CHAPTER 795: WHEN THE CRYSTALS SCREAMED WHITE (END)

"The story writes itself," she said softly.

Before she closed the map display, she added one last mark.

Around Ashen River she at last drew four small sigils: the cog of the League, the raven, the coin, the sunburst.

Above them all, she left a fifth symbol hovering—an outline of a tree for Silvarion.

"Let them all fight for the drowning man," she murmured. "We will own the shore they’re swimming for."

A day’s march from the Ashen River high camp, the ravine looked like a safe place to hide.

By night, its walls rose steep and dark, cutting off the wind. Thin motes of mana drifted over the cracked stone like fireflies without colour. Someone who did not know better might mistake them for marsh lights.

The Kharadorn strike team knew better. They had walked through enough tainted places to recognise a dungeon’s breath even when it tried to be gentle.

"Set up here," the captain said, voice low.

Tents went up quickly, canvas dark enough to blend into the rock. Demon-steel armour gleamed faintly as it was stacked in neat rows. Runes on blades were covered to hide their glow.

"We scout at first light," someone murmured.

"We scout now," the captain replied. "The dungeon does not sleep. Neither do we."

On the far side of the ravine, almost directly above them, the Silver Current’s skyship drifted in near-silence.

The crew had doused all but the most necessary lamps. The hull floated just low enough that a narrow gangplank could reach the ravine lip.

"Nice little hole," the captain said, peering down. "Plenty of room to park."

His first mate gave him a look.

"If the wind shifts, we slam into that cliff," she said.

"If the wind shifts, we move," he replied. "We’ll be here just long enough to send the recon team down. In, out, before anyone knows we were parked over their heads."

In the shadows below, a Kharadorn scout moved along the ravine floor, eyes scanning the cracks. His breath misted in the cold air.

Something faint and mechanical whirred near his ear.

He looked up.

A tiny construct, no bigger than his hand, hovered there—a Concordat recon drone, crystals on its frame pulsing softly as it recorded.

The scout’s reaction was pure training.

He snatched the demon-steel knife from his belt and threw.

The blade cut the air with a hiss. The drone’s light flared, then died as it shattered against the rock.

Far above, the Silver Current’s deck shuddered.

"Drone two just went dark," the ship’s artificer snapped. "Somebody down there doesn’t like being filmed."

The captain’s smile faded.

"Right," he said. "Plan changed. We assume the worst."

On the ravine floor, the Kharadorn scout crouched to retrieve what was left of the construct. The pieces were strange under his fingers, too delicate to be local work.

He raised a hand in signal.

"Contact," he called softly. "Foreign make."

The captain from Kharadorn straightened from where she had been studying a crack in the rock.

"Positions," she said.

The first clash was almost polite.

The Silver Current’s recon party slid down the gangplank and rope ladders, cloaks dark, boots soft. They moved like people who had done this before—quiet, careful, not eager to start a fight.

The Kharadorn line waited in the shadows, letting the first two Concordat scouts pass.

Then someone’s foot scraped on stone. Someone else’s eyes caught the wrong shape moving.

Steel flashed.

A bolt of clean, needle-thin light shot from a Concordat wand, sizzling past a Kharadorn warrior’s cheek.

He lunged, demon-boosted muscles sending him forward faster than a normal man could blink.

The ravine erupted.

Lightning arcs from Concordat devices cracked against demon-steel. Runes flared as Kharadorn armour drank some of the force and spat the rest back as raw heat. Blades rang. Someone shouted. Someone went down and did not get up.

They did not scream. None of them were amateurs.

On a low ledge above, hidden under a layer of shimmering distortion, a small Technomancer observation cell watched.

"Two factions," one whispered. "Kharadorn and Concordat, by the look of it."

"We could disrupt them," another said. "Drop a pulse. Scramble their senses. They’d think the dungeon hit them."

"And reveal we’re here?" the unit leader asked. "No."

He watched as a Concordat mage threw down a sphere that exploded in a net of crackling light, pinning two Kharadorn warriors for a heartbeat.

The captain from the Dominion roared and charged, her demon-steel axe chewing through the glowing threads.

"Let them test each other," the Technomancer leader said. "We are not here to save anyone."

The fight surged back and forth, never breaking into a full rout.

The Concordat fighters tried to stay mobile, using the ravine walls, leaping from ledge to ledge, trading space for safety.

Kharadorn pushed hard, trying to pin them against a narrow bend.

Both sides wanted the same thing in the end: to kill enough of the other that they could walk away without being followed, without a story told.

The ground trembled once, softly.

Everyone felt it.

A line of faint light opened in a crack under their feet—a thin, pulsing vein that did not belong to ordinary rock.

It glowed for a second, then faded, but the message was clear.

The dungeon was not far. Its influence was creeping outward, testing the ground.

Future battles here, it seemed to say, would not be fought on normal stone.

The Silver Current’s captain saw two of his people stumble as the tremor hit.

"That’s enough," he snapped. "We’re not dying in someone else’s pissing contest. Smoke and fall back!"

His mage threw down a small disk. Thick, dark vapour billowed out, swallowing light and sound.

Kharadorn coughed and cursed, swinging at shadows.

When the smoke thinned, the Concordat fighters were already pulling away toward the ravine’s mouth, dragging their wounded.

The Kharadorn captain let them go.

She stood in the centre of the ravine, watching the skyship lift, sails catching invisible currents as it pulled away into the clouds.

"Remember that hull," she said. "We’ll see it again."

Behind her, a healer knelt by a fallen warrior.

"Dead," he murmured.

The captain looked down at the cracked ground, at the places where faint veins of light still seemed to pulse.

"The dungeon wants this place," she said quietly. "Next time we fight here, it will be on its terms, not ours."

Up on the hidden ledge, the Technomancer leader raised a hand.

"Tag them," he said.

Tiny constructs, no bigger than flying insects, buzzed out from the rocks, invisible in the night. They settled on Kharadorn armour, on discarded Concordat gear at the ravine’s edge.

Tracking hexes, ready to whisper positions back to Ashen River’s watching machines.

Messages flew back to capitals again, but this time the words carried the taste of blood.

In Kharadorn’s mountain fortress, General Kael read the report, jaw tight.

"Casualties," he said.

"Yes, General," the spymaster said. "But we confirmed Concordat presence. Their style is clear."

Kael exhaled slowly.

"Good," he said at last. "Let them think we are blunt. We will show them we can be subtle too."

In the Sea-Glass Concordat, Miren listened as the Silver Current’s captain described the fight.

"Kharadorn hit hard," he said. "Not stupid, either. If we hadn’t pulled out when we did..." He shrugged.

Miren raised his hazard pay without argument.

"We knew the dance floor would be crowded," she said. "You did well to come back at all. From now on, we adjust. We send a second, smaller unit. Freelancers. No names on any official manifest."

"A ghost hand," the captain said, amused.

"Exactly," Miren said.

In Valtis, the Inquisition cell heard distant rumours of "foreign devils" fighting near the river. Their relics glowed brighter with every mile.

Cardinal Seran woke from a dream of ash and teeth and went to his window.

"Heresy multiplies where power is unguarded," he said to the empty room. "Good. It makes the rot easier to find."

He prayed, then doubled down on his instructions.

"You will not only judge the dungeon," he sent along the relic lines. "You will judge those who covet it."

In Serewyn, Ryline spread fresh reports across her desk.

Kharadorn troops confirmed. Concordat skyship sighted. Traces of holy magic in the borderlands.

There is no way to keep this small anymore, she thought.

But she did not cancel her plans. She rewrote them.

Ashen River was no longer a project between the League and a forest kingdom. It had become a shadow summit of great powers.

Officially, none of them were there.

Unofficially, everyone was.

In each capital, they made the same kind of decision.

Kharadorn approved a second team—this one composed of disavowed legionnaires and deniable demon-bound specialists. If they were captured, the Dominion would call them criminals.

The Concordat sent invitations to a handful of elite dungeon delvers, people whose names never appeared on any ledger. They would be the Republic’s hidden knife.

Valtis prepared to move one more piece: Seran himself, perhaps, following his cell under a false identity, ready to join them if judgement required a heavier hand.

The Technomancer League, meanwhile, activated deep-cover agents already living in the villages near Silvarion’s outer camps.

Their orders were simple.

Infiltrate local support staff.

Get close to the Silvarion high camp.

Watch the queen. Watch the prince-consort. Evaluate their loyalties on site.

At the edge of Silvarion’s forest, the night was not quiet.

The trees whispered in a language of leaves and mana. Insects—ordinary ones, the kind the world expected—sang in the dark.

On a low ridge overlooking the clearing that held the high command tent, a figure in plain travel clothes lay flat against the ground, eyes fixed on the camp below.

The unseen watcher had no banner. No emblem. Only a small crystal device balanced between their fingers, recording.

Down in the clearing, mage-lamps glowed like captured stars.

The large central tent was the brightest. People came and went—officers with tight faces, healers in green-and-gold, soldiers changing shifts.

From this distance, the watcher could not hear words, only see shapes.

They saw the queen first.

Elowen moved between tents with a calm that did not match the tension in the camp. Silver hair caught the lamplight. Even from far away, the watcher could see the way people straightened when she passed.

Beside her, sometimes, walked a man in a loose coat, bandages visible at his throat and under his collar.

The prince-consort, the watcher thought.

He did not move like a general. His hands shaped the air when he talked, drawing invisible diagrams. Once, he almost tripped over a tent rope and laughed, scratching his head, and the queen’s stern mouth softened.

Soft on the outside, the watcher thought. The reports say different under the skin.

They adjusted the crystal, zooming closer when another group stepped from the tent.

A woman with long black hair in a high ponytail carried a tray, movements so smooth they looked like water. A maid, clearly, but the way she scanned the edges of the camp with a quiet, sharp gaze made the watcher mark her as something more.

Another figure followed, red hair tied back, armour plain but well-kept. She walked like a sword given legs. The watcher’s training whispered a label.

Bodyguard. Dangerous.

And there, behind them, a robed woman with amethyst eyes and a smile that did not match the dark circles under them. Magic hung around her like a faint perfume.