By the Hour of the Nightingale, Bhonash had ceased to be a city.
The fires had burned themselves low enough that they no longer roared. They smoldered instead, breathing red through collapsed roofs and shattered windows while black smoke dragged itself across the moonlit streets. What little remained of the old city's wealth had been stripped from hiding places, private vaults, ruined temples, and the concealed chambers beneath the homes of its ruling families.
Gold, silver, gemstones, weapons, records, livestock, preserved food, and every scrap of Valyrian workmanship worth carrying had been gathered into guarded wagons.
Nothing had been overlooked.
The dead had been separated from the rubble.
The living had been divided according to blood and usefulness.
Those of confirmed Valyrian descent stood under guard near the market, no longer chained but not yet free enough to understand what their survival meant. Skilled non-Valyrians had been bound separately: healers, engineers, scribes, navigators, craftsmen, translators, and anyone whose knowledge might prove more valuable than their body.
The rest waited in silence.
Some were still alive.
Many were not.
Regulus stood beneath the broken arch of the eastern gate, reading through the final records while officers moved around him. Ash had settled into his dark hair and along the shoulders of his coat, but he seemed not to notice. His attention moved between lists of names, recovered inventories, and the columns of figures recording exactly what Bhonash had yielded.
Nothing in his posture suggested satisfaction.
Only completion.
A captain approached and lowered her head.
"The final quarter has been searched. No additional survivors of confirmed Valyrian descent were found."
"And the tunnels?"
"Cleared. Artorias left men behind to collapse the eastern branches after the wagons pass."
Regulus turned one page.
"The treasury?"
"Emptied."
"The temple records?"
"Recovered, though some were damaged by fire."
His eyes rose from the ledger.
"Bellatrix?"
The captain hesitated.
Regulus closed his eyes briefly.
"What did she do?"
"She found an underground wine cellar."
"That is not an answer."
"She found an underground wine cellar with six surviving guards inside it."
Regulus waited.
The captain shifted beneath his stare.
"Lady Bellatrix described the encounter as educational."
From somewhere deeper in the ruined city came a muffled explosion.
Regulus looked in that direction.
A distant section of roof collapsed.
"She is finished now," the captain added carefully.
"I admire your optimism."
A harsh caw sounded above them.
Sanzuwu swept down from the dark sky and landed on the broken archway, her three taloned legs gripping the black stone. Her feathers absorbed the firelight around her until she looked like a hole cut into the world, outlined only by the faint crimson gleam of her eyes.
She peered down at Regulus.
"Caw! Bhonash dead! Bhonash empty!"
"Not empty," Regulus said. "Processed."
Sanzuwu tilted her head.
"Caw! Same smell."
Regulus ignored that.
He removed a folded strip of black parchment from inside his coat. The writing upon it shifted faintly, lines of red and silver ink rearranging themselves as he added the final numbers.
The population recovered.
The bloodlines identified.
The prisoners retained.
The dead prepared for exchange.
The surviving captives deemed unsuitable for service or study.
The total treasure.
The condition of Bhonash.
The route to Mantarys.
Once the report was complete, he pressed his thumb against the lower corner. A silver mark flared beneath his skin and sealed the parchment.
He held it out toward Sanzuwu.
"Take this to Father."
The raven hopped down from the arch and snatched the message in her beak.
"Caw! Tell him Bellatrix broke gate?"
"He will know Bellatrix broke the gate before you arrive."
"Caw! Tell him Regulus complained?"
"He will assume I complained."
"Caw! Tell him Artorias killed fat man?"
Regulus stared at her.
"Tell him what is written."
Sanzuwu's eyes narrowed with theatrical disappointment.
"Caw. Boring."
She spread her wings.
The first beat scattered ash from the stones below. The second lifted her above the ruined wall. By the third, she had climbed over Bhonash, circling once as though admiring the destruction from which she had emerged.
Below her, Bellatrix stepped into the market carrying an unopened bottle of wine in one hand and her wand in the other.
She looked up.
"Tell Father I did everything perfectly!"
Regulus raised his voice without turning.
"Do not tell him that."
"Tell him Regulus is jealous!"
"I am surrounded by children."
Artorias passed behind him, dragging the point of his greatsword through the ash.
Regulus glanced at the silent knight.
"You are not helping."
Artorias continued walking.
Above them, Sanzuwu released a shrieking laugh.
Then she turned west.
Her wings carried her over the Black Cliffs, whose jagged ridges rose from the earth like the broken teeth of some buried god. The land beneath her became increasingly hostile as she traveled. Forests thinned into twisted black growths. Rivers cut through stone stained red, violet, and yellow by minerals left behind after the Doom.
Beyond the cliffs lay the Painted Mountains.
Their slopes appeared almost unreal beneath the moon. Veins of blue crystal ran through purple stone. Great red shelves rose above valleys filled with silver fog, while patches of green fire burned from cracks in the earth without fuel or smoke. Some peaks seemed close enough to touch until Sanzuwu flew toward them and found they remained impossibly distant.
The mountains had never agreed with ordinary space.
Paths changed when they were not watched. Valleys appeared where cliffs had stood. A traveler might walk north for three days and emerge from the south—or never emerge at all.
Sanzuwu knew the way.
She did not follow roads, stars, or landmarks.
She followed a pull carried inside her blood.
The farther she flew, the quieter the world became.
Wind faded first.
Then insects.
Then even the beat of her wings seemed to disappear into the mountains.
Ahead of her stood two narrow peaks leaning toward each other. Between them hung nothing but empty darkness.
To an ordinary eye, there was no path.
Sanzuwu flew directly between them.
The world folded.
For less than a heartbeat, her body stretched into shadow. The sealed report in her beak burned cold, and the mountains on either side twisted away from each other like curtains pulled apart by unseen hands.
Then she crossed the barrier.
Day vanished.
On the other side, night was eternal.
Not the empty darkness of a moonless sky, but a deep blue night crowded with stars. They hung lower and brighter than stars had any right to, reflected across countless rivers, pools, and waterfalls winding between the mountains.
An entire city spread beneath her.
Buildings rose along cliffs, shorelines, terraces, and islands, their architecture blending the layered roofs and sweeping bridges of eastern kingdoms with the black stone, narrow towers, and draconic ornamentation of Valyria. Lanterns glowed warm gold beneath dark tiled eaves. Purple flowering trees bent over walkways and canals, their petals drifting across the water like tiny sparks.
At the heart of it all lay a vast lake, so immense that its far edges blurred into darkness, its surface reflecting the stars like a second sky. Yet even from above, there was something unsettling about it—the water seemed too still, too deep, as though it descended far beyond what any natural basin should allow, vanishing into an unseen depth that swallowed light itself.
Rivers flowed through the city instead of streets.
Bridges curved between neighborhoods, while boats moved silently beneath them. Houses stood along the edges of the great lake and smaller surrounding waters, their foundations built directly into stone or suspended over the surface on dark wooden supports. From the far side of the central basin, a colossal waterfall thundered downward, its endless cascade spilling over the edge of the world and plunging into a glowing abyss below, where blue light shimmered faintly from depths no eye could measure.
Strands of violet magic drifted through the air and water.
They moved like living constellations, gathering around rooftops, winding between trees, and disappearing beneath the bridges before emerging somewhere else.
The city did not feel built.
It felt grown from the mountain around it.
At its highest point, above the largest waterfall and the terraces of flowering trees, stood a sprawling residence.
Its black roofs rose in several layers, edged with silver and violet metal. Curved Valyrian towers emerged between the eastern pavilions, and dragon-shaped channels carried water from the mountain into suspended gardens below. A broad lake rested behind the house, perfectly still beneath the stars.
Sanzuwu climbed toward it.
She passed over the highest roof, crossed a garden filled with pale night-blooming flowers, and descended toward a private terrace overlooking the water.
Someone was sleeping there.
A lounge chair had been placed beneath one of the flowering trees, positioned where the branches blocked most of the lantern light without hiding the view of the lake. Long legs rested carelessly across one end of the chair, enclosed in fitted black trousers and high, intricately buckled boots.
The rest of the figure was wrapped in a dark coat embroidered with faint purple thread.
A wide-brimmed black hat covered their face.
Long silver-blond hair spilled around the chair, moving lightly in the breeze.
Sanzuwu circled once.
She landed directly on the sleeper's chest.
There was no reaction.
The raven shifted her weight.
Still nothing.
"Caw."
Silence.
Sanzuwu lowered her head and pecked the hat.
The sleeper raised one hand and pushed her away without waking.
She returned.
Peck.
The hand moved again.
Peck.
"Stop."
The voice beneath the hat was low, soft with sleep, and edged with warning.
Sanzuwu hopped closer.
"Caw! Important message!"
"No message has ever been important enough to justify touching my face."
"Caw! Not touching face. Touching hat."
Peck.
The air beside the chair split open.
A black-purple circle appeared, no larger than a plate. A hand disappeared into it and returned holding the darker of Rellana's Twin Blades.
The sword swung.
Sanzuwu launched herself backward with a startled squawk. The blade passed beneath her feet and cut through the edge of the hat instead.
The ruined hat spun away and landed among the flowers.
The raven hovered above the terrace.
"Caw! Murder! Betrayal!"
The sleeper sat up slowly.
Without the hat, the face beneath it was revealed.
Ten years had refined what had once been an almost unnaturally beautiful youth into something far more commanding but still otherworldly beautiful .
Jinx's silver-blond hair had grown past his waist, the loose waves scattered around his shoulders and across the back of the chair. His features remained delicate enough that strangers might still mistake him for a woman, but maturity had sharpened them. The softness of childhood had narrowed into high cheekbones, a fine jaw, and eyes whose stillness carried more authority than anger ever could.
He wore no crown.
He did not need one here.
Dark violet eyes fixed on Sanzuwu with the exhausted hostility of someone who had been pulled from a particularly good sleep.
The darker twin blade rested across his lap.
"You landed on me."
Sanzuwu settled on the back of the empty chair beside him.
"Caw! Messenger privilege."
"You pecked me."
"Caw! Messenger urgency."
"You continued after I told you to stop."
"Caw! Messenger courage."
Jinx stared at her.
The raven leaned away.
"Caw. Maybe stupidity."
"At least you retain some self-awareness."
Jinx lifted the damaged hat from the flowers with a small movement of his fingers. It floated back toward him, the cut edge hanging loose.
He examined it.
Then he looked at Sanzuwu again.
"This was one of my favorites."
"Caw! Sword did it."
"My sword."
"Caw! Reckless sword."
For a moment, Jinx appeared to consider testing how well a three-legged raven could function with two.
Then his gaze dropped toward the sealed report still clenched in her beak.
"Give me that."
Sanzuwu hopped onto his knee and released the parchment into his hand.
The seal recognized him immediately.
Silver light spread over the black material, and the report unfolded itself. Lines of writing rose from the surface and hovered in the air before him.
Jinx read in silence.
The irritation left his expression first.
Not because the contents pleased him, exactly, but because his mind had moved elsewhere. His eyes followed the figures Regulus had recorded, pausing over the bloodline count, the surviving specialists, and the recovered material.
"The losses?"
Sanzuwu ruffled her feathers, as though the question itself required her to rearrange her thoughts into something resembling order.
"Caw! Small. Arrows. One leg. Two burns. No important dead."
Jinx's eyes lingered on the hovering lines of the report, but his attention sharpened. He did not look up immediately.
"Define small."
"Caw! Less than expected. More than none."
"That is not a definition."
"Caw! Enough to notice. Not enough to matter."
Jinx's gaze lifted then, settling on her with quiet scrutiny.
"Everything matters."
Sanzuwu shifted her weight, claws clicking softly against the wood of the chair.
"Caw… not to you."
Jinx did not answer that.
Instead, he returned his attention to the report, tracing the casualty figures again as though confirming them against something only he could see.
"Artorias?"
"Caw! Angry metal man alive."
"He is rarely angry."
"Caw! Always sounds angry."
"That is his voice."
"Caw! Bad voice."
Jinx exhaled softly through his nose, something between amusement and resignation.
"He was not injured?"
"Caw! Scratches. Blood not his. Sword happy."
Jinx's fingers paused over the report.
"Sword happy," he repeated.
"Caw! Very happy. Ate many people."
"That is not how swords work."
"Caw! That sword works like that."
Jinx did not argue further.
He knew better.
"And Bellatrix?"
Sanzuwu's head twisted sideways, one eye fixing on him while the other seemed to drift toward the lake.
"Caw! Very happy."
"That was not what I asked."
"Caw! Broke gate. Broke wall. Broke street. Broke wine cellar."
Jinx closed his eyes, pressing his thumb lightly against the bridge of his nose.
"Of course she did."
"Caw! Said perfect."
"She would."
"Caw! Regulus said not perfect."
"He would."
"Caw! Said inefficient. Said unnecessary. Said—"
"I can imagine what Regulus said."
Sanzuwu leaned closer, lowering her voice as though sharing something particularly valuable.
"Caw! Cousins argued. Very entertaining."
Jinx's mouth curved faintly.
Not quite a smile.
"They always do."
"Caw! Bellatrix louder."
"She always is."
"Caw! Regulus colder."
"He always is."
For a moment, Jinx's gaze drifted away from the report again, not toward the city this time, but somewhere inward—toward memory, calculation, or something more distant.
"They balance each other," he said quietly. "Whether they intend to or not."
"Caw! Or break each other."
Jinx's eyes flicked back to her.
"That remains to be seen."
Sanzuwu bobbed her head, satisfied with that answer.
"They completed the objective."
"Caw! Bhonash dead."
"Bhonash was already dead. They merely stopped it from pretending otherwise."
The words came without satisfaction.
They rarely did.
Jinx lowered the report slightly, letting the glowing lines dim as his attention shifted outward. His gaze moved past Sanzuwu, past the terrace, and down toward the quiet city below.
From here, everything appeared serene.
Lantern light drifted across the water in soft gold reflections. The bridges curved gently between rooftops. The trees swayed with slow, deliberate grace, shedding petals that vanished into the currents below.
It looked like peace.
It sounded like peace.
It was not.
Jinx's eyes lingered on the still surface of the lake, watching the faint distortions where magic moved beneath it—currents unseen by anyone who did not know how to look.
Nothing here was untouched by what he had built.
Nothing here was innocent.
And far beyond these mountains, Bhonash smoldered in silence, its people sorted, its history reduced to numbers on a page.
Jinx did not look away.
He simply watched, as though measuring the distance between the two worlds and finding it exactly as wide as he had intended.
His gaze remained there for several seconds.
Then he returned to the numbers.
"The Valyrian survivors are to be fed before transport. Keep families together unless there is a security concern. The skilled prisoners remain under Regulus's authority until I decide where they are most useful."
Sanzuwu bobbed her head.
"Caw!"
Jinx dismissed the report, allowing it to fold back into itself.
"The dead and any living captives judged unsuitable for service, study, ransom, or breeding are to be brought here."
The raven blinked.
"Caw! For circle?"
"For the Circle of Biological Exchange."
"Caw! Standard protocol."
"Yes."
Jinx's voice hardened slightly.
"Which means Regulus should not have needed to ask."
"Caw! He did not ask."
"Good."
"Caw! Sanzuwu remembered."
Jinx looked at her more carefully.
"You remembered?"
The raven puffed out her chest.
"Caw! Smartest bird."
"You once tried to eat a gemstone because it was red."
"Caw! Looked delicious."
"You swallowed it."
"Caw! Still delicious."
"You nearly died."
"Caw! Temporary mistake."
Despite himself, Jinx laughed quietly.
The sound was brief, but it changed his face completely.
He rested the sword beside the chair and reached into the black-purple storage circle again. This time, his hand returned holding a strip of meat.
It had once been steak.
Now it was darkened, sour, and well past the point where any sane creature would have considered it food.
Sanzuwu froze.
Her eyes widened.
"Caw?"
"You did well."
Jinx tossed it upward.
Sanzuwu caught the rotten steak in her beak and nearly fell from the chair in her excitement. Her wings opened, beating wildly as she attempted to celebrate without dropping it.
"Caw! Reward! Best reward!"
She hopped across Jinx's lap, turned twice, and threw her head back in triumph.
"Do not get that on my coat."
Sanzuwu immediately dropped one end of the meat onto his sleeve.
Jinx looked down.
The raven stopped moving.
They stared at each other.
Slowly, Sanzuwu picked the steak back up.
"Caw. Accident."
Jinx reached for the darker twin blade.
Sanzuwu launched into the air, laughing through the meat as she flew toward the roof.
"Come back here."
"Caw! Important orders!"
"You already delivered them."
"Caw! Must supervise sacrifices!"
"That is not your responsibility."
"Caw! Promotion!"
She vanished over the roof before he could throw the sword.
Jinx remained seated for a moment, staring after her.
Then he looked down at the stain on his sleeve.
The night around him stayed perfectly calm.
From somewhere above came the wet sound of Sanzuwu enjoying her reward.
Jinx sighed and leaned back into the chair.
"Ten years," he murmured to himself. "I have had ten years to replace that bird."
A delighted caw echoed from the roof.
He closed his eyes again.
He did not summon the hat back