Chapter 33 · Rust and Relic - Chapter 33: The Gray Market Burns

"Give me the copy." Greta's hand was already on my sleeve, pulling me toward the back exit of her tent. "Now."

"What—"

"Vald's men just torched the south market." She shoved a leather satchel into my chest. "They're coming here next. You have maybe two minutes."

I could smell it now. Smoke. Not campfire smoke. The thick, greasy kind that came from burning canvas and oil.

"Where's Liv?"

"Gone to get water. She doesn't know yet." Greta was throwing things into a smaller pack, her movements sharp and precise. "The copy. Where is it?"

I pulled the folded parchment from inside my jacket. The thing I'd spent three days transcribing. Every symbol from the altar chamber. Every pattern the shard had burned into stone. The only proof that Vald's ritual wasn't divine resurrection but continental genocide.

Greta snatched it, scanned the first few lines, then looked at me. "This is—"

"Yeah."

"How many people have seen this?"

"You. Me. Liv. That's it."

"Keep it that way." She stuffed it into a metal scroll case, the kind traders used for documents that couldn't get wet. "I'll get it to the Graycrow holdfast. My people will—"

Shouting outside. Close. Maybe fifty yards.