The outer wall of the English Kingdom had already been breached on another side of the city. The soldiers stationed there recognized the attackers.
They were the exiles of the English Army history had thrown away when they were no longer useful. They were the ones the kingdom had sent to die in wars and border campaigns because the poor, the helpless and the politically inconvenient were always the first to be handed a spear and the last to be remembered. They had been abandoned in the name of duty, left in the mud with broken shields and unpaid oaths. For a long time that should have been the end of them.
However, that was not the end. The leader of the Penumbra Knights found them first.
No one ever saw her face. That was the first thing people learned and the last thing they forgot. She wore black or white armor from head to toe, It was elegant and built for war. Her army followed her in every battle. That was what they called themselves after she took them in and offered shelter to the exiles who had nowhere else to go. She turned the forgotten and the discarded into something more dangerous than any royal regiment ever expected.
Four centuries had passed.
Generations had been born into her care, raised among the harsh realities of the Timeless Realm, tempered by survival, discipline and the simple knowledge that if they wanted to remain alive, they would have to become harder than the world that tried to erase them. Now the Umbra Knights was not a ragged band of survivors anymore. It was a vast army of men and women, knights and veterans, scouts and siege-breakers, all of them hardened by time and loss and victory until they became something the New English Kingdom could not ignore.
They charged through the breach, yelling the name Insignia.
Above them, perched atop the wall sat the leader of the Penumbra Knights herself. Her posture was relaxed if the sight of a city falling apart beneath a thousand boots was no more than a show. She watched her army pour through the broken defenses below. That was when another woman appeared beside her without a sound.
It was the same woman who had killed the nobles in the opera.
She settled onto the wall beside the Penumbra Knight. Her black faceless mask was still in place. She said nothing at first. She just looked out over the city with the same cold, efficient stillness she had shown in the opera house. Below them, beams of golden light began to shoot up across different sections of the city.
The Penumbra Knight tilted her head slightly and watched the lights rise.
"So the High Priestess managed to do it. Who knew it would take four hundred years?"
The masked woman did not answer in words. She simply lifted her hands and made gestures that carried meaning so naturally the Penumbra Knight understood it instantly. Time was always the problem, and always the joke. There were things even the most devout zealots and the most disciplined conspirators could only build by waiting and four centuries was not a small wait even in the Timeless Realm. The Penumbra Knight gave a short, approving nod.
"You are right. Time really needs to go faster."
The golden beams were the proof that the cathedral network had activated properly. Teleportation runes were glowing across the city, one after another, feeding on prayer and devotion and the sheer density of faith that the Masked Priestess Chrysanthemum had spent centuries cultivating.
"In four centuries, the Penumbra Knight Harrowshard, Mute Assassin Chainless and Masked Priestess Chrysanthemum will be the enemies of all five kingdoms. We're invading the capital of one of the largest kingdoms in the Mortal Anchor. They are going to remember this forever, or at least long enough to hate us properly."
The woman beside her gave a tiny motion with her hand, which was a question, or perhaps a joke. It was hard to tell with her, but the Penumbra Knight understood enough to answer anyway.
"Yes, I know it's absurd. That is not the point."
The golden lights across the city got brighter all at once. Down in the streets, the assassins began to vanish.
One moment they were cutting through patrols, slipping through alleys, striking from rooftops and opening paths for the cathedral evacuations. The next they were gone in flashes of light, pulled away by the same faith-driven network that had moved the worshippers earlier. Knights from Insignia started disappearing too. The city had become a web of exits and destinations.
Two more figures appeared directly in front of the wall where the Penumbra Knight sat.
The Puppet Witch, Enchanta, arrived with a smile that was too bright for a warzone. Beside her stood Vex, the Kinetic Parkour. The pair glanced at the two women sitting on the wall, then at the city below. Enchanta immediately made a theatrical face of impatience.
"You are late. Again."
The Penumbra Knight did not even look embarrassed. "We were observing."
Vex folded his arms and scoffed.
"Observing what, exactly? The part where the whole capital is exploding around us?"
The masked woman beside the Penumbra Knight gave a subtle shrug. Enchanta pointed at the two of them.
"That is not an answer."
The Penumbra Knight finally stood up and groaned.
"The meeting is about to begin. We're not late. We're arriving with excellent timing."
"That is not how time works."
"It is for us, Luciana."
Vex laughed once under his breath.
"She has a point. Annoying, but a good point nonetheless."
"Jack dear, shut up before I turn you into a puppet."
The Penumbra Knight looked out over the city one more time. The New English Kingdom was no longer a stable fortress under siege. The cathedral faithful were acting. Insignia was inside the city. Chainless was somewhere in the shadows. Chrysanthemum had done the impossible and turned four centuries of devotion into a functioning escape route for an entire population. And the English nobility, for all their walls and armies and titles, had been caught standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Everything was unfolding exactly the way it had been planned.
They vanished alongside the others into the Obsidian Runic Spire.
-----
The War Room on the thirty-eighth floor felt different when all of them were present at once.
The roundtable at the center was built from polished obsidian. Around the table sat the people who had spent almost half a millennium surviving the Timeless Realm in their own ways.
Runner sat in the lead chair.
It was not a throne, though anyone who entered the room would have understood why it might be mistaken for one. The chair behind her was slightly taller than the others.
Shimmer lounged in her chair with complete disrespect for the room's formal gravity with one leg crossed over the other. Valeria sat with her hands folded. Alpha II was calm and almost detached. Ervadelle sat with perfect stillness. Chrysanthemum sat with her white mask and golden patterns on the table while Ferris occupied her place calmly. Chainless leaned back on her chair, Enchanta sat with one hand propping her chin while Vex at near the back edge of the table.
Runner looked at them all and for a moment she did not speak.
Centuries ago, Ferris had known her as a small, sneezing girl in the harsh landscape of the Fallen Bridge. Now she was looking at a woman who could strip armies bare for souls and carry the weight of the Obsidian Runic Spire in her father's absence.
Runner finally spoke.
"It has been fifty years since our last meeting and four hundred and ten years since we came to the Timeless Realm."
Shimmer, for once, did not immediately joke.
"Four hundred and ten years ago, we arrived here with our father or our master, if you prefer the title he would have used when he was being serious about formal structure. He spent ten years with us in the Mortal Anchor before the Primal Force of Time took him from our reach. He taught us the Runic Language Nepenthes. He made sure we could all adapt to the Fifth Enlightenment. He prepared us. He corrected us. He tolerated us before then he was taken away."
Runner looked around the table, making sure every one of them was actually listening before she continued.
"We have spent centuries building ourselves around the hole he left behind. That is not something to be ashamed of. We're still here because he made sure we would be. We know Nepenthes. We know the structure of the Spire and we know how to survive in the Mortal Anchor and each of us has made an identity of our own in the process."
Her gaze moved first to Shimmer.
"Shimmer Richinaria, The Lotus Maiden. Five million souls this half century. Fifty million total."
Shimmer smiled at that.
"Thank you for noticing."
Runner did not dignify that with a response and turned to Valeria.
"Valeria Cassie Richinaria, The Painter of Origins. Two and a half million souls this expedition. Twenty million total. Yours are fewer in number, but heavier in quality."
"That is because I have standards."
Runner's eyes moved to Alpha II.
"Alpha II, The Wandering Flautist. No soul count, because you never bothered collecting souls in the first place. You wandered, collected Divine Energy where belief and respect were available, and refused to waste time on titles you never wanted."
Alpha II gave the faintest smile.
"That is a very good summary."
"Ervadelle Nei, Therian Swordswoman. No souls."
Ervadelle inclined her head.
"That's less praise than I expected but I'll take it."
Runner then looked at Chrysanthemum.
"Peccavi, The Masked Priestess. Chrysanthemum. Thirty million souls this expedition, eighty million total. Four hundred years in new England, four hundred years of religion, devotion, persecution, conversion and patience. You turned a promised land into a believable future."
Chrysanthemum's face tilted slightly.
"It was not simple, believe me."
"No," Runner said. "It was not. But it worked."
Then she looked to Ferris.
"Ferris, The leader of the Penumbra Knights, Harrowshard. Thirty million souls. Four hundred years of resistance against a kingdom that refused to stop trying to destroy you. They kept attacking and kept surviving. Somehow, that became your identity."
"I did not plan to become a symbol you know."
"No one does," Valeria murmured.
Runner moved on.
"Arletta, The Mute Assassin, Chainless. Fifty million souls. You built an entire organization from the street people of London and taught them assassination until the city itself became too unstable to trust its own shadows."
Chainless gave a small, cool nod. She couldn't speak so that was all she could say.
"It was catastrophic," Chrysanthemum said mildly.
"That is not a contradiction."
Enchanta smiled wider at that, as if she approved of anyone who could make murder sound administrative. Runner turned to her next.
"Enchanta, The Puppet Witch, Luciana. Ten million souls from puppets, replacements, experiments, and the silent corruption of nobles and rulers who never realized they were already dead before they died."
Enchanta placed a hand over her chest in mock offense.
"That sounds so judgmental."
"It was intended to be. And Vex, The Kinetic Parkour. You have no reliable soul count available because you insist on staying too close to Enchanta for anyone to isolate your work."
Runner let that settle, then rested both hands on the table and looked at all of them.
"We have spent four hundred and ten years building strength in different ways. Some of us through war. Some through religion, some through assassination. Some through wandering, some through art, patience and harassment, apparently."
Shimmer pointed at herself.
"That one was mine."
Runner ignored her and continued.
"But all of it has been leading toward the same thing. We are not remaining in the Mortal Anchor forever. We're going to become Deities. Well. only a few of us."
Shimmer leaned back and folded her arms.
"Finally."
Valeria glanced at her. "Finally?"
"I've been waiting for the part where we stop pretending this is just a meeting and start admitting that we took too long for this."
Alpha II looked amused.
"That does sound like you."
"It is because I'm right."
Valeria exhaled once, then crossed one leg over the other.
"So this is the part where you tell us the actual plan."
Runner's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Yes. That would be useful, yes."
"There she is. I missed this."
Runner gave Shimmer a flat look. "You miss being told what to do."
"I miss pretending I don't."
Runner's mouth twitched, but she did not indulge her.
"Then listen carefully. We are done surviving. Now, the plan is simple..."