Jason slid back behind the counter and set to work like a man conducting an orchestra. A cleaver thumped through roasted boar ladles dipped and rose from a black-bellied pot a knife whispered through herbs. In short order he strode out with an armful of trenchers and steaming bowls.
"Eat before Valen convinces me to charge by the breath," he said, dropping plates in a practiced sweep.
Tar got a mountain of meat and bread so dense it could've been a weapon. Neo's bowl was heaped with thick stew and charred leeks, a heel of buttered loaf perched on the rim. Luken's came with pickled onions and a wedge of hard cheese. Valen received the same and a pointed look.
"Don't worry," Valen said, already tearing into the bread. "Half the winnings buys the cook my undying gratitude."
"Your gratitude bounces," Jason replied, moving on.
Nyra's trencher landed with a savory weight boar, crisped fat, broth-soaked greens. Alinda's followed, steam curling up to meet her faint, approving smile. Jason set a plain, heavy mug at the open space between them and moved on without comment.
They drew in close around the long table Tar reclaiming his throne at one end, Valen and Neo flanking, Luken sliding in with the patient air of a scholar resigned to chaos. Nyra and Alinda took the opposite side, leaving the end seat clear. Thal settled there carefully, the bench creaking as he folded into the space. The chatter of the room rose and fell around them like tidewater.
For a few breaths, there was only the sound of eating the clink of spoons against clay, the crunch of crust, Tar's satisfied rumble after the first mouthful. Neo blew on his stew and still burned his tongue, laughing at himself through a wince. Luken passed him the mug at his elbow without looking, and Neo took it with a grateful nod.
Valen fanned himself dramatically. "Mercy. This stew could bring a corpse to heel."
"Good," Jason called from the bar. "You'll need the strength when Tar finishes drinking your patrons into poverty."
Tar raised his mug in solemn agreement and drank.
Nyra's shoulders eased as warmth seeped in heat from the bowl, noise from the room, the familiar squabbling of friends. She glanced along the table, caught Neo's grin as he told Luken some nonsense about teaching Tar to pace himself and across from her, Alinda tore a strip of boar.
Valen leaned back and gave Thal a once-over, gesturing with half a crust toward the new crimson kilt. "I'll say it again: we could stop at this. It's a look. Regal menace. Efficient ventilation."
Nyra didn't bother looking at him. "Merek and Joren have already started," she said, deadpan. "You want to tell them to stop, be my guest. Stand close to the forge when you do."
Valen shuddered theatrically. "I cherish my eyebrows."
Alinda's eyes flicked up, amused. "You don't need both."
Jason drifted past again, dropping a fresh pitcher at their elbow and a second slab of meat for Tar as if refueling a siege engine. He paused just long enough to trade a nod with Thal no more than a heartbeat's acknowledgment before turning to bellow at a table of laborers trying to arm-wrestle on a wobbly leg.
"Eat," he told them, and the table steadied.
Nyra wiped her spoon and finally let her gaze wander toward the door, where the evening light had gone the colour of old copper. The inn's hum pressed the world outside to the edges but couldn't quite erase it. "We should speak of what we saw," she said, mild voice carrying more weight than volume.
Alinda grin thinned. "After," she said, for once without a quip. "Let them finish a bowl first."
Thal nodded. "After."
Alinda tilted her head, studying the steam rising from her food, then the way Thal sat still as a statue, listening to everything and nothing. "After," she echoed softly.
Tar finished his slab and reached, without looking, for the next mug in the line. Neo slid it to him with the air of a squire passing a lance, then snorted at his own solemnity and went back to his stew. The moment felt almost normal. Almost.
From the back, the cellar door sighed as it settled fully against its jamb. A draft crept along the floorboards, cool and metallic as it brushed their boots and was gone.
Jason reappeared with a tray of salt and sliced apples, set it down between them, and clapped Valen on the shoulder hard enough to jostle coins. "Half," he reminded, easy as breathing.
Valen pressed a hand to his chest. "As agreed," he said. "No tricks."
"Good," Jason said, already walking away. "Because I know them all."
The table took that in stride: Nyra finishing her greens, Alinda tearing bread into neat thoughtful pieces, Luken dabbing broth from his bowl, Tar content as a conquered brewery, Valen counting profits under the table and Neo laughing again at something too small to matter. Thal watched and listened, the red hem whispering at his ankles when he shifted, golden eyes steady as banked coals.
The clang of mugs and the low hum of conversation rolled on around them but the group edged toward something quieter concern, planning, and the weight of fear.
They ate. They drank. Tar polished off more meat Neo kept tossing back refill after refill Luken's calm demeanour just a little more relaxed now that the laughter had returned Valen grinning his way through it like he'd thrown a party and was still surprised it worked.
But soon, Nyra leaned forward across the table, voice lower. She glanced at Thal briefly. "Valen, Luken listen."
Neo and Tar tilted slightly, curious but Nyra made eye contact with Valen and Luken first, as though anchoring them.
"There was a murder," she said sharply. "Near Merek and Joren's shop. It was… awful. The body was found torn from the inside, blood everywhere. The guards are calling it 'the Rupture.'"
Valen stiffened. The smile on his face froze for a moment and then flickered. "The Rupture, eh? I thought that was a rumour until today."
Luken's eyes narrowed. He paused mid-bite, thinking. "No wounds, you mean. Nothing obvious like a stab or slash?"
Nyra nodded. "Yes. That's what's strange. Someone said something came out of him. Something wearing a long black coat, white hair, red eyes. Then the husband sank into the blood as though he was swallowed."
Tar grunted. "Not the kind of death that makes sense by blade or poison."
Everyone at the table fell silent for a moment. The firelight flickered. The noise of the tavern sounded distant.
Then Thal spoke, quietly but firmly: "This isn't exactly our job." His tone was deliberate. He kept his eyes on the table, on the empty trenchers, on Ale mugs. He didn't look at Nyra or Valen directly. "We are here to kill Archons, to stop what's coming. Not every murder is ours to solve."
Nyra's eyes flicked to him. A small bitterness there. "Yes but if this is spreading if it's dangerous then we can't just pretend we don't see it."
Alinda leaned in, calm, cold, curious. "If this is some monster, some new horror then maybe solving what we see is part of the job. Because every clue matters. Even the things that seem separate."
Valen swallowed. He looked across the room at patrons cheering or groaning over Tar's drinking but then back at Nyra, Luken, Thal. "Right," he said slowly. "We don't ignore it but we don't get distracted either."
Luken nodded, setting down his spoon. "We follow the clues but yes the Archons are what we hunt. This is a piece of the puzzle, maybe. Or maybe it's something else entirely. Either way, we watch, we learn."
Thal looked up then, golden eyes even. "Exactly but I don't want us dragged into something bigger until we understand what it is. If we act rashly, we might help the wrong side."
Nyra's voice was quieter but firm: "I'll get more information from Sera. The woman whose husband died… I might learn something. I just… don't want more people to die quietly if we can do something."
Tar swigged some ale and grunted his agreement. He was content for words to be heavy but also liked action more.
Alinda nodded, not quite smiling. "Then that's what we do. We keep hunting Archons but we don't ignore blood on the streets. Let's see how far it reaches."
Valen leaned forward, raising his mug. "To seeing what reaches."
Thal's chair scraped against the wooden floor, the sound quiet but commanding enough to pull the group's eyes to him. He stood, towering even in the dim tavern light, shadows from the lanterns clinging to the edges of his broad form. Without a word, he adjusted the crimson kilt Merek had fashioned for him and reached for the worn strap of his weapon.
Nyra looked up mid-sentence. "Leaving already?"
He paused, his golden eyes soft but distant. "It's late," he said simply. "You'll need rest. The city's louder at night than it should be."
Neo straightened, about to protest but Thal had already turned away. His heavy steps thudded once, twice, then faded into near-silence as he passed through the doorway. The noise of the inn the laughter, the chatter, the clinking of mugs seemed to dull slightly behind him, as though the space had lost its anchor.
Alinda watched him go, her expression unreadable. For a heartbeat, she stayed still, her crimson eyes catching the firelight in twin glimmers. Then she sighed, pushing back from the table. "And here I thought we'd get at least one night of peace," she murmured.
Nyra arched a brow. "You're following him?"
Alinda smirked, sliding her gloves tighter over her fingers. "Someone has to make sure he doesn't flatten another guard tower by accident." Her tone was teasing but there was a sharper glint behind her smile a trace of knowing concern.
She made her way to the door, her boots whispering over the wooden floor. As she stepped outside, the night air met her like a cool breath. The street was still busy, though shadows pooled thick between the torchlights.
But Thal was gone.
Alinda stopped on the cobblestones, hands resting lightly at her hips. "Typical," she muttered under her breath. "Walks like a mountain and vanishes like smoke."
Her eyes flicked upward, to the maze of rooftops above Lions Gate. The moonlight brushed against the tiles, casting a pale silver glow across them. She exhaled through her nose, half-smile tugging at her lips. "Fine then. Rooftops it is."
With a small leap graceful, effortless she caught the edge of a lower roof and pulled herself up. Her movements were fluid, feline, the soft scrape of leather against stone. From there, she began her ascent higher, jumping from one ledge to another, the city's labyrinth sprawling beneath her.
The air grew cooler the higher she went. Music drifted faintly from the taverns below, mingling with the distant toll of the cathedral bell. The scent of metal, salt, and smoke clung to the night breeze.
She moved lightly, eyes scanning every alley and corner, searching for the massive silhouette that could only belong to Thal but she didn't hurry. She knew better. If he wanted to be found, he would be. If not well, she could still watch over him from above.
The rooftops stretched ahead, dark and endless, and Alinda smiled faintly to herself. "Always walking off alone…" she murmured, the wind catching her words and carrying them away. "One day, that's going to cost you." She vanished across the roofs, chasing the echo of Thal's steps through the city.
The night air wrapped around Thal like a cold shroud as he stepped deeper into Lions Gate, each footfall quiet despite his impossible size. The city had settled into that late-hour lull streetlights burning low, shadows stretching tall, the scent of cooking smoke fading beneath the salt of the sea breeze.
He wasn't wandering.
He was following something.
Something only a Nephilim could sense.
A faint pulse in the world beneath the world wrongness threaded through stone and water, through the air itself. It whispered, it tugged, like a faint vibration under his skin. The echo of a presence he'd only ever known on battlefields or in ruin:
A Harbinger.
It left traces the civilians were blind to hairline fractures along the cobbles, subtle twists in the mortar between bricks, patches of warped stone like everything had softened and hardened again wrong. To most eyes it would look like age, or poor construction but Thal saw the truth.
He felt it.
He stopped at a section of the street where faint cracks spiraled outward like veins, reaching toward the main district. He crouched, fingertips brushing the stone. It hummed faint, sick, not entirely physical.
"It's everywhere…" he murmured.
Whatever Harbinger had been summoned, birthed, or awakened here it had seeped into the very bones of the city. Its presence was not clean or contained like the one he fought at Kel. This was spread wide. Diluted but constant. Like a sea of old blood diluted in water, staining everything it touched.
He rose again, towering above the alleyway. A few late-night citizens, drunk or wandering home, froze the moment they noticed his silhouette. A woman grabbed her friend's arm and whispered sharply. A lantern-bearer stopped walking entirely, mouth slightly open.
He didn't blame them. He rarely cared, either but tonight, their eyes felt heavier, more prying. His focus narrowed. They were just noise fleeting, harmless. What he sought was older than them. Buried deeper.
Thal followed the whisper of corruption down the street, toward the residential district. He passed beneath hanging lanterns that flickered as he walked by, their flames bending in unease. The cracks on the road became more frequent, more jagged like something beneath had punched upward.
A Harbinger this large should not exist inside city walls.
It should not fit.
And yet… its trail was everywhere.
He paused at a fountain where the water rippled unnaturally though the wind was still. He stared into the pool. The faint shimmer of wrongness twisted beneath the surface, almost invisible but not to him. A memory flashed behind his eye: winged flesh, talons like iron, bone faces, the haunting shriek Kel had drowned in.
This one felt older.
Deeper.
Less wild than the one of rot but larger. So large that tracking it was nearly pointless.
Thal's jaw tightened.
It wasn't one trail.
It wasn't following a path.
It was everywhere.
As if the Harbinger wasn't moving around the city…
But beneath it.
His hand curled slightly at his side. "This is no spawn. This is no fragment."
No, this was something closer to a true Harbinger one of the old ones, whose presence warped the land simply by existing.
A distant memory of Saul flickered in his mind. Another Nephilim. One who should have sensed this long before any mortal eye saw blood on the streets.
Saul was diligent.
Unyielding.
He never ignored a Harbinger's stain.
So where was he?
Thal's brow furrowed deeply, frustration rippling across his otherwise stoic face. "Saul should have been here. He should have burned this out before it touched a single stone."
He lifted his head, golden eyes sweeping across the rooftops of Lions Gate. The air smelled wrong like something old and stagnant pressed just under the surface of the city's life.
"Has something happened to him?" he whispered.
The thought tightened something in his chest not fear but a cold calculation. If Saul was silent, taken, or trapped, then the Harbinger might be acting unchallenged. Its influence spreading. The murders merely symptoms of deeper sickness.
He followed the path a little farther. More cracks. More warped stone. A faint echo of rot mixed with something metallic but after another twenty minutes of searching, of reading the faint vibrations through stone and air, the truth settled in. Tracking it was impossible. It infected everything, lingering and soaking into Lions Gate like a stain impossible to wash out.
He stopped under a slanted roof, the shadow falling over half his face.
"This city is sitting on something it cannot see," he murmured. "And if Saul truly is gone…" His hand flexed once. His breath left him slow. "…then it falls to me."