The lower quarter of Veldenhar stank of old rain and fresh sweat. Its alleys twisted like the guts of a dying animal, lined with hungry stares and rusting daggers. Nobles called it the Gut. Merchants called it the Market Undone.
To Saela Veldenhar, first and only heir to the throne, it was simply home for now.
She walked barefoot. Cloaked in ash-colored linen. A false scar split her cheek, and her braid was messy on purpose. No one saw a princess. They saw a vagrant girl. Smart eyes, quick feet. Trouble if pressed. Forgettable if not.
Perfect.
⸻
Three months ago, she'd vanished from court. Poisoned goblet. False friends. Her own guards bought and paid for. She hadn't died—but the princess had. The version that curtsied, smiled, played her role.
The one walking now through the streets of Veldenhar? She was something else.
She passed a stall selling powdered teeth. Another with six-fingered relics in glass jars. At the edge of the plaza, an old preacher was ranting about the King's shadow being stolen by a ghost of the old world.
Nobody listened.
But Saela did.
She listened to everything.
⸻
She entered the Dustpetal Inn near dusk. Cheap, forgettable. Nobody too drunk, nobody too rich. She sat in the corner, back to the wall, eyes on the door.
Then she saw him.
Wiping tables. Quiet. Slightly too still.
Just a boy. Just a servant. Just another background smear in her peripheral.
But…
There was something wrong with him. Not bad. Just… wrong. Like a fire that never flickered. Like silence that wasn't hollow.
Her instincts whispered. Not alarms—just… curiosity.
Who are you? she thought.
He glanced up for half a second.
Their eyes met.
No sparks. No divine winds. No flicker of shared destiny.
Just a brief stillness.
Then the boy looked away. Kept cleaning.
And Saela went back to watching the door. Still alert. Still in danger. But slightly more curious than before.
⸻
Elsewhere, in the palace:
Chancellor Mordane sharpened a quill, dipped it in red ink, and began composing a letter to Dravarn.
Your grace. My King weakens. But Veldenhar's true future remains negotiable…
*
The sun rose grey.
Not stormy. Just dull. A cold light that painted Veldenhar in rust and regret.
Aether was up before it, as usual. Quietly folding linens, retying the bandages on his wrist that weren't covering wounds. Just memory.
He left the inn just after dawn. No breakfast. No map. Just a simple cloth bag, and the kind of walk that made people not notice you.
Except someone did.
⸻
Saela, wearing a stitched-up travel cloak and the attitude of a tired apprentice, trailed him at a safe distance. Not too close. Not too far. Her eyes weren't curious anymore. They were measuring.
"Servants don't move like that," she muttered.
He wasn't just fast. He was efficient. Like a soldier on civilian rails. Every step calculated. No wasted movement. No attention drawn.
He didn't look back once.
Which only made her more suspicious.
⸻
He passed the old cathedral ruins on the hill. Didn't stop. Paused near the glassmaker's alley. Then turned into a back path she knew led nowhere—just the foundations of a collapsed sky market and a dried-out cistern.
Saela followed, slipping behind a hanging tapestry left to bleach on the wall.
Then—
Silence.
No footsteps. No breathing. No movement.
Empty.
She froze.
"…Where the hell did he—?"
"You've been following me for six blocks," a voice said, directly behind her.
Her blood went ice cold.
She spun, blade halfway drawn from the slit in her coat—but he was already out of reach. Not attacking. Not retreating. Just watching her from a few paces back, arms folded, eyes calm.
Boring, silver-grey eyes. Nothing divine. Nothing dramatic.
But she knew.
Those weren't eyes that feared anything.
⸻
"…You're not from here," she said slowly.
He raised a brow. "Neither are you, Princess."
Her heart stopped.
"I haven't been called that in a long time," she whispered.
"Then maybe you should be more careful where you let your cloak slip."
A beat of silence.
They stood there. Two ghosts of titles they no longer wore.
"Why are you in Veldenhar?" she asked.
"Why are you still alive?" he replied.
The wind shifted.
Saela narrowed her eyes. "If you're a spy for Dravarn—"
"I'm not." His answer came fast. Flat. Final.
She studied him a moment longer. Then slid her blade fully away.
"…Fine," she muttered. "But if you're not a spy, and not from here… you're still something. And I'll find out what."
She turned. Walked away.
And for the first time in a long time…
Aether smiled.
⸻
Meanwhile, in the Sanctum of Genesis:
Aurora, arms crossed, did not move.
"So the pieces meet," she whispered. "Let's see how long it takes before they realize which game they're in."
*
Veldenhar's palace didn't smell of power.
It smelled of dust, stale incense, and the blood of a hundred years of desperate compromise. The stone walls bore banners of gold and fire—but behind them were cracks. Too many. And deep.
At the heart of it all sat Chancellor Mordane.
The real king in everything but name.
⸻
He didn't look powerful. Thin, pale, mild-eyed. Hands always folded neatly, as though in prayer—or apology. But when he wrote, the world bent. Every letter, every seal, every flick of wax and quill—it was law before it ever passed a council.
He was writing now.
The quill dipped in crimson.
Not ink.
Wine. Thickened with powdered basilisk eye.
To His Grace, Lord Malric of Dravarn,
Veldenhar stirs beneath its crown. The King's mind withers. His daughter is presumed dead (though I suspect otherwise). But most importantly—your prophecy man was correct.
There is… something here. A presence. Quiet. Watching. I cannot name it yet, but it walks among the beggars and dust like it owns the stars.*
Send no armies. Send ears.
Let the knives remain sheathed—for now.
He sealed the letter with the mark of the Crimson Vulture, a sigil forbidden in all three courts.
He stood.
And walked past the King's chamber, where the old man wept in his sleep, dreaming of gods who no longer answered.
⸻
Back in the Dustpetal Inn:
Aether sat in the far corner, sipping lukewarm broth.
He'd felt it again.
A ripple.
Someone had mentioned him. Not by name, but by weight. That subtle hum in the fabric of the world when someone tried to describe a shadow they couldn't see.
"Chancellor Mordane has noticed," he muttered under breath.
Nyx would've laughed, if she were here.
He missed her, sometimes.
But this world wasn't ready for her sharp tongue or star-slicing claws. Not yet.
⸻
Outside, under the black bridge, a courier from Dravarn arrived.
He looked like any other tradesman. But the package he handed the Chancellor's assistant held more than just letters.
It held instructions.
About the Princess.
About the spy.
About the myth they didn't understand—but feared enough to try and control.
*
The chancellor's study was quiet.
Not peaceful—never that. Just still. The kind of stillness that crackled with unspoken threats and paper-thin diplomacy.
Chancellor Mordane dismissed his steward with a wave. The moment the door shut behind him, silence expanded.
Only then did he turn to the package.
Wrapped in dull velvet. Sealed with Dravarn's lesser crest—the sigil of a minor lord. A lie. An insult. A message within a message.
He sliced the ribbon with the edge of a bronze letter opener shaped like a serpent devouring itself.
Inside:
• A letter.
• A vial.
• A map.
• And a single, black-feathered quill.
Mordane's lips curled into the faintest smirk. "Of course," he whispered. "Poetry."
⸻
The letter, written in spidery, deliberate strokes:
Mordane,
The stars blink oddly above Veldenhar. One of our augurs went blind reading the skies two nights ago. She spoke your name three times before biting off her own tongue.
You say the stranger walks like silence. We believe you.
Enclosed is a substance known only to Dravarn's Inner Circle—extracted from the Dreamroot Orchid, which grows only in the mouths of dead prophets.
Burn it where he walks. If he truly wears flesh, he will not react. But if he wears it imperfectly—as we suspect—then the Dreamroot will reveal what lies beneath.
Do not engage.
Observe.
And remember… even gods bleed.
— M.
Mordane set the parchment down.
He didn't tremble. Didn't blink. Just tapped his fingers against the vial.
Inside: a pearlescent powder. Dreamroot. Illegal. Unspeakable. The kind of thing whispered about in the dark corners of alchemical societies and excommunicated temples.
"Even gods bleed…"
How quaint.
⸻
He turned to the map.
It showed Veldenhar's districts—all of them.
But one block was circled twice.
The Dustpetal Inn.
Mordane's smile grew.
"So you are not just a myth… you are located."
"And still you sweep floors."
He sealed the package again—minus the vial. That he kept.
He called for his steward.
"Send for High Alchemist Tieran. Quietly. And bring me a priest with no tongue and no god."
The door closed behind them.
And Veldenhar's most dangerous man began to prepare his next move.
*