Victory, Elian discovered, was a transient flavor, like a drop of honey on a tongue coated in ash.
The walk back to The Leaky Bucket was a silent, limping procession through a city that seemed to hold its breath. Oren's immense presence parted the early morning crowds like a stone parting a stream; people glanced, registered the giant with his bloodied beam and the ragged, bleeding boy beside him, and quickly found urgent business elsewhere. The air still carried the acrid tang of Wren's lime-fire, a dirty smudge against the brightening sky.
Elian's arm throbbed in time with his heartbeat, a hot, insistent pulse where Rikkard's dagger had opened him. The cut was clean but deep, and blood soaked through the rough fabric of his borrowed tunic, a spreading crimson Rorschach test. His body sang a chorus of other aches—the ghost of broken ribs, the echo of a shattered knee, the deep bruising from cudgel blows. *Chronos's Resilience* kept the pain from being incapacitating, but it did not erase it. It merely made it a landscape he could traverse.
He focused on the new sensation, the **Aura Perception: Emotive Harvest**. As they passed a cramped tenement, a woman leaning from a window caught sight of Oren and the blood on Elian. Her face, pinched with constant worry, softened for a moment with a fleeting, instinctive pity. A wisp of gentle, rose-colored energy—compassion—drifted from her. Elian, operating on instinct, willed himself to draw it in.
It was like sipping clear, cool water. The energy didn't heal the wound, but it took the sharpest edge off the fatigue, lending a faint warmth to his chilled core. The system noted it with a faint chime: **[Emotive Harvest: +0.1% Vitality Restored.]** It was a meager trickle, but it was a new tool. He could feed on the world's kindness, not just its pain.
Mara was waiting at the tavern's back door, a bucket of steaming water and a bundle of clean linen at her feet. Her amber Aura flared with a fierce, protective gold at the sight of the blood, but her face was a mask of pragmatic calm. "Inside. Now. Oren, bar the front."
The storeroom became an impromptu surgery. Elian sat on an upturned barrel as Mara, with hands surprisingly deft for their size, cut away the sleeve. The wound was laid bare—a nasty, four-inch gash along the muscle of his upper arm, welling dark red. She washed it with a solution that smelled of alcohol and crushed herbs, the sting making him hiss through gritted teeth.
"Hold still," she muttered, threading a bone needle with coarse gut thread. "This'll hurt worse than the cut did."
She wasn't wrong. The piercing, tugging sensation as she pulled the flesh together was a unique, intimate agony. Elian fixed his gaze on a knot in the wooden wall, his jaw clenched. He let the pain in, let the *Pain Conversion* refine it into a diamond-hard focus on the grain of the wood, on the slow, steady rhythm of Mara's breathing. He didn't flinch.
As she worked, she spoke, her voice low. "Oren says you stood your ground. That you took down Rikkard. That true?"
"He was distracted," Elian managed.
"A distracted viper is still a viper. You put it in the dirt." She tied off the last stitch and began wrapping the arm in a linen bandage. "That's a message, boy. And messages in Fallow's End get answered. Loudly." She finished and looked him in the eye. "The Eels won't let this lie. A lieutenant beaten by a scullery boy? Their reputation is their currency. They'll come. Not with a sneak probe. With a hammer."
"Captain Hadric's guards were heading to the tanner's yard," Elian said.
Mara snorted, a sound of pure contempt. "Hadric's in Kaelen's pocket. He'll 'investigate,' find evidence of 'gang warfare,' maybe fine the tanner for a fire hazard. He'll bury it. Which means the Eels have a free hand for retribution." She stood, wiping her hands on her apron. "You bought the Warren kids some time. Maybe. But you've made this tavern a target."
Guilt, cold and heavy, settled in Elian's gut. "I'll leave. Tonight. Draw them away."
"And go where? The Crawling Wood? You'd last a night before the wolves or the things in the ruins had you." She shook her head. "No. You made your stand here. We're in it now. Oren and me, we've weathered storms before." Her amber Aura didn't waver, but he saw a thread of that familiar, wary grey in it. "But we need to be smart. And you…" She eyed him. "You need to understand what you are. This 'bad luck' of yours. It's not just random, is it? You see it. You felt it twist things in that fight."
It was not a question. Elian met her gaze and gave a single, slow nod.
"Can you use it?"
The question was a lightning strike. *Use* the Ghost Leeches? They were parasites, a cost, a curse. The thought of consciously wielding that subtle, malevolent entropy was both terrifying and perversely compelling. "I don't know."
"Figure it out," Mara said bluntly. "Because if a slippery floor or a broken cup can turn a fight, then it's a weapon. And we'll need every weapon we can get." She handed him a clean, oversized shirt. "Rest. But not too long. The world won't wait."
He retreated to his pallet. The tavern was silent, the morning trade not yet begun. He lay back, the throbbing in his arm a constant reminder. He closed his eyes and dove inward, not to sleep, but to inspect the aftermath of the battle within the system's architecture.
**[HEART OF CHRONOS – STATUS]**
**Sync:** 0.004%
**Loop Anchor:** Stable.
**Max Reset Window:** 6 minutes, 19 seconds
**Active Leeches:** 7
**Local Luck Saturation:** 0.09% (District-scale anomalies probable)
**Permanent Skills:** Aura Perception (Foundation), Chronos's Resilience (Foundation)
**Sub-Skill:** Emotive Harvest (Foundation)
**Temporary Skills:** Dirty Fighting Instinct (2 Loops remaining), Ambush Sense (1 Loop remaining)
He focused on the **Ghost Leeches**. In his Aura Perception, he could see them now not as vague smudges, but with more definition. Seven faint, sinuous shapes, like eels made of condensed shadow and bad fortune. They drifted through the storeroom, seemingly aimless, but he began to sense a pattern. They were attracted to points of tension, of potential failure. The cracked handle of a broom. The slightly uneven leg of a stool. The weak point in a seam of a grain sack.
He concentrated on **Leech-007**, the newest, born from his death in the courtyard. He willed it, not with words, but with a sheer, focused *intent*, to move towards the door. For a long moment, nothing. Then, the transparent shape slowly, sluggishly, altered its drift, gliding towards the wooden door. It was like pushing against a current of thick oil.
He guided it to the iron latch. He pictured, not a specific event, but a concept: *failure. Weakness.* He poured his will into the image of the latch sticking, of the bolt grinding.
Leech-007 coiled around the latch mechanism. For a second, nothing. Then, a faint, almost imperceptible *tinkle* of corrosion, a flake of rust falling from the inside of the bolt. The mechanism didn't fail, but he felt a certainty that the next person to use it would find it slightly stiffer, more prone to jamming.
**[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: CONCEPTUAL APPLICATION OF GHOST LEECH ENTITY DETECTED.]**
**[EFFICIENCY: EXTREMELY LOW (HOST LACKS CONTROL SKILLS). LUCK DRAIN EFFECT LOCALIZED AND MINIMAL.]**
**[WARNING: CONSCIOUS DIRECTION ACCELERATES LOCAL LUCK SATURATION. CURRENT RATE: 0.095%.]**
So he could influence them. But it was crude, exhausting, and it made the ambient bad luck worse faster. It was a double-edged sword, leaking poison from the hilt. He released his focus, and the Leech resumed its mindless drift. He had learned two things: it was possible, and it came with a price.
Exhausted, he slipped into a shallow, troubled sleep. He dreamed not of axes, but of silken gowns and icy eyes watching from a high balcony.
He was woken not by noise, but by a change in pressure. The tavern was open, the low murmur of the daytime crowd a distant hum. But there was a new quality to the sound—subdued, tense. He could feel it through the door.
He rose, his arm stiff and sore, and crept to the curtain separating the storeroom from the main room. He peered through a gap.
The usual clientele were there, but they were hunched over their cups, talking in low tones, their Auras spiked with anxious yellow and wary grey. The reason sat at two separate tables.
At a table near the fire sat two of Hadric's city guards. They were not drinking with the relaxed arrogance of off-duty men. They were nursing single ales, their eyes constantly scanning the room. Their Auras were a mix of bored green and a sharp, official yellow—they were on a duty roster, but one they didn't fully understand. They were a presence. A warning.
At a table near the door sat a single man. He was wiry, with sharp features and quick, clever hands that spun a copper coin across his knuckles in a ceaseless, fluid motion. He wore dark, nondescript clothes, but his boots were good quality, soft-soled for silence. His Aura was a muted, observant grey, like a dove's wing, but with a core of cold, calculating violet. A Black Eel sentinel. Not here to fight. Here to watch. To report.
The Leaky Bucket was under a soft siege.
Elian slipped back. His mind raced. The Eels were signaling that they were watching, that the tavern was marked. The guards were there to ensure any "gang retaliation" would be officially noted as happening in a known trouble spot, absolving Hadric of responsibility. It was psychological warfare, designed to strangle Mara's business and isolate them.
He needed to see the bigger picture. He needed to understand the players. He thought of Lady Annette's indigo gaze. She was the source. The Eels were her weapon, Hadric her tool. This was her response to the humiliation in the square and the violence in the courtyard.
He found a small, hidden nook in the storeroom, behind a stack of empty casks. It was dark and cramped, but it was a space to think. He sat, drew his knees up, and did something he hadn't had the luxury to do since waking on the execution block: he *planned*.
He was not just a fugitive. He was a glitched system-host with a time-looping power. He had been reactive, surviving each crisis. But survival was not a strategy; it was a hope. To win, he needed to be proactive. He needed to use his singular advantage: the ability to fail, learn, and try again.
He couldn't fight the Eels head-on. Not yet. He couldn't touch Lady Annette. But he could gather information. He could find weaknesses. And to do that, he needed to leave the tavern. He needed to walk into the trap, knowingly, so he could map its contours.
It was a terrifying thought. It meant inviting capture, pain, death. But his Resilience would hold. His loops would reset. And each death would be an investment in knowledge.
He formulated a simple, brutal plan: He would go out. He would let the Eels take him. He would see where they took him, who he met, what they wanted. He would die in their custody, reset, and use the knowledge to strike back.
It was the logic of a suicide bomber with an undo button. It was the first conscious, strategic use of the Heart of Chronos not just to live, but to *win*.
He waited until the late afternoon, when the shift changed and the crowd thinned. The guard presence would be rotating, the Eel sentinel possibly relieved. He sought out Mara, who was inventorying ale in the cellar.
"I need to go out," he said quietly.
She stopped counting, her Aura flashing orange. "Are you dim? They're waiting for you to stick a toe outside."
"I know. That's the point."
She stared at him, and slowly, the anger in her Aura shifted to a dawning, horrified understanding. She had seen his uncanny foreknowledge, his strange luck. She didn't know the mechanism, but she knew the effect. "You're going to walk into it."
"To learn the shape of it."
She was silent for a long time, the only sound the drip of condensation from a barrel. "You'll get hurt."
"I'll come back."
Another pause. "What do you need?"
"A distraction at the front. Just a minute. Something to draw the watcher's eyes."
A grim smile touched Mara's lips. "I can manage that."
Ten minutes later, Elian stood by the back door, dressed in his brown tunic, the knife Kael had given him at his belt, his bandaged arm hidden by the oversized sleeve. He took a deep breath, centering himself. *Ambush Sense* was gone, but *Dirty Fighting Instinct* remained, a low hum in his nerves.
From the front of the tavern, a sudden, tremendous crash erupted, followed by Mara's voice raised in furious, theatrical outrage. "You clumsy lout! That was a full keg! Do you have any idea what that costs?!"
It was the signal.
Elian slipped out the back door into the yard. He didn't run. He walked, purposefully but not hurriedly, towards the mouth of the alley that led to the wider street. He was a boy on an errand.
He had taken three steps into the main street when a man fell into step beside him. It was the wiry sentinel from the tavern, his coin vanished, his hands now loose at his sides. His grey-violet Aura was calm, professional.
"Going for a stroll, lad?" the man asked, his voice conversational.
Elian didn't look at him. "I have an errand."
"I'll walk with you. Streets aren't safe these days." The man's hand closed gently but firmly on Elian's injured upper arm, right over the bandage.
A bolt of pain lanced through Elian. He stiffened but didn't cry out.
"See?" the sentinel said softly, his breath smelling of mint. "Not safe at all. Come along. The Master would like a word."
They walked. It looked like a man escorting a younger relative. No struggle. No fuss. They turned off the main street into a network of progressively narrower, dirtier alleys, moving away from the river, towards the industrial quarter where the clang of forges and the reek of chemical vats dominated.
Elian memorized every turn, every landmark—a broken cartwheel, a doorway painted with a fading blue eye, a blacksmith's sign with three horseshoes. His heart was a cold, hard stone in his chest. This was the path to the spider's parlor.
They reached a nondescript, two-story building of soot-stained brick, wedged between a noisy tannery and a silent warehouse. A heavy iron door, unmarked. The sentinel produced a key, unlocked it, and ushered Elian inside.
The interior was a shock. It was clean, quiet, and tastefully, if darkly, appointed. Polished wood floors, walls paneled in dark oak, sconces emitting a steady, low light from enclosed oil lamps. The air smelled of lemon oil, aged paper, and a faint, cloying incense. It was the opposite of the grimy violence Elian associated with the Black Eels. This was the administrative heart of the cancer.
They passed a few men who moved with quiet efficiency, their Auras varying shades of focused violet. No one spoke. The sentinel led him down a corridor and up a narrow flight of stairs to a heavy oak door.
He knocked once, a precise tap.
"Enter." The voice from within was smooth, cultured, and utterly devoid of warmth.
The sentinel opened the door, pushed Elian inside, and closed it behind him, remaining outside.
The room was a study. Shelves groaned with ledgers and scrolls. A large, intricately carved desk of some dark wood dominated the space. Behind it, in a high-backed chair upholstered in blood-red leather, sat Master Kaelen.
Elian had formed a mental image based on the fear he inspired: a brute, a monster. The man before him was neither. He was perhaps in his late forties, with fine, sharp features, hair the color of iron swept back from a high forehead, and eyes of a pale, luminous grey that held the gentle, detached curiosity of a dissecting surgeon. He wore a jacket of fine, dark wool over a silk shirt, impeccably tailored. His hands, resting on the desk, were long-fingered and clean, the nails perfectly manicured. His Aura was the most complex Elian had ever seen: a deep, swirling pool of indigo intelligence, shot through with veins of cold, controlled violet, and at its core, a void-like blackness that seemed to absorb the light around it. It was the Aura of absolute, amoral control.
"Elian," Kaelen said, his voice a soft caress. "Please, sit. You must be fatigued from your… morning exertions." He gestured to a plain wooden chair facing the desk.
Elian remained standing. "I'll stand."
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Kaelen's lips. "As you wish. I must confess, you have become a singular point of interest. A peasant boy, condemned to die, who not only escapes his fate but exposes a conspiracy, humiliates a noble patron, and then…" he steepled his fingers, "…personally incapacitates one of my most competent lieutenants in a fair fight. 'Fair' being a relative term, given the aerial support." He leaned forward slightly. "How?"
"Luck," Elian said, his voice flat.
"Luck," Kaelen repeated, savoring the word. "Yes. Rikkard's report was full of mentions of 'luck.' Slippery footing. Falling debris. A thrown tile that somehow created a perfect diversion. An almost preternatural sense of his moves." His pale eyes bored into Elian. "I do not believe in luck. I believe in cause and effect. In leverage. In hidden advantages. What is yours?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Of course you do." Kaelen's voice remained pleasant, but the void-like black in his Aura pulsed slightly. "Let us try a different line of inquiry. Who do you work for? The River Rats? The Silver Daggers from across the river? Or is this something… newer? Perhaps an agent of the Crown, stirring up trouble in our backwater to justify a tax levy or a garrison?" He watched Elian's face closely. "No. You lack the training. The confidence." He sighed, a sound of genuine, intellectual disappointment. "So. An anomaly. A genuine mystery. I dislike mysteries. They are… untidy."
He opened a drawer and withdrew a long, thin case. He opened it. Inside, on a bed of velvet, lay a set of tools. They were not brutish torture implements. They were delicate, precise: slender probes, fine-toothed saws, tiny, sharp hooks. The tools of a master artisan, or a meticulous inquisitor.
"I prefer clarity," Kaelen said, selecting a probe with a tip so fine it was almost a needle. "The body is a text. Pain is a most persuasive translator. We will start with the obvious. Who told you about Jorin?"
This was the moment. Elian knew he would die here. He had learned the location, seen the man, felt the quality of his menace. This death had purpose. He met Kaelen's gaze, letting a spark of defiance show. "I told you. I guessed."
Kaelen's smile was pitying. "A poor text. We shall have to write a new one."
He rose and came around the desk. He moved with a liquid, predatory grace. He took Elian's bandaged arm in a grip that was like iron shackles. With his other hand, he brought the probe towards Elian's eye.
Elian didn't struggle. He focused on the man's Aura, on the void at its center. He focused on the seven Ghost Leeches he knew were invisibly swarming this room, drawn to the intense, malignant intent. With a final, desperate surge of will, he didn't try to direct them at Kaelen. He directed them at the *room*.
*Failure. Weakness. Decay.*
He poured the concept into the oil lamp on the desk, into the leg of the chair Kaelen had vacated, into the ancient bindings of the ledgers on the shelf.
Kaelen's probe was an inch from Elian's eye.
The wick in the oil lamp, which had burned steadily for hours, *guttered*. Not much. A dip in the flame, a brief, dramatic shadow that danced across the room.
Kaelen's eyes, reflexively, flickered towards the light source for a fraction of a second.
In that fraction, the finely balanced leg of the heavy oak chair gave a microscopic, almost inaudible *creak*.
Kaelen, a creature of perfect control, felt the minute shift in the atmosphere, the coalescence of improbability. His focus, for a heartbeat, fractured.
It was enough.
Elian didn't try to attack. He stomped down, hard, on the instep of Kaelen's fine leather boot.
It was a petty, street-level move. Beneath this man's dignity. Kaelen hissed, more in surprise and outrage than pain, his grip loosening.
Elian wrenched his arm free and bolted for the door. He didn't expect to make it. This was about gathering more data. How many guards outside? What were the reflexes of the sentinel?
He yanked the door open. The wiry sentinel was there, already moving, a thin, cruel-looking blade appearing in his hand. Behind him, two more Eels were coming down the hall.
Elian turned and ran the other way, down the corridor, towards a window at the end. He could hear Kaelen's calm voice behind him, cold now, all pretense of civility gone. "Take him. Alive. But break whatever you need to."
The window was leaded glass, small. Elian didn't hesitate. He covered his face with his good arm and threw himself through it.The glass shattered. He fell, not a long drop, but onto a pile of rubbish in a narrow, fetid alley behind the building. He scrambled up, cutting his hands on glass, and ran.
He heard shouts from above, from the window. He didn't look back. He ran through the maze of the industrial quarter, his lungs burning, his wounded arm screaming in protest, the bandage now soaked with fresh blood.
He had done it. He had seen the inner sanctum. He had faced the Master. He had confirmed the guards, the layout, the man's terrifying, intelligent menace. And he had, for a fleeting moment, used the Leeches not as a passive curse, but as an active, distracting tool. The cost, he knew, would be a spike in bad luck in that district. A forge might overheat. A vat might crack. But he had bought a sliver of time.
He needed to get back to the Bucket. To reset the loop with this precious, hard-won intelligence.
He turned a corner, aiming for a thoroughfare he knew led back towards the river.
And ran straight into a patrol of four city guards. Not just any guards. These were led by Captain Hadric himself.
Hadric was a big man running to fat, with a florid face and small, piggy eyes that held a keen, greedy intelligence. His Aura was that slick, oily yellow-gold, the color of corruption and vanity. He looked at Elian—bloody, panting, fleeing—and a wide, unpleasant smile spread across his face.
"Well, well," Hadric boomed, his voice used to commanding silence in taprooms. "What have we here? A little rat, bleeding and running. Looks like you've been in more mischief." His eyes took in the cuts from the glass, the bloodied bandage. "Assaulting upstanding citizens, I'll wager. Or is it burglary?"
"I was attacked," Elian gasped, trying to edge away.
"Attacked? Where? Show me." Hadric stepped closer, his hand dropping to the truncheon at his belt. His men fanned out, blocking the alley.
Elian's mind raced. He couldn't be arrested. A loop that ended in a city jail, with official processing, would reset him there, not at the Bucket. It could scramble his anchor. He had to die here, now, before they formally took him into custody.
He made a break for it, trying to dart between two guards.
Hadric was fast. His truncheon swung in a short, brutal arc, catching Elian across the back of the head.The world exploded into white stars, then into a ringing, painful darkness. He fell to his knees.
"Trying to flee justice, boy?" Hadric loomed over him. "That's a confession in my book." He gestured to his men. "Take him to the hold. We'll see what the Eels want to do with him. Or maybe we'll just toss him in the river and save the paperwork."
Rough hands grabbed him, hauling him up. This was it. He was in the system. The loop would anchor to a prison cell. He had failed.Despair washed over him. Then, a cold, calculated fury. No. He would not let his recon mission end in a bureaucratic trap. He had one move left.
As the guards dragged him, he let his body go limp, then suddenly thrashed with all his remaining strength, twisting towards the guard on his left. His hand went to his belt, not for the knife, but for the blackjack Mara had given him, still tucked there.
He couldn't draw it. But he could make them think he was going for a weapon.
"Knife!" the guard on his right shouted, alarmed.
Hadric, quick-tempered and vicious,didn't hesitate. He drew his own short, serviceable blade and, without ceremony, plunged it into Elian's side, aiming for the kidney.
Agony, cold and piercing, unlike any blunt trauma he'd felt, lanced through Elian. He gasped, the world graying out. He looked down at the hilt protruding from his side, at Hadric's smug, furious face.
He had done it. He had forced a terminal wound, here in the alley, before official arrest. The loop would reset to the Bucket.
He coughed, blood flecking his lips. He looked Hadric dead in the eye and, with his last breath, whispered, "Your master… won't be… pleased."
Confusion, then dawning panic, flashed in Hadric's piggy eyes. He yanked his blade out. Elian collapsed, the cobblestones rushing up to meet him one final time. The last thing he heard was Hadric hissing, "You idiot! He was supposed to be alive!"
Then, the merciful, glitching screen.
[LOOP 8 CONFIRMED.]
[DEATH ANALYSIS… CAUSE: PERITONEAL STAB WOUND (OFFICIAL CORRUPTION/TERMINAL ESCALATION).]
[HOST INITIATED STRATEGIC RECONNAISSANCE MISSION. SIGNIFICANT TACTICAL DATA ACQUIRED.]
[TEMPORARY SKILL GENERATED: INTERROGATION RESISTANCE (NOVICE).]
[DESCRIPTION: INCREASED MENTAL FORTITUDE AGAINST VERBAL PRESSURE AND PAIN-BASED COERCION. DURATION: 4 LOOPS.]
[GHOST LEECH SPAWNED. ENTITY [LEECH-008] DISPERSED.]
[LOCAL LUCK SATURATION: 0.11% (DISTRICT-SCALE ANOMALIES IMMINENT).]
[SYNC INCREASE DETECTED: 0.005%]
[RESET IN 6 MINUTES, 25 SECONDS.]
He was back in the storeroom of The Leaky Bucket, just after Mara had finished stitching his arm. The phantom pain of the dagger wound was gone, replaced by the real, lesser pain of the stitched cut. The memory of the probe near his eye, of Hadric's blade in his side, was fresh and vivid, but held at bay by his growing Resilience.He stood, a new plan crystallizing in his mind. He couldn't destroy the Eels yet. But he could drive a wedge. He could use the incompetence and greed he'd seen in Hadric, and the obsessive, controlling intellect he'd seen in Kaelen, against each other.
He walked out into the tavern. The soft siege was still in place: the two bored guards, the wiry sentinel. Mara was behind the bar, her Aura a low, simmering amber of controlled anger. She saw him, saw the new, grim certainty in his eyes, and gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
Elian went to the kitchen, where Oren was quietly sharpening his cleaver on a stone. The giant looked up, his forest-green Aura a question.
"I need to get a message to Kael," Elian said quietly. "Can you find him?"
Oren nodded. "He drinks at The Rusty Nail after second watch. I will bring him."
"Tell him I know where the spider lives. And that the spider and the fat beetle guarding the city gate are about to have a misunderstanding." He leaned closer. "And I need a weapon. Not a club. Something… that can be traced."Elian went to the kitchen, where Oren was quietly sharpening his cleaver on a stone. The giant looked up, his forest-green Aura a question.
"I need to get a message to Kael," Elian said quietly. "Can you find him?"
Oren nodded. "He drinks at The Rusty Nail after second watch. I will bring him."
"Tell him I know where the spider lives. And that the spider and the fat beetle guarding the city gate are about to have a misunderstanding." He leaned closer. "And I need a weapon. Not a club. Something… that can be traced."
Oren's placid eyes held his for a moment. Then he set down his cleaver, walked to a hidden niche in the stone hearth, and withdrew a long, thin dagger in a worn leather sheath. It was plain, functional, but the pommel was stamped with a faint, worn insignia: a stylized tower. The insignia of the City Guard.
"A souvenir," Oren rumbled softly. "From a less careful guard, long ago."
Elian took it. The weight was different from Kael's knife. It was a tool of violence, and it was a message.
The plan was audacious, fragile, and relied entirely on the predictable venalit of the players. He would use his loops not to fight the battle, but to set the stage for his enemies to destroy each other.
The siege of small things was over. Now, he would begin the war of subtle knives. And he would do it from the shadows, dying again and again, until the path to victory was the only one left standing.