Fornos spent the first thaw-week sealed in the oak-paneled study that overlooked Dag estate's amphitheatre-sized drill grounds. Scroll bins yawned open like molting insects; contracts lay in meticulous rows—each a silk strand in the web he meant to tighten before the hunt began.
He worked left to right, pen tapping boxes:
Saffron Collegium—cloister-city of arcanists who traded coin for knowledge as a smith trades steel. Their provosts demanded first pick of Relict marrow in exchange for forty thousand gold crowns paid before capture. A tempting, arrogant offer; Fornos accepted after inserting a rider:
"Payment forfeited if Collegium interferes, directly or by proxy, with field operations."
Next sheet: Admiralty of Kesh, the deep-keel power two oceans east. They had no need for marrow but coveted the titan-scale ribs as hull spines for ice-break dreadnoughts. Kesh would supply a covert salvage flotilla—crewed and armed—waiting beyond Cape Escarp to haul whatever bones the Ash Company dragged out of Viscus.
Fornos signed both parchments with identical flourish, then pressed two different seals: Dag trade crest for Saffron, a blank lupine sigil for Kesh. One sunlit deal, one kept to moonlight—hedging rivals against each other like weights on a balanced bar.
Even perfect ledgers could be gutted by an inquisitive foe. Rumors had trickled in all winter that House Ornes—longtime rival since the Nevera gathering—was hoarding anti-behemoth wargear: void nets, shock lances, glare-stone mortars. Konos dismissed the arsenal as "museum toys," but Fornos read the trend otherwise: Ornes wanted the Relict or, failing that, wanted to deny it to him.
So he turned to the Architects' dark pages. Two salkyr—kill-team pairs clad in soft boots and lacquered dusk-armor—received new codenames: Grey-Thorn and Morrow-Silk. Their brief:
Trail Ornes reconnaissance parties already skirting the Viscus ridges.
Eavesdrop, sabotage, misdirect—never reveal the knife.
If Ornes field command learns Ash Company's march date, sever the line of knowledge before it spreads.
Grey-Thorn departed under guise of caravan guards. Morrow-Silk slipped aboard a pilgrim barge, faces masked as penitent healers. Neither expected to return before the hunt's crescendo. Fornos logged their dispatch with one sentence: "Necessary pruning."
Snowmelt trickled through vineyard rows beyond the estate wall, carrying scents of wet loam and sap-burst cedar. Every morning smith-fires guttered then blazed hotter as iron met the kinder air; hammer cadence rose like migrating geese, filling the valley with industrial birdsong.
Mary Dag moved through that noise as serenely as a swan in stormwater. Ledger books—her old weapons from days whispered about as the era of the Ice Ledger—tucked beneath an arm, she inspected tool allotments and ration tallies, leaving penciled sigils that meant yes, proceed or try again. Where her son's ambition carved paths, Mary laid the stones so no foot would slip.
Workers soon discovered a pattern: if Mary signed a margin with a diamond, extra grog appeared at supper. If an entry bore a circle, expect an audit by dawn. Efficiency climbed with barely a shouted order, for the ledgers whispered loud enough.
Two nights before equinox, Fornos hosted a final council in the glass-roofed conservatory. The room smelled of citrus blossoms and coal dust—contradictions that defined his campaign.
Konos reported first.
"Ten guns loaded," he said, patting a waxed scroll case. "Barrel sleeves replaced on Throat-Ripper and Iron-Psalm. Spare condensers stowed though we pray not to need any."
"Casualty projection?" Fornos asked.
"Single-digit on artillery line if routes hold. Much worse for the capture team should the beast thrash."
"Understood."
Logistics chief Martin followed, fatigued eyes gleaming: "Salt-steel casings at twelve hundred-eighty. Glass Steppe water points restocked after the last mana-storm—lost only two kegs to flare shock."
Architect Wren unrolled a fresh adamant leaf: new annotations showed Grey-Thorn shadowing an Ornes scout platoon eight leagues north. A red dot indicated silent resolution—three daggers drawn beside it. Fornos allowed a fractional nod.
No one spoke of retreat plans; the word belonged to lesser ventures.
Equinox eve bled into midnight. Forge-lights guttered beyond the barracks, each flare a heartbeat of molten orange against the thaw-black fields. Fornos stepped onto the mansion's eastern balcony, cold starlight silvering his hair. Below, silhouettes of salvo cannons rested under tarpaulin like sleeping siege-hounds. Golem sentries patrolled between, lamp-eyes blinking.
Footsteps behind—soft, familiar. Mary joined him, cloak clasped by a single sapphire. She did not speak; instead she held out the final ledger stack, bound in iron twine. Numbers marched across vellum: funding tranches, casualty reserves, insurance clauses for the Collegium advance, profit projections for Kesh salvage, even minute bribes to dockmasters in four ports. Every coin caged, every risk given a name.
Fornos accepted the weight. "When the thaw comes," he said, gaze fixed on the field fires, "we bring back a god—or we learn why gods stay buried."
Mary's answer was silence first—pregnant, powerful. Then she placed her gloved hand over his on the ledgers, squeezing once. A benediction without blessing words. Her eyes, ice-clear, reflected both pride and the specter of cost.
She released, turned, and withdrew into the corridor, leaving citrus scent and lamp-glow in her wake.
Fornos remained. Somewhere beyond that horizon Grey-Thorn's daggers dripped cold rainwater; in cellar vaults Saffron gold glinted; at sea Kesh prows cut swells, hull spines yearning for Relict bone. All threads pulled toward the coming crucible.
He opened the top ledger, flipped to the last blank page, and wrote: "Outcome unknown. Intention absolute."
Wind stirred forge smoke into serpentine coils around the balcony. Fornos inhaled, tasted iron and blooming earth—promise and peril braided tight.
Spring, he told the dark. Let the hunt begin.