The weight of the plan settled over them, a detailed blueprint for a heist that felt both impossibly complex and meticulously straightforward. After a final round of questions—confirming the location of Vorlag's office, the specific design of the manacle locks, the exact shade of grey used on the guards' uniforms—Joshey finally nodded.
"Right. We need to head back to the inn," he said, his mind already shifting to logistics. "We need to look the parts. And we need to not be seen here when the day shift wakes up."
Kaelen agreed. "Smart. Let's go."
He led them back the way they came, his familiarity with the dark, winding corridors of the salt cellar a silent testament to the months he'd spent embedded here. As they turned the corner into the main corridor leading to the exit, the scene from earlier came back into view.
The seven men Lucia had disabled still lay in their various states of unconscious slumber, their breathing shallow but steady. And a few feet away, separate from the rest, lay Borin. Or rather, what was left of him. The pooling blood had begun to congeal, a dark, tacky stain on the stone. His head rested at an unnatural angle several feet from his body, his face frozen in a mask of lecherous surprise.
Kaelen stopped. His eyes scanned the scene, taking in the precise, non-lethal takedowns of the seven, and then the singular, brutal finality of the eighth. He let out a low, slow whistle, shaking his head. He looked at his sister, a complex mix of pride, exasperation, and grim satisfaction in his eyes.
"Damn, Lucia," he said, his voice a mixture of awe and weary familiarity. "You really did a number on these guys, didn't you?"
His gaze lingered on Borin's corpse, and his expression hardened into something cold and unforgiving. "I knew Borin. Nasty piece of work. Had a thing for... well, anyone who couldn't fight back. Women, kids... always preying on the vulnerable." He spat on the ground near the body, a gesture of pure contempt. "I always hated him for that. Good thing he's dead."
He looked back at Lucia, his voice dropping, laced with a protective ferocity that was startling in its intensity. "If I'd ever caught wind that he laid a finger on you... death would have been the least of his worries."
The raw, brotherly venom in his tone sent a shiver down Joshey's spine. It was a glimpse of the feral loyalty that lay beneath Kaelen's logical, calculating exterior. For all their differences, the bond between these two was a force of nature.
They stepped over and around the sleeping and the dead, their footsteps echoing softly in the cavernous space. Kaelen unlocked a heavy side door, ushering them out into the cool, pre-dawn air of a back alley. The shift from the cellar's oppressive stillness to the city's humid breath was jarring.
"Alright," Kaelen said, leaning against the doorframe, his face half in shadow. "Remember the timeline. Twenty-four hours. Use them well. Get some rest, get your gear, get your heads straight. Come back here tomorrow night, ready to work." He gave Joshey a firm look. "Be a ghost on the docks." Then he turned to Lucia, his expression softening infinitesimally. "And you... just be you. My little storm."
With a final, shared nod that was more binding than any contract, Joshey and Lucia turned and melted into the labyrinthine streets of Sharp, leaving Kaelen to disappear back into the belly of the beast.
The walk back to The Drunken Gull was a silent, shared processing of the night's revelations. The city was beginning to stir. The first bakers were firing their ovens, filling the air with the smell of yeast and burning wood. Night-soil collectors moved their reeking carts through the streets, and the occasional shout of an early-rising fisherman echoed from the direction of the docks.
The adrenaline that had sustained them through the fight, the discovery, and the planning was finally ebbing, leaving behind a deep, bone-weary fatigue. Lucia walked beside him, her hood drawn up, but her posture was less that of a hidden predator and more of an exhausted young woman. The emotional whiplash of finding her brother not in chains but as the architect of a criminal extraction, the violence in the corridor, the weight of the new mission—it all hung on her like a heavy cloak.
Joshey, for his part, felt his own mind churning. Kaelen was a revelation. A man who thought like he did, who saw the world as a series of interlocking systems to be analyzed and manipulated. A man who had chosen a path of minimal bloodshed not out of weakness, but out of a deeper, more strategic strength. It was a validation of his own methods in a world that often seemed to reward only brute force.
He glanced at Lucia. The kinship he felt with her was different, born of shared danger and a mutual, if sometimes baffling, respect. She was the unstoppable force; he and Kaelen were the immovable objects trying to point her in the right direction. He thought of her promise in the corridor—I will not kill them—and the breathtaking skill with which she had kept it. There was a terrifying purity to her. A part of him envied it.
They reached the inn just as the first sliver of sun breached the horizon, painting the sky in shades of bruised purple and dull orange. The main door was locked, but a sleepy-looking stable boy let them in through a side entrance with a grunt, too tired to be curious about two guests returning at the crack of dawn.
The silence in their room was a palpable relief. The commander was still unconscious in the corner, a problem for another day. For now, the world had shrunk to these four walls.
Lucia went straight to the washbasin, splashing cold water on her face, scrubbing at the grime and the lingering, psychic stain of the salt cellar. She didn't say a word.
Joshey sank onto his bed, the straw mattress creaking in protest. He let out a long, shuddering sigh, the events of the night replaying behind his eyes like a chaotic dream. The empty cell. The comfortable room. The seven sleeping men and the one who wasn't. Kaelen's plan, a delicate house of cards waiting for the right breeze.
They had twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours to transform from fugitives and rescuers into a dockhand and a ghost. Twenty-four hours to prepare for a magic trick that, if it failed, would end in a bloodbath. He looked over at Lucia, who was now sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at her hands as if seeing the blood that wasn't there. "Get some sleep," he said, his voice rough with exhaustion. "Tomorrow's a big day." She just nodded, not looking up. The walk was over. The wait had begun.
The remainder of the night passed not in rest, but in a state of high-wire vigilance. Both Joshey and Lucia slept with their eyes open, metaphorically speaking. Every creak of the inn, every snatch of distant conversation from the street, every shift in the breathing of the unconscious commander in the corner was a potential trigger. Joshey's mind, even in its exhausted state, kept circling back to the unsettling silence where Elias's voice should be. It was like losing a limb in the dark; he kept reaching for a tool that was no longer there, his balance thrown off. Lucia, for her part, remained a coiled spring on her bed, her hand never straying far from the hilt of her sword, her gaze periodically sweeping the room to land on the commander with the cold assessment of a predator sizing up wounded prey.
When the grey light of dawn finally filtered through the room's single grimy window, it was a relief. The long, tense watch was over.
Lucia was the first to move, uncoiling herself from the bed with a stiffness that spoke of a night spent in readiness, not repose. "I am using the bathroom," she announced, her voice husky with disuse. Without waiting for a reply, she gathered her clean clothes and disappeared behind the door, the lock clicking shut with a sound of finality.
Alone in the main room, Joshey stretched, his joints popping. The gnawing emptiness in his stomach was a more immediate concern than the silent Elias. He called out towards the bathroom door, "I'm going to get us some food!"
A muffled "Okay" was the only response.
Stepping out into the sharp morning air of Sharp was a sensory shock. The city was fully awake now, a cacophony of commerce and survival. Joshey navigated the crowded streets, his mind briefly drifting to a different life. In my world, hotels serve you food, he thought with a wry twist of his lips. You order room service. A menu. A phone. Here, an inn was a fundamentally different concept. It was a waystation, a temporary shelter for those in transit. It provided a roof and a lock on the door, and nothing more. Sustenance was the traveler's own problem.
He found a bustling market square and moved through it with a purpose, his eyes scanning the wares. He bypassed the sizzling, greasy meat stalls, his stomach still feeling fragile from the night's stresses. He settled on simple, sturdy fare: a loaf of dark, dense bread that felt solid and reassuring in his hand, a small sack of apples with skins so bright they looked polished, a packet of rough, fibrous crackers that promised to last, and two smoked fish, already cooked and wrapped in waxed paper, their savory, briny smell a promise of substance. It was a practical meal, fuel for a demanding day ahead. He paid with a few coppers, the transaction simple and anonymous, and turned back towards The Drunken Gull, the weight of the food in his arms a small, tangible anchor in a morning fraught with uncertainty.
Behind the locked bathroom door, a different kind of reality was setting in for Lucia. The warm water of the bath was a luxury she had denied herself for four days, since she had fled the stifling confines of the Earivel clan. As the grime of the road and the psychic residue of violence sluiced away, another, more intimate discomfort made itself known. A dull, familiar ache in her lower abdomen, a tell-tale cramping that she recognized with a surge of pure annoyance.
Not now.
She leaned her head back against the wooden tub, closing her eyes. This unnerving, biological vulnerability was the last thing she needed. In the clan, during her cycles, she was often sidelined from the most intense training, treated with a infuriating, subtle condescension as if she were temporarily flawed. She hated it. The feeling of her own body betraying her, of being less than perfectly capable. She wondered, with a spike of anxiety, if it would hold her back if a fight found them today. Would her reflexes be a fraction slower? Would the pain be a distraction? She pushed the thought away, burying it under a layer of sheer will. She would function. She had to. To acknowledge the weakness was to give it power.
She finished her bath with brisk, efficient motions, the hot water a fleeting comfort. Stepping out, she dried herself and pulled on the clean, simple clothes. The feeling of fresh fabric against her skin was a small but profound pleasure. For four days, she had been clothed in the dust of the road and the tension of the hunt. Now, she felt… renewed. Human.
She opened a small, meticulously organized leather pouch from her pack and took out a jar of ointment. It was a clan recipe, a blend of herbs and rendered animal fat that soothed muscle aches and kept the skin supple and resistant to the elements. She worked it into her hands, her arms, her shoulders, the ritual a grounding echo of her old life. The familiar, pungent smell was a comfort.
Her eyes fell upon the commander, still unconscious on the floor. The thought was a cold, sharp thing in her mind: I could kill him now. It would be so easy. No more risk. No more complication.
But just as quickly, another thought followed, one that felt foreign and yet unshakable. It would be a complete betrayal of trust.
Her gaze shifted to the door, beyond which Joshey—Elias—had gone to find them food. She turned the concept over in her mind. Trust. Ever since this journey began, he had been… a huge help. The assessment was clinical, but the weight behind it was significant. He had negotiated their way out of a confrontation without bloodshed. He had seen through the sensory-dampening barrier when she was blind. He had devised a plan to find Kaelen when she was lost in panic. He had stopped her from killing the commander, not out of weakness, but because he saw a larger board she was ignoring.
Only a scant few, she thought, would ever openly be this helpful. In her world, help always came with a price, a debt, a hidden blade. His assistance felt… clean. It was strategic, yes, but it was also, inexplicably, kind. It was nice having him around.
A final, unbidden observation surfaced, one her unique senses provided. And he smells nice, too. It wasn't about soap or cologne. It was the air around him. To her, most people carried a complex cocktail of scents—fear, greed, ambition, deceit. Elias's scent was different. It was clean, like stone after rain, or the air at a high altitude. It was the smell of a calm mind, a focused intent, a nature that was not predatory towards her. It was a scent she could, for the first time in a long time, relax around.
When Joshey returned with the food, he found Lucia sitting on her bed, her posture still perfect but lacking the lethal tension of the night before. Her hair was damp, her skin clean, and she regarded him with those calm, grey eyes that seemed to see so much. "Thank you," she said simply, as he handed her a portion of the bread, an apple, and one of the smoked fish.
They ate in a silence that was, for the first time, comfortable rather than charged. The food was plain but good. The sun was fully up now, casting weak light into the room. The mission loomed, the silence in Joshey's head was a mystery, and an unconscious man lay bound in the corner. But for this one, quiet moment, with the simple act of breaking bread, there was a fragile peace. They were two very different people, from two different worlds, bound by circumstance and a growing, unspoken pact, preparing to walk into the lion's den.