocked. Inigo’s hand hovered over the trigger for the sparkstone line.

"Not yet," he said.

The ambushers moved fast, practiced. The first tree leaned, groaning toward the road. Wagon guards shouted, pulling reins, tension rippling like heat before a storm.

"Now," Inigo said.

He triggered the buried stones.

The world erupted in white fire—flare-bright, searing the mist to day. Men staggered, blinded, axes clattering. Horses reared, but this time it was the ambushers who panicked.

Lyra’s arrow sang, pinning a gray pennant to the trunk before it could fall. "Second warning," she called, voice carrying clear. "There won’t be a third."

Inigo gunned the JLTV, brush flying as the machine roared onto the road. Its bulk thundered between wagons and cliffs, a steel beast rising from mist. Guards cheered, stunned, as the convoy suddenly had a wall with teeth.

Vane cursed, blinking against the afterimage, hand reaching for a blade. He froze when the JLTV swerved and stopped dead across the chokepoint, engine snarling like a predator.

Lyra loosed another arrow—this one biting the ground a breath from his boot. "Choose," she said, tone flat. "Run or rot."

The silence cracked. Men dropped weapons, stumbling back. One tried to flee down the spur, only to shriek as a caltrop found his boot. Panic spread faster than orders.

Vane stood rigid, fists clenched, fury and pride dueling across his face. For a moment it looked like he’d charge anyway. Then his shoulders slumped. He spat in the dirt and raised his hands.

"Another day," he said hoarsely.

"Not if you keep this job," Lyra answered.

The convoy rolled past, wagons creaking, guards staring in awe. The JLTV idled like a watchful hound. Inigo leaned on the wheel, eyes tracking every shadow until the last cart cleared.

Lyra climbed down, bow still strung, and met his gaze. "Net’s cut."

He nodded. "Head too, if Thorne wants it."

They bound Vane with the very rope meant for timber. He glared but said nothing, silence sharper than curses.

As the guild banners vanished north, the road fell quiet again. The smell of spent sparks hung like burned sugar.

Inigo exhaled, long and steady. "Traffic moves."

Lyra looked down the empty stretch of road, then back at him. "For now."

He didn’t argue.

They loaded Vane into the back, cleared the traps, and turned the JLTV south. The city would wake to wagons arriving on time, never knowing the throat had been cleared for them by a cook and an archer with Platinum seals in their pockets.