The manor's interior was a maze of narrow corridors and low-hanging beams. Alph moved behind Nylessa, his footsteps matching her rhythm, each step deliberate and measured. The air smelled of old stone and cooking oil, layered with the faint scent of herbs drying in bundles. Somewhere above, servants moved through their evening routines, unaware of the intrusion threading through the passages below.

  Nylessa's hand rose, signaling a halt. They stood at the threshold of a wide, open space; the kitchen warehouse. Wooden shelves lined the walls, stacked with clay jars, cloth-wrapped bundles, and barrels sealed with tar.

  Alph blinked.

  Nylessa was gone.

  She had melted into the shadows, eluding his casual gaze. He had witnessed her skill before; the effect remained disorienting, a professional vanishing into her element like water dissolving into mist.

  Somewhere in the shadows now. Waiting.

  Alph's gaze swept across the warehouse. There, stacked near the hearth, lay the firewood; cord after cord of split logs, dried and ready for use. Standard kindling. A simple fire would draw servants, nothing more.

  That would not work.

  He moved toward the water station, where servants refilled their buckets. A large pail sat beside the wooden cistern, half-full and ready. Alph grabbed it and began hauling water to the firewood stack. Each bucket of water he poured soaked into the logs, darkening the pale wood, drenching them until they glistened.

  "What are you doing?"

  Nylessa's voice drifted from somewhere in the shadows, confused and sharp. She was close, perhaps three paces away, but invisible.

  Alph didn't answer. He poured another bucket.

  "Alph. Fire. You were supposed to set fire."

  He ignored her, continuing his work. The final bucket splashed across the dripping logs. The wood was thoroughly saturated now, heavy with moisture.

  Alph's mind worked through the problem with methodical precision. A simple fire would summon servants, nothing more; they would grab buckets and extinguish the flames before anyone of consequence arrived. That would not work. He needed something that forced the professionals to respond, something that demanded their superhuman qualities.

  A servant's panic about fire was mere noise in the grand machinery of the manor. But a situation where the commoner servants could not intervene, where their ordinary means failed them entirely, that became a problem requiring professional attention. The distinction mattered. It meant drawing exactly the people he needed into the their ambush.

  Alph crossed to the narrow wooden door set into the warehouse's side wall and pushed it open. A massive hearth dominated the far wall, its iron frame blackened by years of soot. The fire burned low, reduced to glowing embers casting wavering shadows across stone. No servants lingered; the kitchen stood empty except for the smell of extinguished fires and root vegetables.

  Alph moved deeper into the room, his footsteps hollow against flagstones. Copper pots hung from iron hooks, their surfaces reflecting dying firelight in dull glints. A wooden preparation table occupied the center, scrubbed clean. Everything spoke of routine and order, work completed and set aside.

  Perfect, looks like the staff is out after finishing the dinner.

  Alph hauled the stack toward the hearth and hurled them into the flames. For a moment, nothing happened. The fire crackled, indifferent to the intrusion.

  Then the logs began to steam.

  The heat from the hearth attacked the water-logged wood, and the moisture turned to vapor. Thick, grey-black smoke erupted from the fireplace in a choking plume, billowing upward and outward like a living thing. The smell hit immediately; damp, burning wood mixed with something acrid and unpleasant. Visibility in the kitchen collapsed within seconds. The smoke rolled through the open doorway and into the hallway beyond, spreading like a physical weight, filling every corridor and chamber.

  Alph's eyes burned. Smoke invaded his lungs as he pulled the mask away, dunked it in the water bucket, and pressed it back against his face. The wet cloth filtered the plume enough to breathe, though each inhalation carried the scorching taste of burning wood. He immediately invoked Reduced Presence and hid a few paces from the front entrance.

  Footsteps pounded through the manor. Servants bolted, their voices cracking with panic. "Fire! Fire in the kitchen!" A servant barked orders. Others coughed as smoke flooded the hallways, confusion bleeding into their shouts. They turned to the water buckets and found them empty. Alph had drained them all. They crashed into each other in the murk, driven back from the hearth by heat and choking fumes.

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  Heavy boots sounded on the stone stairs, descending from the upper floors. Two sets of footsteps, deliberate and purposeful. Alph could hear their voices through the thick smoke even before they entered the kitchen.

  "Cursed servants," one growled. "Can't manage a simple kitchen without setting the whole place ablaze."

  "Bjorn." The second man's voice was tight. "We should check the perimeter. This could be—"

  "Dima, stop." Bjorn's laugh was harsh. "One botched job doesn't mean every shadow harbors an assassin. The servants knocked over a lamp or placed a oily rag near the hearth, nothing more. We're not living in paranoia because you didn't listen to your partner and he got himself killed weeks ago."

  They entered the kitchen through the big double doors.

  Through the smoke, Alph made out two shapes. The first one was built wide, a shield strapped across his back, moving with the kind of precision that came from training. The second was smaller, compact, but wound tight; his fingers curled around the hilt of a sword at his hip.

  They pushed deeper into the smoke, toward the hearth where it billowed thickest. Their weapons stayed sheathed. Their alertness sharpened from annoyance to something more acute, but not yet combat-ready. They were in transition, caught between dismissal and wariness. As they neared the hearth, their eyes watered, their breathing grew labored.

  Alph crouched low, moving parallel to their approach, his hunting knife already drawn.

  When they moved into striking range, he erupted from the smoke like a predator launching from tall grass, his hunting knife thrusting upward in a vicious arc aimed at Dima's exposed neck.

  The guard's eyes widened, shock replacing annoyance. Dima's hand was already drawing his blade, but the smoke, the surprise, and the sudden shift from irritation to mortal threat all worked against him.

  Alph’s strike cut the air with lethal precision, the hunting knife flashing toward the swordsman’s exposed flank. The blade sang promise, its trajectory perfectly calculated to punish the man’s negligent stance. But the shield user moved with preternatural speed, invoking Vanguard's Pact before Alph's weapon could find flesh.

  The shield user's body materialized at an impossible speed, muscle and iron interposing where empty space had hung moments before. The shield rose to intercept the hunting knife mid-arc.

  Clang!

  The blade struck steel, force coursing up Alph's forearms. His hands jerked open. Pain lanced from wrist to shoulder. He retreated into the smoke.

  The swordsman choked out a gasp, primal and raw. Alph watched him wrench the blade from its sheath, steel scraping through the smoke. The man trembled, fear coursing through him after brushing death's edge. "I knew it, Bjorn! I told you there are assassins!" His voice fractured with panic.

  "Shut up, Dima!" Bjorn snarled, frustration thick in his voice. "You and your crow's mouth will get us both killed. Get a grip. I cannot see clearly in this smoke. Where did he retreat to?"

  Bjorn flailed his shield through the smoke, grasping at phantoms. Alph held his ground, breathing shallow. The shield user snarled again, "Retreat, let's get out of the bloody smoke. Dima?" Silence answered him. His foot struck the fallen comrade's cold body, and dread flooded through him. "What?"

  The momentary distraction was all Nylessa needed. Unlike Alph's clumsy assault, she moved without sound, a wraith in the haze. Bjorn stood ahead of Dima, oblivious to what had transpired behind him. Dima's throat gaped open, his body crumpled on the stone floor.

  The moment of vulnerability stretched taut as a drawn bowstring. Alph lunged, his body coiling through the smoke like a striking serpent. This time, he didn't waste motion on a killing blow—not yet. The hunting knife flashed, its edge biting deep into the tendons and bone of Bjorn's shield hand. Warm blood sprayed across Alph's knuckles as the fingers—two of them, still twitching—tumbled to the stone floor. The shield clattered after, its iron rim ringing against flagstone with a hollow, final sound.

  Bjorn's breath hitched, raw and wet. He stumbled back, boots slipping on Dima's cooling blood. His heel caught the corpse's outstretched arm; the body shifted with a sickening, viscous sound. The shield fighter's face twisted as he lost his footing in panic and pain, falling hard on his back.

  Alph didn't hesitate. His fingers reversed along the knife's hilt in one fluid motion. The blade's weight shifted as he pivoted, diving down. Bjorn's ribs offered no resistance; the tip sank into the meat of his heart with a wet, decisive thunk. The man gasped once, his body crumpling inward. The hunting knife stood proud from his chest, its haft quivering with the last tremors of a dying man.

  Nylessa materialized from the shadows of the kitchen doorway, her boots barely whispering against the flagstone. The smoke had thinned enough for Alph to catch the glint of her brown-red eyes sweeping over the two bodies, then back to him. Something in her expression shifted, the usual dismissiveness replaced by what looked like grudging respect.

  "Not bad," she said, folding her arms. "I'll be honest, I had you pegged as all brawn and no brain. Charging in, swinging steel, hoping for the best." She stepped over Dima's corpse without looking down, casual as a woman crossing a rain puddle. "But this? You proved me wrong."

  Her palm landed on Alph's shoulder, a firm pat. Alph's face remained blank. Beneath it, his mind twisted; the Slayer's bloodlust coiled in his chest, silent but ravenous. The moment the hunting knife sank into the guard's ribs, predatory hunger flooded through him. His knuckles burned for the hilt. He clenched his jaw trying to force the primal heat back into the dark corners where it belonged.

  "Although," Nylessa said, her tone sharpening as she raised one finger, "next time you decide to improvise, you tell me first. Before you flood a kitchen with smoke thick enough to choke a rock-goat. We clear on that, Little Raven?" She spun toward the door. "Wait for me by the entrance we came through. I'm going in to finish the target."

  She vanished down the corridor. Her footsteps echoed against the stone before he could respond.

  Alph stood motionless, forcing air into his lungs. The Slayer's hunger still clawed at him, demanding blood and violence. He breathed through the sensation, counting the seconds until his muscles unclenched. Then he crouched beside Bjorn's body and yanked the hunting knife free. Blood dripped from the blade. He grabbed a rag from the kitchen table and wiped the knife clean, watching the red soak into the fabric. The hunger did not fade, but it retreated enough. He tucked the knife away and slipped out of the room.