Daemon Ashford studied the map of the royal vault and knew he could not take it alone. He had sketched the guard routes from memory, the memory of a prince who once walked those halls as a boy. Now he lived above a shuttered market stall, in a loft of patched cloth and warped timber. The crown had cast him out. Soon he meant to rob it blind and turn that gold into an army. But the vault had three sealed doors and a watch of forty men. One thief, no matter how clever, would hang before he touched the first lock. He needed hands he could trust. So he climbed down to the tavern beneath his loft, where the exiled guard drank alone. Keira Ironhelm had worn the royal crest before Daemon ever fled. Now a scar cut across her cheek, earned the night the crown exiled her too. She did not look up when he sat. "I know your face," she said. "You're the dead prince everyone whispers about." She drank. "Come to get me killed?" "Come to pay you," Daemon said. "The vault that holds the king's war chest. I need a sword who knows its halls." She laughed, short and hard. "No one takes that vault." "One person can't," he said. "Two might. Three will." A shadow fell across the table before she answered. A half-orc filled the doorway, an axe slung at his back, tusks jutting from his jaw. Grak Ironhide dropped coins on the bar without a word. Men shifted their chairs away from him. Daemon stood. "You're the mercenary who broke the baron's gate last winter. I have better work." Grak's yellow eyes moved from Daemon to Keira. "Her I'll work beside," he grunted. "Not a soft-handed noble." "My hands aren't soft," Daemon said. He pulled back his sleeve and showed the rope burns and lock scars. "I've stolen from men who'd eat you for sport. The crown threw me out. It threw her out." He looked at Keira. "Did it ever reward you fairly, Grak?" Grak's jaw tightened. For a moment no one spoke. Keira set down her cup. "The war chest. How much?" "Enough to buy an uprising," Daemon said. "Enough to make the men who exiled us kneel." That word, exiled, hung between the three of them like a shared wound. Keira looked at Grak. Grak looked at Daemon. Then the half-orc pulled out a chair and sat. "One job," Grak said. "Betray us and I split your skull." "Agreed," Daemon said. He clasped each of their forearms. He had a crew. Then the tavern door banged open. A boy ran in, breathless, pointing back the way he came. "The king's men," he gasped. "They're searching every stall on this row. Someone sold your name." Daemon's new crew rose as one. He had the hands he needed at last. Now the crown knew exactly where to find them.

Three days after the guards swept their row, Daemon Ashford knew the crew would starve or hang. The king's bounty hunters watched every road now. They stopped carts, searched sacks, and checked faces against a drawing of his own. He could not buy bread or blades in the open without being seized. Yet the heist needed rope, oil, and food for the long watch ahead. Grak Ironhide filled the loft doorway, axe on his back, tusks bared in a scowl. The half-orc had sworn to split Daemon's skull if he betrayed the crew, and he looked ready to start early. "We rot up here while your king's dogs sniff the roads," Grak said. "I didn't join a corpse." "We don't use the roads," Daemon said. "Hunters watch men, not goods. A supply wagon rolls past the market at dusk. We take what we need before it reaches the gate." Grak's yellow eyes narrowed. "Robbery. Now you talk sense." They waited in the shadow of a shuttered stall. The wagon came slow, two guards walking beside it. Daemon counted their steps and timed the gap. He slipped under the awning and cut the rear ropes while Grak stood ready in the dark. A guard turned. He saw Daemon's hands on the crates and shouted. Grak moved first. He drove his shoulder into the man and knocked him flat, then swung the flat of his axe against the second guard's helm. Both dropped. Daemon hauled down a sack of oil flasks and two coils of rope. Inside the wagon, wrapped in straw, sat a small carved rabbit of clear ice that gleamed even in the dark. A nobleman's trinket, worth coin. Daemon took it too. "Run," he said. They ran through the narrow lanes and reached the loft winded. Grak dropped the supplies on the warped floor and breathed hard. For the first time he looked at Daemon without hate. "You kept your word," he grunted. "Took what we needed. Left the rest." "I keep my words," Daemon said. He set the ice rabbit on the sill, where it caught the last light. But one guard had seen Daemon's face plain. By morning the hunters knew more than a drawing. They knew a half-orc rode with him, and they knew the dead prince struck from the market stalls themselves. The reward doubled. New notices named the loft's own row. Grak heard the criers from the window and turned. "They don't hunt a thief now," he said. "They hunt this house." Daemon looked at the supplies they had bled for. Enough for the heist. Not enough to stay. The crown's dogs had their scent, and the loft that hid him was no longer safe. He had the tools to rob the vault at last. He no longer had a place to plan it.