A series of detonations burst through the arched ceiling, shards of stone and ancient machinery raining down in jagged, burning fragments. The Tower of Ymmngorad trembled. Rubble filled the halls, the once-grand spires bowing under the weight of the assault that tore them apart piece by piece.


    The arming halls were risen, and the gates sealed. With no entry availed to her, she had entered through the walls themselves, detonating a cache of armaments in the courtyard, puncturing the ancient, armoured flesh of Ymmngorad. Still, fires and explosions spread around its base.


    The garrison was depleted, the few remaining guards scrambling to form a defence. Most of them had been deployed with Jhedothar, leaving the tower vulnerable. Too vulnerable. An army marching to take the tower would have been spotted. Any sizeable force would have been intercepted. However, it was the way of this world that some impossible few possessed the power in their own hands to decide the fate of the City as they saw fit.


    The Eidolon moved like a shadow amongst the chaos, her ragged cloak trailing in her wake. She strode through the devastation, smoke curling from the cracks in her mechatronic form as if it were breathing for her. Her blade flickered in and out of the haze, flashing with lethal precision as she cut down guard after guard. Their bodies fell at her feet, a macabre carpet of blood and broken bone.


    And she saw nothing but a tower filled with squatters, scratching at and pretending some scrap of greatness unearned.


    One tried to rally—a captain, his lance shaking in his grip as he stepped into her path. But the Eidolon didn’t stop. She moved through him, her blade catching the light for a single, gleaming moment before it plunged into his chest. Her fist followed suit, pneumatic hoses pumping and cybernetic actuators hissing as it tore through his broken form. He gasped—a wet, rasping sound—and crumpled to the floor, his bioweapon clattering uselessly beside him.


    She did not even pause to watch him fall.


    Her dozen eyes, at once empty and aglow with a terrible purpose, were fixed on the gateway to the Lord’s chambers ahead. The last bastion of Ymmngorad’s defences—what was left of them.


    The throne room’s great iron doors groaned as they were forced open. More guards—thin, ragged, weary—waited beyond. They had no chance.


    The Eidolon battered through the doors with a bludgeoning kick, one that boomed throughout the tower and shattered the barricade erected to stop her. Blade raised, her breath came slow and steady despite the bloodbath she left behind. The guards rushed her, but it was no battle. It was a slaughter.


    Bone clashed against starmetal, and for every blow they struck the Eidolon returned tenfold. She moved amidst the great, decorated pillars with the deadly grace of something more, her motions swift and relentless, her strength far beyond anything natural. Her body’s pneumatic pumps and screaming engines shuddered and thumped as she moved faster than muscle could ever allow. Their blades glanced off her armoured body, leaving little more than sparks in their wake. One by one, they fell.


    When the last guard crumpled to the ground, the Eidolon stood alone in the hall, blood dripping from her sword, her plates streaked with the red and black of her enemies. She regarded that empty throne without an ounce of care. The battle was over. Yet she had not found what she was looking for.


    The blood was still fresh on the stones, the echo of the final guard’s death cry fading into the distant, crumbling corners of the tower. The Eidolon’s footsteps were measured, deliberate, as she strode deeper into the hollow halls of Ymmngorad. Her blade, slick with crimson, remained unsheathed in her hand, glinting in the low light that filtered through the battered hall of the Lord’s inner sanctum.


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    She moved like a predator through the gloom, the very air heavy with the scent of iron and smoke. Purpose unfulfilled, her eyes, burning, scanned the shadows for what she knew must still be hidden within these cursed walls amidst the old brambles and even more ancient machinery that corrupted the flesh of the City.


    If the young lady was not here, if she was devoured or dead, there would at least be some clue as to her fate. Some wretch wearing a stolen part of her body. Some carcass on display. The Eidolon pushed that thought aside and continued on.


    Another distant tremor rattled the floor beneath her boots. Still, she pressed forward, the tower’s tremors of destruction no longer concerning her. She could feel the desperation lingering in the dark corners, the silent pulse of fear that threaded through the empty halls. The remaining forces loyal to Jhedothar had abandoned this place to her, yet something remained.


    It was then, just beyond a splintered doorway, that she heard it—a whimper, faint and desperate, the sound of life too fragile for the slaughter she had wrought. The Eidolon’s head turned sharply, her dozen glowing eyes narrowing as she stepped into the dim chamber beyond.


    There, half-hidden behind a toppled chair and an overturned tapestry lay a Flowerbedside companion. Once delicate and fine, her gown was torn and soiled with the dust spilling from the walls as the tower shook. She trembled uncontrollably, her body pressed tight against the wall as if hoping it would swallow her whole. Her pale hands tried in vain to pull the fabric of the fallen banner around her petalled mien for protection, though it did nothing to shield her from the Eidolon’s gaze.


    The Flowerbedside companion’s eyes were wide with terror, her lips quivering as she forced herself to speak.


    “P-please…” the maiden, Meb, whimpered, her voice cracking. “Please, don’t kill me… I—I don’t know anything… I’m just a servant, I—I…”


    Her words trailed off into a choked sob, her fingers clutching the tattered fabric. Her gaze flicked to the bloodied sword in the Eidolon’s hand, and she whimpered again, shrinking further against the wall.


    The Eidolon remained motionless, watching the Flowerbedside companion with silent intensity. The sword in her hand lowered, the tip just barely scraping the stone floor as her gaze softened ever so slightly. However, her alien expression, with its rings of prehensile teeth, remained unreadable.


    For a long moment, neither of them moved. The Flowerbedside companion’s breathing was ragged, her heart pounding so loudly in her chest that it seemed to echo in the stillness of the room. Her wide, tear-filled eyes never left the figure before her, waiting for the inevitable strike that would end her life.


    But it never came.


    The Eidolon tilted her head, something shifting in her posture. She wasn’t here for this. The terrified freak was no threat—no obstacle to her purpose. The maiden was fragile, inconsequential in the grand web of violence and revenge that spun through this tower. Yet there was something else. Some mote of remembrance rose up in the Eidolon’s mind as she gazed down at the quivering figure. The sound of her cries, the helplessness in her voice—it struck a chord, something long buried and almost forgotten. An old bruise on her psyche.


    Her hand flexed on the hilt of her sword, but she did not raise it.


    The Flowerbedside companion, sensing the brief lull in the air, risked a glance upward. Shaking and desperate, her voice barely found the strength to form words.


    “Please…” she whispered. “I beg you…”


    The Eidolon exhaled, a sound so soft it was almost imperceptible. Then, without a word, she turned. The sword still hung in her grip, its edge trailing blood in a faint line across the floor as she strode away from the cornered woman, her plated feet echoing in the empty corridor beyond.


    The Flowerbedside companion collapsed to her knees, sobbing into her hands, alive—at least for now.


    But the Eidolon, though silent and composed, seemed distant, her mind elsewhere as she continued through the halls, up stairways, ever higher. Her mission had not been completed, but whatever revelation had come to her at that moment weighed on her more than the blade in her hand.


    The young lady she was searching for, little Bee, she was not here. But someone else was, someone long hidden away in this deep realm. Someone who should be dead, her survival kept a secret from the former dame and the common masses of the higher reaches.


    The Rose of Thorns herself.