The rescue of the printer was a profound humiliation for Kael. It was a direct assault on his authority, a demonstration of the rebellion’s growing sophistication. He flew into a rage, but this time, it was a cold, calculating rage. He understood that his methods, his walls and Wardens and informants, were not enough. The rebellion was like a ghost, moving through the cracks in his system, always one step ahead.
He needed a new weapon. He needed a way to get inside the rebellion, to learn their secrets, to tear them apart from within. He needed a spy.
He found his spy in the most unlikely of places: the dungeon. The man was a thief, a master of disguise and deception, who had been captured during a failed heist. He was facing certain execution. Kael offered him a deal: his life, and his freedom, in exchange for his loyalty. He was to be released, and he was to find the rebellion and become one of them.
The thief, seeing no other choice, agreed. He was given a new identity, a cover story, a reason to hate the Tyrant. And then he was released into the city, a serpent let loose in a garden.
The First Spy was a new and terrible development in the shadow war. The rebellion had faced the brute force of the Wardens, the suffocating control of the Tyrant’s laws. But this was something different. This was a threat that wore the face of a friend, that spoke the language of revolution. It was a poison that, if left unchecked, would destroy them from the inside out. The stakes of the game had just been raised, and the cost of failure had become unimaginably high.