Kael emerged from the hidden passage beneath the Blue Rose carrying three new problems. Ulsal was apparently a divine being angry enough to arrange his death, the Sun Clan had once spent months searching for a Rune user who was almost certainly him, and his mutated Dark Beast familiar might hatch if exposed to concentrated Darkness Mana.
The Guildmaster had been very careful with the word might.
Kael stood in the evening street with his helmet covering his face and decided he had completed enough social interaction for one day. Andre's forge was close, and the floor of the workshop had already proven capable of supporting him while unconscious. He could return there, sleep, and test the Darkness Rune against the egg in the morning, when he had enough time to follow the Guildmaster's instructions carefully.
That plan survived until he turned the corner and discovered that Andre's workshop had disappeared behind a crowd.
