CHAPTER 63: [63] HER BOARD, HER RULES

Moreau stood at the window, her reflection a pale mask against the darkening town. But behind those golden eyes, her mind was a whirlwind of branching paths and collapsing futures. She discarded flawed strategies like a card sharp ditching bad hands, searching for the single, elegant play.

If Raven wanted the source of Moreau’s wealth, there was only one place she could be planning to go. The Ancient Caves held secrets worth more than all the amber in Orellia’s cliffs—artifacts and knowledge that had funded Moreau’s rise from small-time pirate to regional power. The excavation had been proceeding slowly, carefully, but the preliminary discoveries had already exceeded her most optimistic projections.

She turned from the window and addressed Saxe directly. "Take four of our best people to the excavation site. Not the entire security detail—I want it to look like normal operations. But if anyone unauthorized approaches those caves tonight, I want them taken alive if possible."

Saxe nodded once and headed for the door, his movements spare and silent as a shadow.

"Henrik, maintain normal patrol schedules in the village. I don’t want our guests to think we’ve noticed their... potential plans." Moreau’s golden eyes gleamed with cold amusement.

"And if they don’t take the bait?" Henrik asked, though the twist of his mouth suggested he already knew what she’d say.

"Then they’re smarter than I credited them with, and we’ll adjust accordingly." Moreau turned back to the map, her black-scaled fingers caressing the excavation site with almost loving tenderness. "But I don’t think we’ll have that problem. Desperate people rarely choose the safe option when a dangerous one promises everything they want."

A burst of loud voices from the square below pulled her attention to the window. Jack Steelheart stood surrounded by a small crowd, his ridiculous blue hair impossible to miss in the afternoon sun as he waved his arms dramatically. The villagers kept their distance—not from fear, but from hard-learned wariness of his particular brand of destructive heroism.

Moreau’s lips curled into a smile as an idea blossomed in her mind, beautiful in its simplicity.

She crossed to her desk with serpentine grace and selected a sheet of official letterhead, then began writing with elegant, flowing strokes. The message was concise yet carefully crafted—a formal plea for assistance from a concerned citizen to a visiting hero.

Dear Mr. Steelheart,

Your intervention today demonstrated admirable courage, though I fear the criminals you confronted may have been part of a larger operation. My sources suggest their associates—including a dangerous red-haired pirate and his crew—remain at large somewhere on our island.

My security forces are stretched thin managing the aftermath of today’s incident. If you truly wish to protect Orellia’s citizens, perhaps you could assist in locating these remaining threats? I can provide general areas where they might be hiding, though I’m afraid my men lack your... unique capabilities for dealing with dangerous individuals.

Your devoted servant,

Captain L. Moreau

She folded the letter with deliberate care and handed it to Henrik. "Have one of the locals deliver this to our blue-haired friend. Someone who looks appropriately worried about public safety."

Henrik scanned the letter and let out a dry chuckle. "Devious as always, Captain. You’re not exactly lying to him."

"The best manipulations contain no lies at all," Moreau replied, her voice like honey over broken glass. "I’m simply pointing a weapon in a useful direction and letting nature take its course."

She returned to the map one final time, her eyes tracing every possible route between the harbor and the excavation site. Jack would inevitably cause destruction wherever he went—it was as fundamental to his nature as breathing. If Pierre and his crew were planning an infiltration, they’d find themselves contending with far more than just her security forces.

Let’s see how clever you really are, she thought, her smile sharp enough to draw blood. Will you flee from the serpent, or will you dare to steal the treasure from her nest?

The setting sun bled across the maps, bathing the parchment in amber and gold. Each route, each contingency, glowed like a vein of precious metal.

Her treasure.

Her board.

Yet beneath this carefully constructed veneer of normalcy, the true players were sliding into position for a high-stakes game where fortunes numbered in the millions and losing meant consequences far more dire than empty pockets.

Henrik paused by the door, his weathered face thoughtful. "Captain, what if they surprise you? What if they avoid the caves altogether?"

Moreau’s laugh rang soft and musical, like wind chimes made of polished bone. "Then they’ll have surprised me by choosing wisdom over greed. And in my experience, Henrik, desperate people never choose wisdom when greed beckons."

She glided to an ornate cabinet in the corner, its polished mahogany surface inlaid with mother-of-pearl serpents that seemed to writhe in the fading light. With elegant precision, she withdrew a bottle of wine—the same rare Meridian vintage she’d deliberately offered Raven during their tavern meeting. As she poured, the liquid cascaded into her crystal glass like molten treasure, catching the dying sunlight and fracturing it into a thousand golden prisms that danced across her scaled fingers.

"Besides," she added, raising the glass to her lips with a predator’s smile, "if they don’t take the bait tonight, we’ll simply make tomorrow’s offer even more tempting. The truly desperate can only resist for so long before their needs overwhelm their caution. Patience is a virtue, but so is knowing exactly when to strike."

The wine rolled across her tongue—notes of blackberry, cinnamon, and something darker beneath—tasting of distant shores and meticulous plans years in the making. Each sip was a celebration of schemes carefully cultivated and nurtured like the finest vineyard. Outside her window, evening shadows began to stretch across Orellia’s amber-dusted streets like grasping fingers, and somewhere in the harbor, three pirates huddled in conspiracy, making decisions that would determine whether they’d live to see another dawn or become yet more ghosts haunting the Black Serpent’s wake.