The stone corridors of the keep were quiet in the early hour. Torik walked beside Kell in measured silence, passing under lanterns that burned low and steady. Torik didn't look up when he asked:
"Why didn't you press harder for Maribel to join the op?"
Kell gave a soft grunt. "You miss her already?"
Torik rolled his eyes. "I just think she's useful."
"She is. But that wasn't what you meant."
Torik tried to smother the heat rising in his face.
Kell continued without looking at him. "You don't like trusting people. I figured you'd write her off the same way you do everyone."
"I understood her," Torik said. "She had a motive. Payment. That makes people easy to read."
Kell finally glanced over. "She did the job for free."
Torik stopped walking. "What?"
"As a favor."
Torik stayed still a moment longer, processing. That didn't fit. No angle. No leverage. Just… what, loyalty? He didn't know what to do with that.
"She's not like you, Torik," Kell said gently. "Not everyone is."
They turned down a narrow hallway and stopped at a heavy wooden door marked with no sigils. Kell knocked in a short rhythm, three, pause, one, two.
A moment later, it creaked open.
Inside was a long chamber with low ceilings and a single war-table in the center. There were no windows only lamplight.
Three figures turned toward them.
Kell stepped in first. "Torik, meet the team."
Torik took a step inside, eyes sweeping the room, posture loose but ready.
The first to speak was a woman leaning over a map. Her armor was practical and clean, a worn longsword buckled at her side. She straightened slowly, offering a look that was half evaluation, half challenge.
"I'm Captain Dama Sorn, I'm in charge of keeping the rest of these idiots alive," she said, voice even and cold. "Try not to make my job harder."
Torik raised a brow. "That the official greeting?"
"Would you prefer a hug?"
"Absolutely not."
"Then we'll get along just fine."
To her right, a man was reclining on a crate, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a small knife flipping between his fingers. His smile was lazy, but the eyes behind it were sharp.
"Well, he's prettier than I expected," he said, tilting his head. "I figured someone who picked Kell's pocket wouldn't have such soft hands."
Torik narrowed his eyes. "I didn't pick his pocket."
Kell coughed. "You did. That crown was in my care."
The man grinned wider. "Well now, that's impressive. Name's Lenk, but you everyone calls me-"
"Whistle…" Torik finished, this man was a legend in the underground.
Whistle just nodded with eyebrows raised.
The third figure didn't look up from the scroll she was annotating. Her gray-streaked hair was bound back with a leather tie, and her robes were ink-stained from cuff to wrist.
She spoke without looking.
"Is this the boy who stole the artifact we are trying to reclaim?"
"I'm not a boy," Torik said.
"You're not a man either," she replied. "Not if you think words will make it so."
Torik blinked. "That's not how that works."
"Tell me when you're ready to have a conversation that does."
Kell gave a small, knowing smile. "Ithren handles intelligence and research. Don't try to impress her, it'll only make her hate you faster."
Kell stepped to the map, the atmosphere growing tenser as he laid a new parchment over the old. A crude drawing of the Crown of Tharoghul, its center gem cracked. Threads of ink extended from it like fractures in glass.
"This is what we're dealing with," Kell said. "You all know what's housed in the crown, Tharoghul, The Last Titan."
He tapped the cracked gem.
"This is the only thing that keeps him locked there. The cult didn't just steal it for power. They want to break it. Completely. And every day they hold it, they get closer."
"Reports from the outer farms confirm it," Dama said. "Creatures showing signs of corruption. Shifting forms. Madness."
"They're testing something," Ithren muttered. "Small breaks. Controlled. They're trying to accelerate the rupture without drawing attention."
Kell nodded. "And we just ran out of time to be subtle. I'm taking over recovery operations. The plan begins tonight. You've all been briefed in pieces but now we work as one."
He turned to Torik.
"You've seen the Crown. Handled it. Whatever skills you used to steal it in the first place… that may be our only shot once we're close."
Torik shifted. "It was one thing to infiltrate Ysara's keep, but another to infiltrate that cult. No offense."
Kell looked at him. "Then start trusting us. Because the next time you try to get that crown, it won't just be your life on the line."
Torik looked back at the faces around the table. Hard, weathered. Capable. But how could he trust them, how could they trust him?
He trusted Mox, the one person he felt like he could've called a friend, and even he betrayed him.
This Kell though. The way these people respected him without question. The fact that Maribel trained him not for coin, but as a favor. These people in this room all willing to risk their lives for his plan.
Maybe he was worth trusting.
…No. Don't be stupid.
Torik's mind was in civil war, Kell had an aura about him that even started to work on him.