"Already handled." Nacho patted his chest, where the invisible inventory resided. "Picked up provisions while you were talking to the shopkeepers. Enough for two weeks, plus medical supplies and some basic equipment."
"When did you have time—" She stopped, shaking her head. "Never mind. I don’t want to know."
"Probably wise."
They spent the rest of the day preparing, reviewing everything Corvus had told them and cross-referencing it with what little intelligence Sera had been able to gather. The fortress sounded exactly like the kind of place where the Consortium would hide its most valuable prisoners, isolated, defensible, and far from any authority that might care about what happened inside.
The question was whether Vael was still there. And if she was, what condition they’d find her in.
"She’s strong," Sera said quietly as the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the room. "Stronger than anyone gives her credit for. Whatever they’ve done to her, she’ll have fought it."
"You believe that?"
"I have to." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word. "If I start doubting now, I’ll never make it through those doors."
Nacho watched her for a long moment, seeing the exhaustion beneath her composure, the fear she kept buried under layers of duty and determination. She was carrying so much weight, had been carrying it for so long, and she never let anyone see how heavy it was.
"We’ll find her," he said. "And we’ll get her out. Whatever it takes."
Sera looked at him, her pale eyes searching his face for something. Whatever she found there made her shoulders drop slightly, some small portion of the tension bleeding away.
"Thank you."
"Don’t thank me yet. We haven’t done anything."
"No. I mean thank you for coming. For being here." She turned away, her voice going quiet. "I’ve been fighting alone for so long. I forgot what it felt like to have someone I could rely on."
The words hit him harder than he expected. He thought about all the times he’d told himself that attachment was weakness, that caring about others only made you vulnerable. And yet here he was, preparing to assault a heavily defended fortress to rescue a woman he’d never met, all because the person sitting across from him had asked.
What did that make him?
Not a hero. Heroes didn’t steal talents from people they’d charmed into compliance. Heroes didn’t leave a trail of broken minds behind them wherever they went.
But maybe not entirely a monster either.
"Get some sleep," he said finally. "We leave at dawn."
Sera nodded and moved toward the bed, her movements slow with exhaustion. She was asleep within minutes, her breathing evening out into the steady rhythm of someone who’d learned to rest whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Nacho stayed awake, watching the shadows lengthen across the floor. His mind wouldn’t quiet, running through scenarios and possibilities, calculating odds that shifted with every new variable he considered.
Three days to the pass. One day to the fortress. An unknown number of guards, an unknown layout, unknown prisoners who might or might not include the woman Sera had spent months trying to find.
It was a bad plan. Too many unknowns, too many things that could go wrong. Any sensible person would walk away, find another approach, wait for better intelligence.
But Sera couldn’t wait. The longer Vael stayed in that fortress, the more likely it was that she’d be shipped off to some buyer in a distant city, lost forever in the Empire’s endless appetite for compliant servants.
So they’d go. They’d fight. They’d do whatever was necessary to bring her home.
And if they failed?
Nacho pushed the thought away. Failure wasn’t an option. Not anymore. Not for someone who’d started caring about things worth protecting.
The night passed slowly, darkness giving way to grey and then to gold as the sun crept above the horizon. Sera woke without alarm, her body responding to some internal clock that knew exactly when rest became luxury.
They ate a cold breakfast from their supplies and gathered their things, leaving the inn through a back entrance that led into a narrow alley. The streets were still quiet, the city not yet fully awake, and they moved quickly through the shadows toward the northern gate.
The guards at the gate barely glanced at them. Two travelers heading north was hardly unusual, and their papers, forged by contacts Sera had cultivated over years of intelligence work, passed inspection without comment.
Beyond the walls, the road stretched ahead like a grey ribbon laid across a green blanket. The mountains rose in the distance, their peaks still touched with snow despite the approaching summer. Somewhere in those mountains was the Thornpass. And beyond that, the Hollows.
Vael.
"Ready?" Sera asked.
Nacho looked at the road ahead, at the mountains looming on the horizon, at the woman standing beside him who’d somehow become something more than an ally.
"Let’s go."
They started walking.
The first day passed without incident. The road wound through farming country, past fields of grain and orchards heavy with fruit. Occasionally they passed other travelers, merchants and pilgrims and the occasional patrol, but no one paid them any particular attention.
They camped that night beneath a spreading oak tree, its branches providing shelter from the light rain that began to fall as darkness settled over the land. Sera built a small fire while Nacho set up a perimeter of detection threads, gossamer-thin lines of awareness that would alert him to anyone approaching within a hundred yards.
"Tell me about her," he said as they ate. "Vael. What was she like?"
Sera was quiet for a long moment, her eyes fixed on the flames.
"Brilliant. Fearless. The kind of person who walks into impossible situations and somehow walks out again." A small smile crossed her face. "We met during the officer training program. I was the youngest in our class, trying so hard to prove I belonged. She was the only one who didn’t make me feel like I had something to prove."
"You were close."
"We were everything." The smile faded. "Until the politics got in the way. Until the Elders decided that two women with that much ambition and that much talent were too dangerous together. They promoted us separately, assigned us to different divisions, made sure we never had time to see each other."
"But you stayed in contact."
"Through letters. Through secret messages passed by trusted couriers." Her voice had gone soft, distant. "The day before her expedition left, she came to see me. Told me she had a bad feeling about the mission, that something wasn’t right. I told her she was being paranoid."
The fire crackled, sending sparks spiraling up into the darkness.
"I should have listened. I should have stopped her. Instead, I let her walk into a trap because I trusted the intelligence reports more than I trusted her instincts."
Nacho didn’t say anything. What could he say? That it wasn’t her fault? That she couldn’t have known? Empty words that wouldn’t change anything.
"When we find her," Sera continued, her voice hardening, "I’m going to tell her what I should have said back then. What I was too afraid to say because I thought there would always be more time."
"What’s that?"
She looked at him, and for just a moment, the mask slipped. Underneath was something raw and vulnerable, something she’d probably never shown anyone else.
"That she’s the only person who ever made me feel like I was enough. Just as I am. Without the rank or the titles or the responsibility." She looked away. "That I love her."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy with implications that Nacho hadn’t expected.
"Does she know?"
"I don’t know. Maybe. We never talked about it directly. There was always some reason to wait, some crisis to handle first." Sera’s laugh was bitter. "And now she’s been in that fortress for six months, and I don’t even know if she’s still alive."
Nacho reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. It was an awkward gesture, unfamiliar, but it was all he had to offer.
"We’ll find her. And you’ll get your chance to tell her."
Sera didn’t respond. But she didn’t pull away either.
They sat in silence as the fire burned low, each lost in their own thoughts.
Tomorrow they’d reach the mountains.
Tomorrow the real work would begin.