Chapter 3: Bianca's Warning

Sirens wailed in the distance, shattering like glass ground down by an invisible hand before finally sinking beneath the heavy stone walls of Milan's old city. The sound didn't simply cut off; it warped and faded as it curved around the street corners, until the night swallowed it entirely.

The Faceless Ones retreated like a receding tide, their black silhouettes growing all the more eerie beneath the yellow glare of the streetlamps like giant moths hurling themselves into the dark. Lucrezia Marchetti slowly pulled herself up from the freezing metal floor. Cold sweat still lingered on the back of her neck, sending a bone-chilling shiver sliding down her spine.

The Broken Sword throbbed violently in her palm, its silver edge reflecting her bloodshot grey-green eyes. Deep within her pupils mirrored the dying light at the alley's mouth. She didn't turn to chase after those retreating backs, instead darting swiftly into a dead-end side alley piled high with discarded wooden barrels.

Her heart hammered against her ribs like a drumroll, every single beat unleashing a wave of dizziness triggered by blood loss and sheer adrenaline. The air carried the damp scent of post-rain flagstones mixed with a faint, stale smell of rust—the peculiar fragrance of blood blending with ancient stone, and the very lifeblood of this city.

She knew the real hunt had only just begun, and the shadows of the Barberini Family were already seeping outward from the street corners like a massive web, tightening in absolute silence.

The light at the mouth of the alley was dim, cast only by a dying streetlamp emitting a sickly yellow halo. Faint electrical buzzing crackled along the edge of the glow, as if it were about to blow a fuse at any second. A figure stepped out from the shadows, their stride soundless yet carrying a suffocating aura of oppression. Every footstep landed with precise calculation, avoiding any loose gravel that might crunch and give them away.

It was Bianca Balberini, the family’s youngest field courier. She wore a sharply tailored black trench coat, her tie knotted with agonizing neatness, down to the precise, mechanical curve of her collar. She didn't even bother to look Lucrezia in the eye, merely lifting a hand to pull a neatly folded slip of paper from her pocket.

With a flick of her fingertips, the paper traced an elegant arc through the air, coming to a halt suspended right in front of Lucrezia. Its edges were as sharp as an unsharpened blade. Bianca's voice was as cold as ice. "The arrest warrant is active, Lucrezia. What you pulled at the old church has put the entire district on Level One lockdown."

Lucrezia didn't reach out for the paper. Instead, she shifted slightly to the side, slipping out of the direct beam of the streetlamp to swallow herself deeper into the shadows. She caught the subtle shift in Bianca's ankles—a defensive posture born of prolonged, high tension, though it was instantly masked by a deliberate, steady stance.

Wind rattled an old sign hanging at the mouth of the alley, creating a creaking groan that masked the subtle changes in their breathing. Lucrezia let out a dry, mirthless chuckle. "Level One lockdown? Has the Barberini Family grown this terrified of dying? If I recall, your ancestors didn't act this cowardly when they signed the covenant."

Bianca's brows furrowed slightly. She stepped forward, the toe of her leather shoe pressing against the ground right in front of Lucrezia's heel—close enough that Lucrezia could catch the bitter scent of leather and black coffee clinging to her. In this cramped space, the aroma felt practically predatory, a declaration of territory and threat. "Covenants are dead; people are living."

"If you keep holding that sword, the entire Vittorio District is going to be purged. Every single household here, every coffee shop, will be treated as a hostile faction. Are you really willing to let hundreds of innocents burn for the sake of a truth nobody even knows?"

Her voice carried no inflection, sounding like a debriefing report written with its ending already set in stone.

Lucrezia stared straight into Bianca's deep black pupils, finding unmasked cruelty and a rigid, institutionalized sense of rules locked away inside them. Rainwater dripped down from the eaves, forming a thin curtain of water between them that shattered the fractured light of the streetlamp.

She realized that for all Bianca's strength, she was bound hand and foot by the family's ancient oaths. Bianca didn't dare overstep a single boundary, yet she was desperate to carry out the family's orders. That exact contradiction was the crack she needed to break the game open. Lucrezia raised the Broken Sword in her hand, its tip dipping downward to point at the ground. Condensation beaded across the freezing metal in the damp air. "Purge the district?"

"Sounds like your family's latest commercial venture. But before that, I want to verify one thing. Can you people seriously still not read the inscriptions on the blade?"

A sneer hooked the corner of Bianca's mouth, as if she'd just heard some pathetic joke, and the surrounding air seemed to freeze over a fraction more. "The sword? You actually think there's some divine oracle hidden in there? It's nothing more than a rusted chunk of iron—a superstitious prop the family uses to keep the peace."

"The core was incinerated in the fire three hundred years ago. All that's left is an empty shell. Whatever truth you think you're chasing is just your own self-delusion."

A flash of hard-to-read light crossed the depths of Lucrezia's eyes. She deliberately let her hand tremble, causing the Broken Sword to scrape against itself with a harsh screech that sounded jarringly loud in the silent alley.

She reached out and pinched the bulging lead seal at the base of the blade, yanking hard. With an ear-squeezing shriek of tearing metal, a chunk of grey lead peeled away, scattering onto the damp ground where the rain instantly soaked it heavy. She stared down at the fragments, her voice dropping low and raspy. "Looks like the core really is destroyed."

"I tested it. The inscription disintegrated during the first restoration attempt, leaving only this outer shell holding its shape. I lied to myself for a long time, but I finally have to admit it: this thing is nothing."

Bianca narrowed her eyes, her gaze lingering on the shattered lead seal for three whole seconds. Throughout those three seconds, her breathing rhythm didn't change a bit, but her fingers unconsciously twitched inside her trench coat pocket—an involuntary reflex of anxiety, the faint whisper of her fingertips brushing against the lining audible only to Lucrezia.

She was desperate to report back and close the case for the family, and she had zero desire to take the fall for purging a whole district single-handedly. This seemingly "empty" scrap was the perfect ladder down for her. Bianca drew a deep breath, her tone cold. "Since the core is destroyed, hand it to me. As a gesture of good faith, I can grant you twenty-four hours of safe passage."

"Twenty-four hours from now, wherever you are, I will find you."

Lucrezia slowly lifted the Broken Sword, her gaze revealing a submission so total it bordered on despair, as if all her fight had been drained out of her in that exact moment. She spoke in a low murmur, "Deal. But remember—I'm the one handing you this 'good faith.' Don't lose it. Otherwise, the next place targeted for a purge might just be the entire district the two of us are standing in."

She thrust the sword forward. But the moment their fingertips brushed, a tiny titanium container hidden inside her sleeve slid quietly into place. The true silver-soldered lead seal core of the Broken Sword had already been swapped out in advance; right now, it sat safely tucked away in a secret compartment of her left sleeve, radiating a faint, lingering warmth—the sole surviving secret.

Bianca took the Broken Sword, feeling its heavy weight in her grip. She gave it a swift inspection, noting that the surface of the lead seal was indeed rough and fractured, showing zero signs of repair, and still edged with fresh metal burrs. Satisfied, she nodded and slid the Broken Sword into a specialized magnetic-shielded case. The crisp click of the case snapping shut sounded sharp in the dead of night. "Transaction complete."

"Don't let me catch you in this street again. If you're lying, I'll break your fingers myself." With that, she turned and melted into the night. The hem of her black trench coat carved a ruthless arc through the wind before vanishing around the end of the alley, leaving only a few dead leaves to tumble across the ground in her wake.

Lucrezia watched that retreating back disappear completely before slowly unclenching her tight fist. Deep nail marks scarred her palm, and the oozing blood dripped onto the flagstones, rapidly blurring out.

Dead silence reclaimed the street, broken only by the melodious tolling of the distant Basilica of Santa Maria. One, two rings—sounding almost like a death knell tolling for this silent game of wits. The lingering echoes reverberated through the ancient cluster of buildings, pressing down with a weight that felt almost religious.

She looked down at the lukewarm core tucked inside her sleeve, feeling its pulse throb through the dark—the final secret left behind by ghosts. The price of her lies was already compounding; she had to crack the mystery buried deep within those inscriptions before the next wave of hunters arrived, or else everything waiting for her would be an oblivion far crueler than death.

In the distance, the wail of sirens surfaced once more. This time, they weren't far off; they closed in on this ancient street fast, like hounds hot on a scent. Lucrezia tightened her grip around the core in her pocket, her eyes turning colder than the night air in the shadows. She took a deep breath, the atmosphere thick with impending violence and unearned salvation.

Sirens tore through the stillness of the night, their alternating red and blue beams cutting across the mottled walls like blades. The dead street plunged into a frozen panic in a single heartbeat. Lucrezia didn't hide; instead, she sprinted along the path of deepest shadow, every single step falling in time with her racing heartbeat.

She knew Bianca hadn't been bluffing about the "purge." The moment those grey-coated figures appeared at the mouth of the alley, the air grew thick with a stinging ozone stench—the unmistakable precursor to high-energy weapons charging up.

She ducked into a narrow drainage channel, the freezing runoff swallowing her ankles, the bone-deep chill shocking her senses. Just as she turned a corner, an unremarkable scrap of lead seal slipped from her sleeve, clattering against the slick stone wall with a sharp ring. In the silence, the sound cracked like thunder, immediately drawing the attention of two armed enforcers.

They burst straight into the channel, their gun barrels flashing wildly as sparks flew. Amid the chaos, Lucrezia snatched up the lead seal fragment, shoving it deep into a drainage pipe before vaulting away into the deeper, darker utility tunnels below.

Behind her, a blast shook the air, the fiery back-blast painting the entire sewer entrance in a bloody red glow. She curled into a tight ball at the dead end of the dark corridor, shielding the cooling core against her chest. That early warning had been nothing more than bait; the real trap had just sprung. The weak electric current still dancing across the lead seal was her only lifeline to the truth—and a lethal poison all at once.

A heavy heartbeat echoed across the water from somewhere ahead. It didn't belong to her. It came from something ancient and colossal lurking deep within the pipeline. It was waking up. Lucrezia held her breath, watching a ball of sickly green light slowly swallow up the surrounding darkness as the core in her palm began to shake violently, vibrating in exact syncopation with that deep-seated pulse.

"You finally made it," a raspy, inhuman voice detonated directly inside her mind, ice-cold and utterly oppressive. "Hand it over. Or become its vessel."