The unconscious commander floated a few feet behind them, a silent, shrouded figure suspended in a cradle of gently swirling Aero mana. It was a constant, draining effort for Joshey, like holding a heavy weight at arm's length, but leaving the man behind wasn't an option. As they walked, the rhythmic crunch of their boots on the forest path was the only sound. Joshey's mind, however, was anything but quiet. That was too close, he thought, the adrenaline finally receding and leaving behind the cold dregs of post-fight clarity. My first real fight in this world, and I was on the back foot the entire time. If Lucia hadn't been there…
The thought was a bitter pill. He had been the damsel in distress, needing to be saved. The fact that Lucia would have been utterly helpless within the barrier without his unique senses never even crossed his mind. His focus was locked squarely on his own perceived weakness. «You are dwelling,» Elias's voice cut in, pragmatic as ever. «The outcome is what matters. You are alive. The 'how' is irrelevant.» It's not irrelevant to me, Joshey shot back, his internal voice tight. I hate this. Relying on someone else. It feels like a failure. «I understand the sentiment,» Elias replied, a rare thread of shared experience in his tone. «It is why I never accepted Sylvaine's help, even when she offered. Pride is a stubborn anchor.»
It's not just pride, Joshey argued, dissecting his own feelings with a recruiter's cold eye. It's control. It's ego. If I'm going to ask for help, I want it done my way. But that's an impossible thing to ask of someone who's just trying to help you. He let out a mental sigh. My problem is I'd rather swallow my pride and get the problem solved than stand on principle and fail. Our situations were different.
«Whatever,» Elias conceded, the word carrying a weight of finality. «We both know it doesn't matter now anyway.» A dry, humorless laugh escaped Joshey's lips, causing Lucia to glance at him sideways. He just shook his head slightly. She returned her gaze to the path ahead.
His thoughts turned to the future, to the gaping chasm between his current ability and the power he needed to never feel that vulnerable again. Sylvaine's words echoed in his head, not as a jest this time, but as a genuine path forward. "Why don't you train physically? A strong body can channel more power, recover faster." She was right. All the mana engineering in the world was useless if he couldn't move fast enough to use it. He needed agility. He needed strength that was his own, not just borrowed from the atmosphere.
He was so lost in plotting a new, grueling training regimen—a fusion of modern athletic science and whatever passed for it in this world—that he didn't notice their surroundings had changed. A firm tap on his shoulder jolted him back to the present.
Lucia stood beside him, her blue eyes looking ahead, her voice low and steady. "I know you're lost in thoughts and all," she said, not unkindly. "But we're here." Joshey followed her gaze. The trees had thinned, revealing the hulking, silhouetted shape of the granary ahead, its massive form dark against the night sky. The sight of Sharp, a prospering port city within the Caligurn Empire, was a stark contrast to the silent, deadly forest they had just escaped. Lanterns glowed in the twilight, outlining bustling docks and sturdy, multi-story buildings of stone and timber. The air, which had been still and oppressive, now carried the salty tang of the sea, the smell of fried food, and the distant, rhythmic crash of waves. After hours of walking with the floating, unconscious weight of the commander in tow, the city's noise and life felt almost overwhelming.
"We should find an inn," Joshey said, his voice rough with fatigue. "We need to rest, and we need to… deal with him," he added, glancing back at their prisoner.
Lucia simply nodded, her eyes scanning the city not with wonder, but with a focused intensity. "Okay." A rare, genuine flicker of emotion crossed her face—not a smile, but a subtle easing of the tension around her eyes. She was one step closer to her brother. Joshey saw it, recognized it for the hope it was, and said nothing.
They got directions from a trader hauling crates of salted fish. "Closest inn? 'The Drunken Gull,' just up that way," the man said, pointing a thick finger. "Pricey, but clean." For a city supposedly teeming with criminals, Joshey thought as they walked through the crowded, lantern-lit streets, it seems deceptively peaceful. The peace felt thin, a veneer over something much rougher.
The Drunken Gull lived up to its description. It was a well-built, three-story structure with a freshly painted sign. Inside, it was clean, warm, and smelled of beeswax and ale. It was also, as warned, expensive.
Joshey approached the front desk, a polished oak counter manned by a stern-looking woman with a ledger.
"A room for the night," he said.
"Thirty florins," she stated, not looking up.
Joshey felt a familiar, almost nostalgic sting. Thirty florins. Back in Lagos, that would have been a trivial amount. Here, it was the monthly wage of a laborer. It was a fortune to the man whose body he now wore, a stark reminder of the life Elias had led, constantly on the brink. He didn't flinch. He counted out the coins, the clink of each one a small surrender of the safety net he was trying to build. The woman took the money, her expression unchanging, and slid a heavy iron key across the counter.
"Room 345. Top of the stairs, end of the hall."
They headed up, the commander still floating eerily behind them and no one seeming to care about it at all. The staircase was narrow and dimly lit. As they reached the second-floor landing, a man was coming down. He was big, with a thick neck and the ruddy complexion of a frequent drinker. His eyes, slightly glazed, slid past Joshey and locked onto Lucia. He stopped, blocking their path, a slow, unpleasant grin spreading across his face.
"Well, hello there," he slurred, his gaze crawling over her. "Ain't you a pretty little thing? All alone?"
The change in the air was instantaneous. Joshey didn't need a seventh sense to feel it. It was a physical drop in temperature. Lucia didn't move, but her stillness became lethal, the kind of stillness a viper has before it strikes. He could almost smell the bloodlust rolling off her, a metallic, ozone-sharp scent. The man, too drunk to sense his own impending death, let out a low whistle.
Joshey acted before Lucia could draw her sword. He stepped forward, inserting himself squarely between the man and Lucia.
"She's not alone," Joshey said, his voice low and firm, devoid of the friendly charm he used at the market. "We're dating."
The man's grin widened, turning lecherous. "Lucky you. Maybe you'd be willing to share?"
The suggestion hung in the air, ugly and threatening. Joshey's mind worked fast, discarding options. A fight would draw attention. Letting Lucia handle it would end with a corpse on the stairs, and questions they couldn't answer. He had to defuse this, now. He had to speak this brute's language.
He forced a conspiratorial, crude smirk onto his own face, one that felt like a stain. "Maybe later," Joshey said, the words tasting like ash. "After I'm done with her tonight, I'll bring her by tomorrow. She can be… very accommodating."
He felt Lucia go rigid behind him. He could practically feel her outrage burning a hole in his back. But she didn't speak, didn't move. She understood. This was a transaction, a vile but necessary one, to avoid a far messier outcome.
The drunkard's eyes lit up with greedy anticipation. He looked at the key in Joshey's hand, his gaze lingering on the number. "345, eh? I'll remember that." He clapped Joshey on the shoulder with a meaty hand. "I'll be waiting for my turn, friend." With a final, lingering leer at Lucia, he stumbled on down the stairs.
The moment he was out of sight, the tension didn't break; it just changed form. Joshey turned to face Lucia. Her expression was a mask of cold fury, her grey eyes like chips of flint. "I know," he said quietly, all pretense gone. "I'm sorry. It was the only way to make him go away without…" He didn't finish the sentence.
Lucia held his gaze for a long, searing moment. Then, she gave a single, sharp, almost imperceptible nod. The fury was still there, but it was banked, controlled. She understood the calculus of survival in a place like this. He had traded her dignity for their cover, and as much as it infuriated her, she knew it was the correct strategic move.
Without a word, she turned and continued up the stairs. Joshey followed, the weight of the floating commander feeling lighter than the disgust sitting in his own stomach. They had reached their room, but the city's true nature had already introduced itself. The man would be back. And when he came, the time for vile bargains would be over. The heavy iron lock of room 345 clicked shut, and Joshey finally let go. The intricate weave of Aero mana holding the commander dissolved. The man dropped to the floor with a dull thud, a heap of unconsciousness in the corner.
Joshey didn't even look at him. His eyes were locked on the bed. It wasn't much—a simple wooden frame with a straw-stuffed mattress and a rough wool blanket—but to him, after the forest, the fight, and the long walk, it looked like a throne. He took two running steps and launched himself onto it, landing with a soft whump. He bounced once, twice, a wide, almost childish grin spreading across his face as he sank into the scratchy, lumpy comfort. It was the first truly safe, horizontal surface he'd been on in what felt like a lifetime.
Across the small room, Lucia watched him, her expression unreadable. She methodically set her pack down in a corner, placed her sword within easy reach, and sat primly on the edge of the other bed, her back straight. The room was silent except for Joshey's contented sigh. Then, she spoke. Her voice was calm, but it cut through the quiet like a blade. "Elias." The name, his name here, spoken with that tone, killed his momentary joy. He stopped bouncing and sat up, the grin vanishing. He looked at her, bracing himself.
She met his gaze, her grey eyes steady. "Do not ever do what you did back there again."
He let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "It was a temporary solution," he explained, his voice earnest. "It got him to go away without blood being spilled. I don't like unnecessary bloodshed." The irony of the man who had just helped kill three people in the forest saying this was not lost on him, but the sentiment was genuine.
A flicker of something—amusement?—crossed her face. "I know you did not truly plan on 'giving me out'," she said, perfectly mimicking his crude phrasing from the stairs. Then her expression hardened again. "But do not do it again."
She looked away, towards the door, and swore under her breath, a low, vicious curse in a language he didn't recognize. "If I see that man again, I will kill him. Whether you care about the bloodshed or not." Joshey held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Fine. Fair enough. But that gives us a deadline. We have about twenty-four hours before he comes knocking, expecting his… 'turn'." The word was distasteful. "We need to find your brother and be gone by then."
Lucia gave a sharp nod. The goal was clear. "So," Joshey said, swinging his legs off the bed. "What is his name? Your brother's."
There was a slight hesitation, a vulnerability she rarely showed. "Kaelen," she said softly. "His name is Kaelen." "Kaelen," Joshey repeated, committing it to memory. "Alright then."
He stood up, his body protesting the movement after the brief taste of comfort. The grime of the road and the fight felt etched into his skin. "First things first," he said, stretching. "I'm going to take a bath. Then we start planning." He needed to wash off not just the dirt, but the lingering feeling of that vile conversation on the stairs. The mission was waiting, but for a few precious minutes, he was going to claim a small piece of civilization for himself. The warm water had been a blessing, washing away the grime of the forest and the lingering psychic stain of the confrontation on the stairs. Dressed in the simple, clean tunic and trousers provided by the inn, Joshey felt almost human again. He found Lucia exactly where he'd left her, a silent sentinel in their room.
"Finished," he announced, running a hand through his damp hair. He looked at her, still in her travel-stained clothes. "You know, before we go… is it normal for your brother to be… like that? Getting into this kind of trouble?" He kept his tone neutral, a genuine question, not an accusation.
Lucia's gaze, which had been fixed on the unconscious commander, snapped to him. "No," she said, the word sharp and final. "It is not. That place, the Weary Traveler… it was our meeting point. Once a year, for the last three years. It was the only place we agreed was safe." The admission was heavy, revealing a sliver of a clandestine life he knew nothing about.
Joshey nodded slowly, a theory beginning to form in his mind, a connection he wouldn't voice aloud. The coincidence of a secret annual meeting and a sudden, perfectly timed abduction felt… targeted. But without proof, it was just a whisper of suspicion.
"Alright," he said, shelving the thought. "We should go. But… what about you? Aren't you going to bathe?"
Lucia shook her head, a single, firm motion. "I can only relax when I am relaxed. Right now, there is nothing to be worried about in being dirty. There is everything to be worried about in delay."
He understood. Her hygiene was a luxury contingent on her brother's safety. "Fine. Let's go."
They left the inn, stepping back into the bustling life of Sharp. Lucia pulled her hood up, the dark fabric casting her face in shadow, making her just another anonymous figure in the crowd. To any casual observer, they were nothing special. But Joshey's senses, still humming from the fusion with Elias, were dialed to a fever pitch. The city was a living organism, and he was listening for its heartbeat.
The walk to the Granary district was a descent into a different world. The clean, salty air of the main port gave way to a thicker, more complex atmosphere. It was a physical weight that pressed on the lungs and the spirit. The primary scent was of burnt grain, a constant, acrid undertone from the massive, fortress-like silos that dominated the skyline, their shadows stretching like grasping fingers over the maze of streets below. This was layered with the pungent smell of salt from the marsh-tinged harbor, and beneath it all, the pervasive, sour tang of human sweat—the sweat of hard labor, of fear, of desperation.
The Granary was an old trade town grafted onto the edge of Caligurn's southern marshes, a place where the empire's official rules grew thin and the laws of profit and power took over. Here, slaves, spice, and secrets moved hand-in-hand in a dark, symbiotic dance. The streets were a chaotic river of humanity, but it was a river with a hidden current. Dockworkers with shoulders permanently stooped from carrying burdens they never owned moved with a weary, rhythmic pace. Traders with quick eyes and quicker hands haggled in low tones, their gestures small and precise. And everywhere, in the gaps between the crowds, were the chained laborers—men, women, and even some who looked too young, their eyes hollow, their movements dictated by the sharp commands of overseers. Everyone was busy. Everyone was watching. And no one, Joshey realized, talked for free.
Lucia's composure began to crack almost immediately. Her breath hitched as she took in the scale of the place, the sheer number of lost faces. The hood did little to hide the tension in her jaw, the white-knuckled grip she had on the fabric of her cloak. She stopped suddenly, her body trembling with a volatile mix of fear and a rising, volcanic anger.
"Kaelen!" The name was a raw, torn whisper, meant to be a shout but choked by the oppressive air. She looked like she wanted to scream it, to roar his name into the face of this wretched place and tear it apart with her bare hands until he answered.
Joshey was at her side in an instant. His hand didn't touch her, but his presence was a wall, a deliberate, calming force. "Lucia," he said, his voice low, barely a breath, but it cut through her rising panic. "If you want to find him, you need to stop thinking like a sister searching for her brother."
He met her furious, desperate gaze, his own eyes calm and analytical. "Start thinking like the people who took him. We don't knock on doors here. We don't ask questions that mark us as outsiders. We listen through walls."
He turned his back on her, forcing her to follow his lead, to see the city through his eyes. This wasn't a place for emotion. It was a market. A complex, brutal, but ultimately logical system. And every system had patterns.
"Watch," he murmured, his eyes scanning the scene before them—a wide, cobbled yard where goods were being loaded from a warehouse onto a flat-bottomed marsh barge.
He wasn't just looking; he was processing. He let a trickle of Aero mana enhance his hearing, not to amplify volume, but to filter it. He tuned out the general cacophony and focused on the specifics. The scrape of a boot on stone, the jingle of a specific keychain, the subtle change in a man's breathing when he was lying.
Pattern One: The Guards. He pointed with his chin toward two guards leaning against a silo wall. They wore the faded insignia of a private security guild. "See them? They've been in that same spot for the last twenty minutes. Their shift partner by the main gate has circled twice. They're not guarding the grain. They're guarding the door behind the grain. The one that doesn't get any traffic."
Pattern Two: The Currency of Influence. His eyes followed a well-dressed man in a leather apron—a foreman. The man walked with purpose, not making eye contact. But Joshey saw the micro-transactions. A dockworker subtly nodded as he passed, and the foreman's hand flicked, a small coin arc-ing through the air to be caught and vanished. A few steps later, a city guardsman turned his back, ostensibly checking a manifest, as the foreman slipped past a checkpoint without a word. "It's not about who has the most florins," Joshey whispered. "It's about who owes whom a favor. The real currency here is permission."
Pattern Three: The Nocturnal Economy. He guided her gaze toward the docks. Most ships were battened down for the evening, their crews spilling into the taverns. But one, a low-slung vessel with dark sails, was actively being loaded under the dim glow of shrouded lanterns. The crates being carried were small, heavy, and handled with extreme care. They weren't marked with merchant seals. "Legal business happens in the light," Joshey said. "The most valuable, and the most vile, cargo moves at night. That ship… that's our kind of place."
For over an hour, they moved like ghosts through the district. Joshey was a silent conductor, orchestrating their path based on the invisible currents of power and information. He'd pause by a noisy tavern, not to go in, but to stand in the shadow of an alley beside it, listening to the drunken boasts and complaints that spilled from the windows. He'd watch a money-changer's stall, noting which rough-looking men didn't change money at all, but exchanged a few quiet words and received a small scroll in return.
Lucia watched him, her initial desperation slowly being replaced by a grudging, focused awe. He wasn't just looking; he was reading the city like a book written in a language only he understood. The breakthrough came from a fragment of conversation, overheard as they lingered near a public well that served as a casual meeting point for off-duty laborers.
"...aye, moved 'em all last night," a man with a raspy voice was saying to his companion. "Cleared out the old salt cellar on Cypress Lane. Had to make room for the new batch coming in from the marshes. Harsh conditions, they say. Half of 'em won't last the week."
The companion grunted. "Viggo's men don't care. Long as they get paid." "Viggo's men are the pay," the raspy man chuckled darkly. "He is the auctioneer."
The two men moved on, their conversation swallowed by the crowd. But the words hung in the air between Joshey and Lucia: Old salt cellar. Cypress Lane. Viggo. New batch.
Joshey didn't look at her. He didn't need to. He could feel the intensity of her focus sharpen to a razor's point. He had given the city his silence, and it had finally given him a whisper in return. They had a location. The real work was about to begin.