Once she knew where the place was, Navia ran through half of the zone without stopping. The people watched as a shadow blinked across the street and disappeared as fast as it appeared. Some people thought that it was the monster that destroyed the tower.
Secrecy was no longer an issue for Navia. She didn’t care if the man knew she was going after him or not. What mattered the most was time. As she was getting close to the destination, she noticed a familiar place. The church that, in truth, was the auction house. She was sold there as a slave, but Markiz wasn’t the one running it. “If I go there, I might run into different troupes that would lead me to different people.”
Her destination was a storage house on the far edge of the island - the furthest place from the wall of the Golden Zone. Unless the guards walked into the Red Zone, they wouldn’t know what was happening there.
“Green brick building with four wooden gates…” Navia repeated the description of the location as she gathered all the blood she could control into her right arm, hardening it and turning her whole arm into a sledgehammer. She broke the gate into splinters and dashed inside. She was ready for a battle; she was ready to beat the thugs and get more information by force, but instead of that, there was a single man sitting in the middle of the room.
Even though the man was sitting on a chair, he was as tall as Navia, looking straight into his eyes. His face was covered in burn marks, and even more of them were hidden under his coat and hat.
“You came too late…” The man whispered with a crispy voice, he then began coughing and had to strike his chest to make it stop. “Smoker's cough… Apologies.”
In one leap, Navia stood in front of the man with a knife an inch away from his head. “Do you work for Markiz?” She asked threateningly, the appearance of a single man in a massive storage house was enough to make her blood boil, but his indifference was even worse. He wasn’t concerned about the same thing as Navia, yet he was there, waiting for her.
“Work? No… Cooperate. That’s a better word.” The man answered, completely ignoring the fact that a knife could cut his throat open at any moment, and her eyes were enough for him to understand that fact.
“I am Baron Danavan Slot. Belver Markiz is also a baron who, along with me, rules this zone. Once word had reached us that the Lioness was looking for someone, the two barons associated with you were informed, but one was already dead, so… It left Markiz as the only one. He quickly covered his marks…” The man trailed off as he looked behind the storage house toward the gate leading to the docks. There were blood marks near it.
Navia didn’t care much about the rest of what the man was about to say; she ran to those gates and kicked them open. There was a burning boat a mile away from the shore. Before Navia could brake, the man continued talking, “He killed all the new slaves and burned their bodies. While his men did that, he himself went into hiding.” The man explained as he pointed at the ground beneath him.
Navia clenched her teeth and asked a risky question: “Was there a small girl among those slaves?”
“No. There were no children.” Danavan faced Navia and answered honestly. His arm was twitching, but it wasn’t a sign of a lie. He held it with his other arm so it would stop. “It’s been some time since I took anything. I had to wait patiently for you and to talk on the same level. Can’t do that when I am high…” The man looked depressed this whole time. He wasn’t as indifferent as Navia initially thought. He lacked emotions because of his mental state.
The man wasn’t indifferent, but his action was questionable. “If they are working together, why is he helping me?”
The man was sober enough to read Navia’s expression. “I know you are in a rush, so I’ll just say I have a bone to pick with Markiz. Right in that corner is an entrance to the tunnels under the zone. Splash this on each intersection and it will show you the way to the shelter he is hiding in.” Danavan threw a vial into Navia’s hands with some kind of blue liquid.
“How can I trust you?” Asked Navia, unsure of the man’s assistance as she couldn’t quite understand his reasoning.
“You can’t. But right now we have the same goal, at least partially. We both want Belver Markiz to be dead.” The man sat back on the chair and turned away from Navia. He could no longer hold it, so he reached into his coat and swallowed a single yellow pill. “Get going… Before he leaves. Or worse…”
Navia crushed the ground where the man had pointed, the floor easily crushed, and under it was a hole with steel bars to climb down. Navia took one last look at the man, but he was no longer interested in her. He said all he wanted, so what was about to happen was no longer of his concern.
For the first minute, the tunnel was a straight path, and at the end, there was a crossroad. She reached for the vile the baron gave her and lightly shook it. She didn’t think whether it was a trap or not; there was no time to think. Not only did she have to save Mirabell, but she had to reach her before Markiz reacts to her attack. As she splashed a bit of the potion on the ground, it revealed a hidden arrow that started to glow with purple light, pointing toward the left tunnel. Navia instantly dashed where the arrow pointed and used the potion at each crossroad.
At each intersection, she first looked each way and was confused when she saw a tunnel that ended with a wall just two feet into it or getting so narrow that even a midget wouldn’t pass through. She didn’t question those paths much until the arrow pointed toward one of them.
“Did he send me deep into the maze so I would get lost?” As she looked back at the glowing arrow and back at the wall in front of her, she realised that it was pointing slightly to the side of the wall. Navia dragged her hand across the wall’s surface, and she felt that something was moving as she pressed it. Part of this wall was made of stretchy rubber, and behind it was a button that, once pressed, made the wall open. “So that’s how it works…”
As she moved further into the maze, more and more paths ended in a weird closed path, but in truth, most of them had a hidden way to pass through, while some were traps to mislead the intruders.
Navia was constantly running, but she stopped once she saw an orange light bouncing off the wall near the intersection. She peeked into what was in that tunnel, and there were four men with heavy iron armor completely covered by them, in their hands maces with orange cracks.
“That must be it…” Navia turned her blood into three knives, and without any hesitation, she jumped into the tunnel and threw them. First bounced off the guard while the other two were swept with one swing on a mace.
“Intruder!” The guard who had swung his weapon pointed it at Navia and shouted. All of their eyes moved toward her, and they lifted their weapons that looked almost like lit torches in this tunnel.
There were four of them, but barely two could stand beside each other as the tunnel was narrow. Navia instantly dashed in with two daggers in hand, made from the blood she had left. She was aiming for a gap in their armor, but as she got close, that’s when she realised her mistake. The gaps in the armor were protected by a plate placed under them. Her dagger only made a loud clang as they scratched the armor.
The guard wasn’t concerned about his safety from the beginning. Once he saw her, he lifted his arm and swung the mace down. Navia brought her daggers up to block the heavy attack. She could handle their strength, but what she couldn’t handle was the reaction of the glowing mace. As it touched the daggers, it made a small explosion, making Navia’s daggers crumble, and the skin on her hands got burned. Using the blood from her injured hands, she made gauntlets and paid back with a punch straight to the jaw. The man was lifted up a few inches and fell back onto his fellow guard, who grabbed him before he could fall to the ground.
She indeed landed that punch and threw that man back, but it didn’t seem like it did much damage. He only lost his balance for a second, but was able to continue fighting as he prepared his weapon for another strike.
The second guard moved forward with his mace aimed right at Navia’s head. Thanks to her reflexes and agility, she stepped back and jumped away, but for any other person, it would be death on the spot or even a heavy injury as the man hit the wall, and the explosion also appeared. Even if Navia avoided the attack itself, the small explosion would leave a mark on her shoulder.
For the guards, it was nothing; their armor protected them from any blades and explosions. This tunnel was made for them, the armor and weapons, all of it was well thought out to put the guards at an advantage at all times. Even using the maces against them would only end up with a torn hand.
The guards pressed forward, pushing Navia away even without touching her, and she cautiously jumped back at each of their attacks. When she tried to attack back, the second guard behind would step in and prevent that from happening.
“How can I defeat them…” Thought annoyed Navia, only imagining Markiz running away while she is fighting. At that moment, she thought of a person much stronger than her. “What would Godan do?”