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CADE
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“Phase two is a go,” Hugh confirmed gruffly in Cade’s mind.
Cade, meanwhile, peered into Gunn’s gobsmacked face and resisted the urge to laugh. The trollish figure stooped low and fumbled with Cade’s collar in a vain attempt to alleviate whatever phantom force clutched at Cade’s throat. Needing this farce to continue, Cade kicked off a nearby pillar and rolled around.
“The goddess!” Cade croaked. “She is too powerful! Please! Save my soul!”
“Uh… yeah. Help us!” Orro stiffly cleared his throat as the assassin did his best to join in on Cade’s dramatics. His eyes shifted momentarily as he struggled to remember his lines.
“We could really use a medic,” Cade said with a sidelong glare at his best friend. “As many of them as possible!”
“Yes—everyone!” Orro gestured wildly, and Cade stifled the urge to sigh in annoyance at the stiff movement. “Everyone you can think of, dear Gunn!”
The moment Gunn looked away, Cade shook his head at Orro’s performance. He vowed to pay the next artisan they came across to teach his best friend how to act.
Fortunately, Gunn was too surprised by what unfolded before him to pick up on the blatant deception.
“Ummm, uhhh, well…” Gunn cleared his throat. “I don’t really have the kind of pull to get everyone here.”
“He’s dying!” Orro bellowed, far too loudly.
Gunn turned to Cade again.
“Death… he comes for me…” Cade said with a melodramatic flourish as plumes of smoke drifted slowly down from the upper balconies. “And is it supposed to be this smoky in here?”
Gunn looked up and noticed the fire for the first time. “No! Oh no, oh no, oh no! Not again!”
“Again?” Orro asked.
For the briefest moment, Orro and Cade looked at each other in surprise.
Focused as he was on the fire, Gunn didn’t notice their exchange. Whatever hesitation the large man felt turned to vapor. He nodded earnestly, then started to rush deeper into the temple.
“Stay right here, you two!” Gunn called back to them. “Don’t go down the stairs! They’re off-limits, okay? I’ll go get… someone.” But Cade didn’t miss his parting words. “...Maybe they’ll listen to me this time.”
When the heavy footsteps had receded to silence, Cade let out a breath of relief. The smell of smoke was far more ominous now, and he couldn’t help but feel a wave of pride sweep over him. Bunny was doing so well in his very first heist. Cade would treat him to something special afterward.
He got to his feet with a dramatic twirl, and Orro groaned.
“Really?” The darkly robed assassin demanded. “Death comes for you now, does he?”
“Call it a spark of the divine.” Cade shrugged and grinned devilishly. “I live to please.”
“If you two are done flirting, we need that lever pulled now!” Hugh’s voice cut through Cade’s mind. “We got sentinels crawling out of our asses!”
“Not to be rude, but Hugh is right,” Elena’s no-nonsense voice rang out in his head. “We could really use that door opened now, Cade. Orro, you take the lead because you’re going to have to come out of the gate swinging.”
“Got it,” Cade sent to his comrades somewhere below them.
Orro, meanwhile, didn’t answer. In his usual brooding manner, he instead simply nodded a quick affirmation.
Cade chuckled. “They can’t see you do that, Orro.”
The assassin frowned and, with a quick sidelong glare, narrowed his eyes in annoyance.
“You just hate it when I’m right, don’t you?” Cade asked.
Orro grunted in irritation, which usually meant yes.
Cade darted toward the stairs. “Let’s go stab things, shall we?”
Together, the two of them rushed down the off-limits stairs. They hugged the corner of the cold stone as the steps swirled downward, sparse torchlight along the walls their only illumination as they fled underground.
There would be no windows letting in the dawning sun’s embrace down here, and they all knew it.
Luckily for them, they brought a little sunlight with them. Several crystals clinked against one another in a small leather pouch slung on Cade’s belt as they sprinted.
The stairs disappeared behind them in a rush, and as they ran, something tugged at the back of Cade’s mind. He didn’t want to entertain the thought that something was off, but a thief’s intuition was never wrong.
Any time he ignored a gut feeling, he usually ended up getting stabbed with something.
This had all gone smoothly. Exactly to plan, and with perfect timing on every beat. Usually by now things had gone to hell in a handbasket. Chaos was sort of their trademark, after all, and the smooth sailing left an uncomfortable pit in his stomach.
Magic had a way of ruining even the best laid plans, after all. At this point in a heist, Cade was usually trying his best to come up with a new plan on the fly.
“You feel it, too?” Orro asked in a hushed voice.
Cade’s gaze shifted toward his friend, and the two of them shared a knowing look. Momentarily, he let his hand off the little orb in his pocket so that the two of them could have a moment alone. Orro followed suit, and for a minute or two, they simply ran in silence while Cade tried to put this sensation into words.
“We haven’t seen a single guard,” Cade pointed out now that they could speak freely. “Not one. For a goddess’s temple, don’t you think that’s… strange?”
“Hugh said there wouldn’t be any.”
“I know,” Cade muttered absently. “But he won’t tell us how he knows that.”
“He has loads of contacts all across the continent,” Orro said with a lazy shrug. “Maybe we just got lucky this time.”
“Maybe,” Cade said, not entirely convinced.
In unison, they both reached into their pockets and reconnected with the rest of the team.
“You disappeared,” Hugh said tersely, and Cade could imagine the man’s scowl.
“I fell,” Cade lied.
“Get your shit together,” their boss snapped. “There’s more at stake with this heist than you know.”
Once again, Cade and Orro shared a knowing glance, but this time they kept quiet.
They reached the bottom of the staircase without issue and turned left down a dark corridor. Moisture clung to the obsidian walls like an unrequited lover. The torchlight flickered at their passage, the two of them at one with the shadows.
At least, Cade thought so, and yet he couldn’t help but notice that he only heard his own footsteps echo throughout the black and gold hallway. Orro, despite keeping pace with him, was silence incarnate.
Not for the first time, Cade wondered if his best friend was secretly a silver ranker and just didn’t tell him.
“Over here,” Orro muttered.
The two of them stopped in front of an iron-grated door. Behind it was a single oak lever with worn steel studs lining its length. It was the solitary contraption within the tiny room, the torchlight glinting off the metal inside. Cade reached forward and tried the handle. It was locked tight.
“Where’s Elena when you need her?” Cade asked rhetorically.
“Doing her job, idiot,” Elena replied telepathically.
Cade jumped in surprise at her terse tone and was grateful only Orro was there to witness it.
“No need for a lockpick with this one. No enchantments to worry about. It’s just iron,” Orro surmised as he stroked his chin over his cloth mask.
“You just want to show off, don’t you?” Cade asked with a shit-eating grin.
With a grunt of annoyance in Cade’s direction, Orro unsheathed his blade. The orange metal shard that sat atop the ornate hilt and crossguard shone with an eerie light in the dark tunnel. Typical of the assassin, the blade was silent as it blurred through the air right before it cleanly cut through the lock.
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Orro resheathed it in one fluid motion and kicked open the door without ceremony. Cade snuck in behind him and threw the lever before his friend could. He grinned up at Orro’s dark scowl, his body contorted around the assassin as he balanced precariously on one leg.
“You’re a child,” Orro grunted.
“You know you love me,” Cade answered right before he reached into his pocket to call on Hugh.
“The door should be open now!” He sent.
“About damn time,” Hugh’s voice replied. “We nearly ran out of sunstones while you two cucks waddled about up there.”
“Stop complaining, old man. We’ll see you down there in just a moment,” Cade sent right before he let go of the warm glass orb.
“They need us,” Orro said, picking up his pace.
“Sounds like it,” Cade agreed, the joviality he felt a moment before gone.
He felt that strange unease again, and looked around for hidden threats. The torches crackled softly, but beyond them, no sound came from these lower floors. There was no one here, sure, but his unease set him more on edge with every step.
He was missing something, and he had to figure it out soon.
Save for a gentle trickle of water that wormed its way down the stairs, Cade couldn’t even discern any movement. The quiet stream struck Cade as odd, but he shrugged.
They were underground, after all. Cade felt the prickle of unease grow sharper. Water, seeping through the stone—it wasn’t just inconvenient. It felt like the earth itself was sweating, warning them to turn back.
Orro followed Cade’s gaze for a heartbeat before he started down the next set of stairs that led toward their goal.
Cade cursed under his breath. It was growing harder and harder to avoid the puddles that coated the ground the deeper they went. He observed them under the stagnant torchlight, but he was unable to pin what unsettled him with each step they descended into the bowels of this divine fortress.
They reached a long hallway and stopped. Broken weapons, shattered armor, and splattered blood adorned the ground like gruesome decorations. Craters and trenches marred the once smooth ground, evidence of explosive magic and brute force. The aftermath was illuminated by the warm sheen of sunlight, deep in the earth where it didn’t belong. Sunbeams danced through the unsettled dust.
Cade took in the area with professional ease, just as Hugh had taught him. A dozen closed doors on either side had claw marks across them, and the ground was practically aglow with the warm radiance of a summer afternoon. Crystals, no longer than his fingers, were strewn everywhere, but most were embedded within random pieces of old armor.
Cade squinted at the sudden brightness, but he huffed in appreciation at Hugh’s efficiency. In his periphery, he saw the faintest of outlines around each eclectic mix of armor, and his smile turned grim. Poisoned as they might’ve been by the light, the sentinels still would not remain banished for long.
He carefully stepped around the undead guardians as they made their way through the discarded sunstones and pieces of armor that littered the ground. He took no risks as he led Orro through the long and well-lit hall. He knew the sentinel’s infamous icy touch could paralyze just as often as kill, and that didn’t even take into account the armor and weapons they were often bonded to from their previous lives.
“Looks like the sentinels are taking a short nap.” Cade shook his head at the inert sentinels. “Hugh’s enchantments should hold them for a bit, even if it was a rush job the old man pulled off.”
He scanned the area for signs of reinforcements, either from Scorn’s acolytes or other sentinels, but there was no one. Save for the ghostly figures trying in vain to claw out the sunstones with incorporeal hands, they were alone.
At the end of the long corridor, the double-doored gates stood ajar, their ornately carved metal barely visible through the bright glimmer of the crystalline light. It was impossible to avoid getting their feet wet as they jogged up to the gates. Puddles were everywhere now.
“Not that I’m one to judge,” Cade muttered. “I spent three years living out of a sewer, after all, but I should really tell Gunn Gunderson about the leaky drainage down here. This is inexcusable for a place that serves a lady who loves smiting people.”
Cade only received a quiet chuffing sound from his friend as they passed through the gates.
What they entered into was what Cade could only describe as a maelstrom of activity.
Chills rushed over Cade’s skin, hinting that they passed through some kind of ward as they stepped into the new chamber. The moment they did, the sounds of battle crashed into them.
Cade and Orro stopped briefly atop a ledge with two short staircases designed to look like the tails of dragons descending down on either side. It was barely a five-foot jump to the ground below.
“Let’s go!” Cade yelled to his friend.
He didn’t hesitate to jump over the rail and race over to where his team continued to fight, with Orro directly behind him.
Cade rushed over to where Elena was busy in front of a small chest set atop a podium near the center of the room. Her bright red hair was pulled up into a messy bun, and she knelt in front of the box with a deep scowl of concentration. Security runes hung in the air above her, crackling over the redhead with crimson energy, eager to annihilate Elena should she make a single mistake. The hovering threats forced her into an awkward slouch while she worked diligently on the lock, and a bead of sweat rolled down her face as her brows furrowed with intense focus.
Behind her, an old man with wavy gray hair and a full beard darker than most storm clouds was joined by a young man who could’ve passed as Elena’s masculine doppelgänger—her twin, Jer.
Cade took in Hugh and Jer respectively, appreciating how they fought like a well-oiled machine. Their opponents—a half-dozen icy blue ghosts clad in full armor—cut and stabbed at the pair with silent derision. Their steel pikes and axes whipped through the air in a blur.
A single sentinel snuck past the two of them and beelined for Elena.
“Watch out!” Cade shouted.
He sprinted for his friend, unwilling to let harm reach her, but Orro was faster.
The rogue sentinel glided over the wet stone and stabbed straight for the back of her neck with a chipped pike of rusted iron.
But Elena didn’t move.
Seconds before the sentinel could cut off her head, an orange blade collided with the pike’s crossguard. The sudden and violent swing halted the sentinel’s momentum as easily as a rocky cliff buffeted the ocean’s advance away.
“Thanks, Orro,” Elena said without so much as a glance his way.
“No problem,” he growled.
The muscles on his neck strained as he shoved against the sentinel’s strength. It slid backward but recovered easily.
Cade rushed forward as the undead guardian reached for Orro’s throat with its semi-corporeal blue hands, each finger tipped into a gruesome claw. Orro ducked out of reach and kicked the undead soldier’s chestplate, shooting it momentarily backward.
Furious, the sentinel slashed wildly, claws extended.
Instinctively, Cade ducked the horizontal slash, reached into his pouch, and flicked a single sunstone into the creature’s permeable gut. The second the crystal entered its semi-transparent abdomen, the ghost writhed in pain. With a comical poof, its form exploded into a thick mist.
Orro adjusted his stance, careful not to bump Elena.
“Don’t let them touch you!” Jer warned. “Their hands seem to ignore mundane items like they don’t exist! I think it has something to do with their gestalt nature!”
“Who taught you the word ‘gestalt’?” Elena chimed in without turning her back.
Before her twin could respond, a sentinel sliced at Jer’s chest, and the man flipped backward, narrowly dodging the strike.
Hugh, meanwhile, pulled a bright crystal from his pocket and snapped it in half. Their boss threw the illuminated shards at two of their foes. The sunstones Hugh had made just for this occasion embedded deep in the ghosts’ chestplates, and an ungodly shriek tore through the underground air.
Satisfied with knowing that Hugh and Jer were safe, Cade turned to check and see if Elena was alright.
But as he turned his back on a single patch of shadows in the otherwise sun-filled room, he realized his mistake.
Ghostly fingers shot out of the isolated darkness. He stiffened on impulse, but he couldn’t move fast enough. Those icy claws reached for his neck. They pulsed with frigid magic as the sentinel’s agonized expression emerged from the darkness and glinted with endless malice.
It grabbed him, and it hurt.
The gnarled fingers closed around Cade’s throat before he could think, much less dodge, and his eyes widened as ice crackled over his jaw. It seared his skin, so cold that it burned, and he stifled an agonized yell of pain.
“No!” Jer yelled, his freckled face pale.
The sentinel’s hand met the edge of a dark orange blade, and it simply stopped. Cade’s hackles shot to attention as he witnessed the impossible within a single heartbeat.
Yet again, Cade’s best friend had saved the day.
Orro tugged hard on his blade, twisting it within the ghost’s armor, and the otherwise uncuttable form of the sentinel was torn apart by the assassin’s strange weapon.
The sentinel shrieked like its fallen brethren, but Orro didn’t hesitate. He shot forward, his blade turned in a reverse grip as he ducked under a wild swing of the sentinel’s pike. With a grunt of effort, he drove his blade deep within the chestplate of the ghostly creature.
The monster froze and, with an ungodly moan of pain, fell over. Unlike the others, it dissolved slowly into white mist before it was gone entirely.
Silence dominated the room.
Cade saw the edges of Orro’s eyes crease as he smiled triumphantly.
The last sentinel was taken care of—and unlike the others, this one was dead for good this time.
“A bit overkill, if you ask me,” Jer grumbled before he dusted off his pants and clapped Cade on the shoulders. “Show off.”
In answer, Orro merely shrugged.
Hugh glared at Cade, his scarred forearms crossed across his bulky chest. “Took you long enough, lad. I was about ready to start some tea while you took your dear time getting here. Do you have it?”
Cade squirmed a bit under his mentor’s attention but eventually nodded. “Here.”
He carefully took off his cloak, even though he knew that it was impossible to activate the enchantment sewn into it without Hugh’s help. Still, he made sure to avoid touching the inside hems whenever possible.
With exploding capes, it was best to be careful.
Hugh took it from his grasp nonchalantly and then walked over to one of the nearby walls. Cade watched as the man counted a certain amount of stones from the corner, then spread the cloak out against the wall. He tapped the runes sewn into the large cloth at regular intervals, and a dark red glow emanated from each in response as the adhesive magic kicked in.
A cold prickle gathered at the base of Cade’s neck, and he glanced around to see if there were any more traps waiting for them to stumble upon. The torches flickered softly in their iron holsters.
Cade’s brows knitted together in concentration. Something wasn’t right.
He continued to study the underground sanctum carefully as Hugh smoothly went about his work. Within moments, the cloak was stretched to every corner, looking for all the world like its former owner had been pancaked against the wall it was now stuck on.
Hugh waited to activate the final and largest rune, which stood out in the center of the textile. Cade shivered at the size of it. He knew from previous heists that this rune’s payload would be enough to melt over a dozen feet of stone without even trying.
Cade hoped it was pointed in the right direction this time.
“How much longer, Elena?” Hugh barked.
Everyone turned to see her, tongue pinched between the side of her lips, raise two fingers provocatively in Hugh’s direction.
“Is that supposed to mean two minutes, or just that she hates him right now?” Cade asked Jer.
Her twin shrugged. “Both, I suppose. She does love to multitask.”
“Done,” Elena said right as a satisfying click echoed throughout the chamber.
The small chest whirred as the half a dozen mechanisms locking and booby-trapping the box were disarmed all at once. The heavy lid hissed, and Elena opened it up with a rare sign of reverence.
Based on her love of magical devices, Cade knew that satisfied grin of hers was more toward the locksmith who constructed such a masterpiece than the magical artifact it housed.
And though Cade appreciated a good chest, he was there for something far more important.
Loot.
Lots and lots of loot.