The Lower City of Oakhaven was a sprawling, suffocating maze of damp alleyways and crowded markets that smelled of stale ale, unwashed bodies, and desperation. It was the refuse pile of the Empire, the place where the light of House Valerius failed to reach or so the commoners liked to believe.
Velara knew better. The shadows here were just as owned as the palaces above; they were simply cheaper to rent.
She had shed her stiff, high-collared servant's uniform for a cloak of rough-spun wool, dyed a non-descript charcoal gray. Her hair, usually pinned back in a severe bun, now hung loose and messy around her face. She looked like just another daughter of a failing merchant, someone not worth a second glance.
She followed the Third Heir, Caspian Valerius, at a distance of forty paces.
Caspian was the wild card of the family. While Lucius was a scalpel and the eldest, Valerius, was a hammer, Caspian was a flame unpredictable and prone to burning things he wasn't supposed to touch.
Why are you here, you fool? Velara thought, her eyes tracking his distinctive, arrogant stride even under a commoner's hood.
He ducked into a tavern called The Blind Beggar. It was a dive known for two things: cheap rotgut and information brokers who dealt in blood.
Velara waited three minutes, then entered. The noise hit her like a physical blow—shouting, the clinking of chipped mugs, and a fiddle player who was badly out of tune. She moved to the bar, tossed a copper coin to the barkeep, and signaled for a watered-down ale.
She spotted Caspian in a back booth, shrouded in thick pipe smoke. He wasn't alone.
Sitting across from him was a man Velara recognized instantly from her files: Vane, a high-ranking lieutenant of the Silver Syndicate. The very organization House Valerius was supposed to be dismantling.
Velara's pulse didn't quicken she had trained it not to but her mind began to race. The Third Heir meeting a Syndicate leader? This isn't just a scandal. This is high treason.
She leaned against a support beam, her back to them, using a small, polished silver vanity mirror tucked into her palm to watch the reflection behind her. She couldn't hear their words over the tavern's roar, but she could see their hands.
Caspian pushed a small, velvet pouch across the table. Vane opened it, squinted, and smiled.
"Is the route secure?" Vane's voice carried just enough for Velara to catch the tail end of the sentence as the music dipped.
"The guards at the South Gate are mine," Caspian replied, his voice low and jagged. "They won't see the wagons. Just make sure my brother's shipment is the one that gets hit. I want Lucius to look incompetent in front of the Old Man."
Velara felt a cold prickle of realization. This wasn't a betrayal of the Family not yet. This was a betrayal of a Sibling. Caspian was hiring the enemy to sabotage his own brother's reputation.
In House Valerius, sabotaging the family business was punishable by death, regardless of the motive.
Suddenly, the tavern door kicked open.
Four men in leather armor, wearing the insignias of the City Watch, stepped in. The room went silent. These weren't the regular street guards; these were the "Gold-Capes," the elite force directly on the Valerius payroll.
"Nobody moves!" the lead guard bellowed. "We have reports of a Syndicate meeting in this establishment!"
Velara froze. Who called them? If she was caught here, she couldn't explain her presence without revealing her mission for the Steward. If Caspian was caught, the scandal would tear the house apart before the Steward was ready.
Caspian panicked. He stood up too fast, his chair clattering to the floor. Vane, the Syndicate man, was faster. He drew a hidden dagger and plunged it into the table, a signal. From the corners of the tavern, three more men stood up Syndicate plants.
"Kill the lights!" someone screamed.
A lantern was smashed. The tavern plunged into orange-flecked darkness.
In the chaos, Velara saw Caspian trying to bolt for the back exit. But a guard was already there, sword drawn. Caspian was a decent duelist, but he was outnumbered and out of his element.
Velara had a choice.
If she let Caspian get captured, she fulfilled her duty to the Steward she had found out what he was doing. But if he was captured by the Gold-Capes, he would be brought to the Patriarch. The resulting purge would be messy, and Velara might be silenced as a witness who knew too much.
Better to have a Prince owe you a debt than a Steward owe you a favor, she decided.
She reached into her cloak and pulled out a small glass vial filled with fine, dried pepper and ground glass a "Blinder."
She didn't throw it at the guards. She threw it at the hearth.
The fire exploded in a cloud of stinging, gray dust. Men began to cough and claw at their eyes. The tavern became a cacophony of choked screams.
Velara moved through the haze, her eyes squinted. She grabbed Caspian by the elbow just as a guard's sword swung blindly through the air where his head had been a second before.
"Don't speak," she hissed in his ear, her voice unrecognizable in its harshness. "Follow the wall. Three steps left, then the cellar door."
"Who are you?" Caspian gasped, coughing.
"The person keeping you from the gallows," she snapped.
She dragged him through the cellar, the smell of sour wine filling her nose. They burst out into a narrow alleyway behind the tavern. The cold night air felt like a blessing.
Caspian leaned against the damp brick, gasping for breath, rubbing his eyes. He looked at Velara really looked at her and his expression shifted from terror to a cold, Valerius suspicion.
"You're one of my father's shadows," he spat, his hand moving toward the sword at his hip. "The girl who follows Lucius around. Velara, isn't it?"
Velara stood her ground, her face a mask of indifference. "I am the person who just saved you from being caught handing a bribe to the Silver Syndicate, My Lord. If I were 'following Lucius,' I would have let the guards take you."
Caspian hesitated. The logic was sound, but the Valerius blood was poisoned with paranoia. "Why save me? You could have taken that information to the Patriarch and been rewarded with a manor of your own."
"A manor I would live in for exactly one night before your siblings had me poisoned," Velara replied. She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I don't want a manor, My Lord. I want a Master who knows the value of a secret that can end his life."
Caspian stared at her. Slowly, a smirk spread across his face the same cruel, entitled smirk his brother Lucius wore.
"Blackmail? You're bolder than you look, little shadow."
"It's only blackmail if I use it against you," Velara said. "If I use it for you... it's called an alliance."
In the distance, the whistles of the City Watch grew louder.
"Go," Velara commanded. "Return to the estate through the servant's entrance in the garden. I will deal with the report."
Caspian looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. He disappeared into the darkness of the alley.
Velara stood alone for a heartbeat, her mind whirring. She had just betrayed the Steward's trust, lied to the Patriarch by omission, and entered into a private pact with the most unstable member of the family.
She looked at her hand. It was shaking, just a little.
She wasn't just a witness anymore. She was a player. And in this game, the first one to trust is usually the first one to die.