Grackle Nuroon sat behind his desk, fingers drumming on the worn leather armrest. His office was lit only by the cold morning light filtering through narrow windows, but the darkness did little to improve his mood. He scowled, his fingers still tapping, each beat thrumming into the darker corners of the room. He was bristling with irritation at so many different people that he was struggling to find an appropriate outlet for his rage. Faces moved in and out of focus in his mind like a roulette wheel of wrath.

Liando Verlan.

Yeah, that name made his anger flare. The Chair of Trustees had become too bold of late, pushing him, testing the limits of his forbearance. Her desire to displace him had been apparent for the years she'd circled him. But she’d miscalculated with that damn audit.

His smirk was thin and sharp, and then it was gone. Like an assassin's blade in the press of a busy street. Had Verlan really thought she’d be rid of him with such a simple gambit? That sending an would cause his grip on things to unravel? To be scrupulously fair, Karolen Mehin was smart - might even be as smart as Nuroon himself, he thought - but circumstances had not been in her favour.

Another person might have thought twice about describing the horrific death of a woman in his employ as 'circumstances', but Grackle Nuroon had long since let such niceties ooze away from his personality.

And when the had overplayed her hand— all but accusing him of complicity in that death, she'd neutralised herself.

That was Verlan’s fundamental mistake. She thought she could defeat him on the field of his own domain. That she could use 'process' to erode his authority. She had underestimated the strength of his position and his senior team's loyalty—if not out of respect, then out of fear.

Now? Well, sources told him that Verlan's power base amongst the Trustees was crumbling. She could hide behind perfect smiles, manicured fingers and bouffant hair, but the fatal damage was done. It was just a matter of time before the inevitable confidence vote, and then he'd be rid of her. His third Chair of Trustees. He wondered if there was some sort of reward for that. He assumed not.

Nuroon shifted in his chair. He'd won that little war, and yet the pleasure of seeing that bitch falter did nothing to soften the dark knot of anger in his gut. This was his museum. His! He’d built it, piece by piece, clawing his way through decades of bureaucratic infighting, navigating the endless sea of backstabbing academics and pretentious Trustees. And now it was all his—every inch of it. Every whisper in its halls, every brick in its walls and - and this, right now, was the most important thing to him - every artefact stored behind glass cases. And yet, here he still was, battling the likes of Liando fucking Verlan and her simpering sycophants. It was almost beneath him.

Almost, but not quite.

The roulette of rage span, and the tapping of his fingers ceased, replaced by a slow, deliberate tightening of his grip on the armrest. His knuckles whitened as his mind shifted to that smug bastard, Inspector Lowe. If there was one thing Nuroon hated more than scheming Trustees - and, to be clear, there were certainly more than just one - it was interference from the Security Services.

Nuroon had thought he was free and clear once he'd got his claws into Inspector Wyst. That old fool had backed away from the case faster than the Director could say, 'Do you like how many fingers your wife has?' But this new man? Lowe? There was nothing Nuroon despised more than righteous men—they were the hardest to corrupt, and even harder to get rid of.

The second round of murders had brought Lowe here, of course. Unavoidable. The stink of death tended to attract his kind, like flies to a corpse. Nuroon could almost laugh at the thought. The murders were a mess—an annoyance, more than anything—a distraction from his actual work. But what did it matter? Dead and missing were hardly worth losing sleep over. They were replaceable. Names on a ledger, dust in the wind.

And as for Kregg . . . Nuroon’s lip curled. Well, he was perhaps more of a loss. He’d hated the man from the moment they’d met. Smarmy, lecherous, always whispering in the ears of anyone who would listen. The was a predator, and Nuroon knew it. He’d known it for years, heard the rumours, seen the too-familiar smiles Kregg threw at the young, naïve museum staff. But there was no doubt that Kregg had been useful. He had a way with words, connections, and an ability to spin even the worst disasters into something palatable. And that was all that had mattered. Until now.

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Kregg’s death left a hole in his operations, and that, at this precise moment, was . . . irritating. The man had been a useful shield, and Nuroon didn’t like feeling exposed. He wouldn’t admit it, not even to himself, but there was a part of him that felt uneasy without the Bard’s silver tongue to smooth things over. People were watching, waiting for him to falter. Kregg had been a buffer.

He exhaled slowly, letting the frustration simmer. There was no use in mourning a man he hated. The real problem was Lowe. The longer the detective and his team stayed in the museum, the more likely they were to stumble onto something . . . inconvenient.

His fingers twitched, and he summoned one of his Skills. A faint shimmer passed through the air, barely noticeable. A subtle thing. Listening Post. The whispers drifted toward him, swirling around his head like ghosts—voices from the corridors, from rooms he couldn’t see.

“…Lowe’s pushing… something about the sarcophagus…”

The words slithered into his ears, half-formed and disjointed. Nuroon narrowed his eyes. Always with that sarcophagus. He wished he'd followed his considerable instincts and told Culloden to leave those two stone coffins in the collapsed dungeon. Nothing good had come of their extraction.

He closed his fist, and the whispers vanished. Lowe was a problem. One that needed to be solved. He wasn’t the kind of man who could be easily bought off or scared away. That much was clear. And the problem with men like Lowe was that they didn’t know when to quit. They came in, Skills blazing, waving around their principles and their morals, thinking they could untangle the truth with enough grit and determination.

Nuroon sneered. Truth. A luxury for people who didn’t have real power. And he knew all about that. It was about control. Control of the narrative, control of the people who mattered, and most of all, control of the pieces on the board.

He’d built his career on that understanding. You didn’t have to be the strongest or the smartest—just the one who knew how to move the pieces. And he’d moved plenty over the years. Trustees, donors, politicians . . . they were all just pieces. Some were useful, some weren’t. When they outlived their usefulness, he replaced them. It was that simple. It had always been that simple.

He grimaced, leaning forward slightly as a twinge of pain shot through his lower back. His body, like everything else, was betraying him. Slowly. Painfully. It was an insult, really. To have climbed so high, only to be dragged down by the wear and tear of age. He could still feel the sharp ache in his knees from standing too long at the last Trustee meeting, where Verlan had pretended to play nice after her audit attempt had crumbled. She had simpered, smiled, shaken hands like nothing had happened. But Nuroon had seen the look in her eyes, the frustration barely masked beneath her perfect makeup.

The other Trustees were starting to murmur. They hadn’t said anything directly—yet—but he could sense it. Smell it, like rot beneath fresh paint. They’d all been too polite, too distant, as if they were giving him space to clean up the mess. And when the time came, when the pressure built up just enough, they’d come for him. They always did. The trick was making sure they never had the chance.

Nuroon let out a slow breath, his eyes narrowing. He’d have to move fast. He’d need a replacement for Kregg, someone who could keep the lid on the whole affair while the dust settled. And he’d need to deal with Lowe.

His thoughts drifted back to the murders. It wasn’t just Kregg, of course. Two others had died, who had worked closely with the absent . Lowe had latched onto that connection, insisting she was the key to the whole mess. Nuroon didn’t buy it. Culloden was eccentric, obsessive even, but she wasn’t a killer. He didn’t believe for a second that she had committed the murders, but if blaming her would keep Lowe off his back, then so be it. Culloden wasn’t essential to the museum’s operations. She was useful, yes, but not irreplaceable. If Lowe needed a scapegoat, Nuroon would let him have it. He had no interest in protecting her.

In fact, there was something almost satisfying about it. Culloden had pushed him too far over these dungeon artefacts—demanding more resources, more attention for her precious research on the Dreadnaughts. Nuroon had granted her some leeway, but she always wanted more. More time, more funding, more space for her experiments. It was exhausting.

But now, she was a convenient distraction. While Lowe chased after her, Nuroon could focus on securing his own position. Verlan could watch all she wanted; he’d see her crumble before he allowed himself to be pulled down by this.

The slow burn of satisfaction spread through him. Let Lowe run his investigation. Let him sniff around the museum. In the end, he’d come up with nothing but dead ends. And by the time he realised it, it would be too late.

Then, just as Nuroon contemplated his next move, a low rumble echoed through the museum, faint but unmistakable. His eyes flicked toward the door. The sound was distant, almost imperceptible, but it sent a shiver down his spine. He knew this museum, every inch of it, every sound it made. That noise didn’t belong here.

“What in Soar . . . ” he muttered, the words barely escaping his lips.

He turned, slowly, and the cold, familiar dread settled in his gut. Something was wrong. Very wrong.