The Broken Halo

Simon remained still for several seconds.

The spoon in his hand hovered close to his mouth, but his attention was no longer on the sour root soup.

’The Eastern Hand is moving sooner than expected.’

’Tell the Sleeping Commander that one of his eyes was right.’

Those were not ordinary words.

The Eastern Hand and Sleeping Commander had both appeared in the crimson section of the Crownless Dawn letter. The fact that the Two-Horned inspector knew those titles could not be treated as a coincidence.

However, Simon did not immediately conclude that the demon belonged to Black Banner for several reason.

It was possible that Black Horn had intercepted some of the rebels’ codes and secretly assigned the inspector to investigate them. He might have been conducting an operation that Simon knew nothing about.

But that possibility had several problems.

The inspector had used a hidden communication strip and seemed to be wary of his surroundings. He had also returned the robe, copper tag, and paper to the locker instead of confiscating them or informing the apothecary owner that a security breach had occurred.

Most importantly, he had spoken of the Sleeping Commander as though the title belonged to someone he reported to.

’Either this is something else I have no information or knowledge of... or Black Banner has penetrated this Office far more deeply than Korran realizes.’

Both possibilities were dangerous.

Simon lowered the spoon and looked through the Shadow Eye once again.

The Senior Inspector had already returned inside the apothecary. A few minutes later, he left through the front entrance with the young official and entered the black carriage.

The carriage travelled away without anything unusual happening, and the robe remained inside the seventh locker.

Simon’s thoughts returned to the slim official.

The demon said that the Fourth Shroud position was approved less than an hour before the medical delivery arrived. He had then placed the robe and paper outside Black Horn while taking precautions against being followed.

Now, the Two-Horned inspector had linked the Fourth Shroud to the Eastern Hand.

That made one possibility more likely than the rest.

The slim official belonged to the eastern faction preparing Crownless Dawn, while the Two-Horned inspector served the Sleeping Commander, the Old Banner which was most likely Damar, or another faction connected to him.

If this was true, the two demons worked inside the same Black Horn Office while serving opposing sides of Black Banner.

And neither could openly expose the other without risking their own position.

Simon’s eyes flickered.

The demoness who gave him the mission might already possess an assassin inside Black Horn. She had definitely not entrusted the vice-leader’s death to Simon alone... which was not surprising.

’She sent me toward a prisoner her own subordinate was already preparing to reach.’

He felt no anger after reaching that possibility.

The demoness had no reason to trust an unknown stranger who possessed a command seal, a Murmur Bone, and perhaps the Crownless Dawn letter. Sending another assassin was not only reasonable, it was the decision Simon would have made in her position.

Simon might succeed.

He might fail.

He might attract Black Horn’s attention and create an opening for the real assassin.

Or he might die, allowing the eastern faction to search his corpse for the Third Warden’s possessions.

’So the mission was also bait.’

A faint smile appeared on Simon’s face.

That was fine.

It didn’t deter him in the slightest.

Simon’s original plan had been to inspect the Fourth Shroud and determine whether he could use it to enter the lower wards.

That plan was no longer suitable.

The robe was being watched by at least two hidden sides. Taking it would place him between the eastern faction, the Sleeping Commander’s faction, and Black Horn itself.

Instead of becoming the first demon to touch it, Simon would allow the demons who prepared the trap to move first.

The Fourth Shroud could reveal who intended to infiltrate Lower Ward Three, how the temporary identity passed Black Horn’s formations, what information was written inside the folded paper, which side acted first when the robe disappeared.

Simon no longer needed to create a path.

He needed to watch the existing path long enough to understand where it led, then enter after the demons guarding it turned their attention toward one another.

He paid for the soup and left the restaurant.

The Sword Daemon’s mask changed his face once again.

His dull yellow skin became dark brown, his thick neck narrowed, and the irritation permanently carved across the previous face disappeared. He now resembled a tired gnoll labourer Simon had observed carrying barrels earlier that day.

He changed his coat inside an empty alley, adjusted the rhythm of his breathing, used the wind to change his scent, then moved toward the streets between the apothecary and the Black Horn Office.

Simon did not return to the backyard.

His Shadow Eye already watched the seventh locker, and the first Eye remained beneath the awning near Black Horn’s service entrance.

He positioned himself between both locations, close enough to respond if the robe was collected, but far enough that nobody watching the apothecary would connect him to it.

Night deepened over Velmora.

The apothecary gradually emptied. Customers stopped arriving, delivery workers secured the rear containers, and the owner personally checked the backyard before locking the inner door.

The workers left one after another.

Still, nobody approached the seventh locker.

Simon waited inside the doorway of an abandoned storage building. His aura remained suppressed, while ShadowSense covered the nearby streets within a concentrated hundred-metre radius.

Shortly after the apothecary closed, his first ShadowEye detected movement near Black Horn’s western service gate.

The slim official appeared.

He wore the same plain black coat and carried a sealed duty slate beneath one arm. After exchanging a few words with the guards, he entered the Office.

Simon watched him disappear through the inner passage.

Several minutes passed.

Then the second Shadow Eye sensed the backyard door of the apothecary opening.

Simon’s attention shifted immediately to the second Shadow Eye.

Simon blinked and for the first time that night, his calm expression changed.

Standing on the backyard was the same slim official.

One Shadow Eye had watched the demon enter the Black Horn Office, and the other now watched the same demon approach the seventh locker nearly two kilometres away.

The two officials possessed the same narrow face.

The same tired eyes.

The same plain black coat.

Even the way they walked was identical.

Simon knew that his Shadow Eyes transmitted what they perceived without delay.

Both scenes were happening at the same time, and this made him confused.

’What’s going on?’

The second slim official stopped before the seventh locker and reached toward its lock, but before his hand touched it, a calm voice came from the darkness beside the repair shed.

"You should have chosen a less obvious door."

The slim official froze.

And a second later, the Two-Horned Senior Inspector stepped out of the Shadow Eye’s blind spot.

He had returned without Simon noticing.

The slim official stared at him for a moment, then the exhaustion vanished from his face, and a faint smile appeared.

"So it was you."

The inspector’s gaze sharpened.

"You knew someone opened the locker?"

"I knew the paper had been unfolded," the slim official replied calmly. ""There was a trace rune inside it," the slim official replied.

The inspector glanced briefly at the seventh locker.

"You placed the paper there to expose me."

"Not you specifically."

The slim official’s smile widened slightly.

"I knew the Sleeping Commander had at least one eye inside Black Horn. I simply did not know who it was."

A dangerous coldness entered the inspector’s expression.

"Then the Fourth Shroud was never real."

"Oh, it is real."

The slim official glanced toward the grey-black robe inside the locker, then his fingers slowly disappeared into the sleeve of his coat.

"But the paper was the trap."

He looked directly at the Two-Horned inspector.

"And you were the one who stepped into it."

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