Raven had already finished with the blade. The Gravewake Cipherblade was listed, tucked neatly under the anonymity of his ghost account, PinnedPawn. To him, it was nothing more than another stream of profit—rare, yes, but too conspicuous to risk under his real name. He didn't dwell on it. He never did. Profit was profit.
When he logged back in, the world around him stretched in a sweep of green. The Viradahl Wilds unfurled before his eyes—dense, ancient woods where every tree seemed to breathe and whisper. The meadow he crossed was no idle field; it was a clearing where old hunters said the voices of the dead gathered on the wind. Beyond the grasslands, the crooked thatch of Redfern Crossing rose out of the timberline, its smoke curling into the sky. A frontier village, famed for beast-hunting, where every family carried scars of the forest.
