The tavern was alive.
Laughter spilled from the crooked windows like wine from a cracked barrel. Inside, the place was stuffed to the rafters with townsfolk—miners, bakers, tailors, farmhands—all packed shoulder to shoulder, mugs of ale raised high. The scent of roasted meat, wood smoke, and spilled beer soaked the air. And above it all, one name echoed again and again.
"To Nightshade!"
A thunderous cheer followed, mugs clanging together.
"May the nobles sleep with one eye open!" someone roared, and the tavern shook with laughter.
The news had spread like wildfire. Just last night, the vault—Duke Caspian's own tax chamber—had been raided under the noses of his elite guards and mages. No signs of damage, except for those standing in Nightshade's way. No evidence of entry. Just a vanished treasure chest and a burned mark of a flower. The nobles were furious.
The commoners? They were ecstatic.
"Did you hear how he walked out of a rain of spells without a single burn?"
"Aye, my cousin saw it—said he just strolled through the smoke like a ghost!"
"Some say he's got demon blood," an older man offered, slurring slightly. "Others say he's a fallen noble, back for revenge."
"Don't matter what he is," a barmaid grinned, "so long as he keeps robbing those bastards blind."
Laughter. Cheers. Another round.
In a dark corner of the tavern, nursing a mug of strong ale, sat a young man with sharp black hair and piercing blue eyes. He leaned casually against the wall, letting the firelight catch the angular lines of his face. Handsome, striking—even more so in the worn but well-fitted black coat he wore.
He looked no different from any other traveler passing through Valmount.
And yet, beneath the laughter and spilled drink, he was the reason for all of it.
Zac—the boy from the slums. The one no one noticed back in the academy. The lazy one. The daydreamer. The failure.
Nightshade.
He lifted the mug to his lips, savoring the bitter tang of ale. It wasn't the finest brew, but it tasted a hell of a lot better when it was bought with gold stolen from the people who once called him worthless.
Just one gold coin, worth four hundred silver. Enough to buy him a hot meal, a warm bed, and round after round of ale without anyone questioning his sudden generosity.
The rest? Vanished. Stored in ways no mage could trace. Hidden where even space itself forgot how to reach.
"Can you believe it?" a drunk farmer slurred near his table. "One minute they were ready to fry him, the next—poof! Just gone!"
Zac smirked quietly and took another sip.
It was almost too easy. The guards had been well-trained, the mages well-equipped. But they all made the same mistake.
They relied on tradition.
They prepared for fire, steel, speed. They weren't prepared for someone who could bend reality like thread in a loom. Someone who could vanish not just from sight—but from reach. Someone who wasn't fighting for power... but for balance.
"Next time," said a young woman near the bar, "he'll hit the trade house. Mark my words."
"Nah, it'll be the grain vault," a blacksmith countered. "That's where they store the real silver. He'll take a cut for us next time—he has to."
There it was.
That single sentence again.
"Next time, it'll be our payday."
It was always pay day when Zac robbed. But the commoners made it a habit to say "next time." Saying you had already been paid could get a man's throat red and watery.
Zac leaned back, tilting his mug slightly. The firelight danced in his blue eyes.
He hadn't left them coins. Not yet. That would come later. When the time was right. When they were ready. When the heat had died down. Right now, they didn't need coin—they needed hope. A spark. A reminder that the nobles weren't untouchable. That their walls could be breached. That their fear could be returned.
And today, that hope filled every inch of this tavern like smoke in a chimney.
Zac didn't speak much. Just watched. Listened. Relished.
Not in arrogance—but in quiet satisfaction. The people were alive again. They had a legend now. A name to raise their glasses to. A shadow in the dark who fought for them without ever asking for thanks.
And ironically, none of them knew he was sitting five feet away, boots up, hair tousled, clothes smelling faintly of smoke from last night's fight.
"Another round for the whole floor!" someone shouted, throwing coins on the bar.
The barkeep glanced at Zac.
He nodded.
"Put it on mine," Zac said smoothly, voice low but firm.
The cheers that followed shook the beams.
He smirked again and raised his own mug in silent toast.
To chaos.
To justice.
To Nightshade.
Through the whole day the tavern was beaming with celebration,
The celebration of Nightshade continued. Another round of stories about Nightshade's deeds circled through the group.
"Did you hear what he did to that tax collector?" boomed an older man with a full white beard and ale-soaked breath. "Dragged him out by his britches and tied him upside down in the town square like a pig ready for roast! Left a bag of silver behind, too!"
Laughter erupted. A few pounded their mugs in agreement, while others retold embellished versions of their own Nightshade sightings. The town had grown bold in their admiration for the masked/hooded figure who haunted their oppressors from the rooftops.
The praise wasn't for Zac, not directly. It was for Nightshade and that suited him just fine.
But amid the drunken cheer, someone wasn't smiling.
He sat alone near the hearth, cloaked in a dusty gray robe stitched with faint blue runes. His face was clean-shaven, pale, and stretched tight like it hadn't worn a smile in years. No one had noticed him when he entered. But now, as the old man shouted again about Nightshade's greatness, the mage rose.
And the warmth in the tavern vanished.
"Ha!" the mage barked suddenly, his voice slicing through the noise like a blade. "I knew it. All of you… every last one of you are his accomplices!"
Mugs froze mid-air. The fiddle died out mid-note. Silence strangled the room.
Zac's smile faltered.
The old man blinked in confusion. "What's this now? I was just—"
"You were praising a criminal," the mage spat, his fingers curling with invisible energy. "You celebrate theft. Treason. Sedition!"
Someone laughed nervously. "A bit of exaggeration, innit? It's just tavern talk."
The mage's hands rose higher, his eyes glinting with glee. "Then let your broken bones answer for your jokes."
With a sharp gesture in the air, the room tilted—literally. The floor groaned and the tables tipped as the mage's spell sent a burst of wind exploding from his palm. The blast overturned the tavern like a kicked-up rug.
Chairs and mugs went flying. People screamed, stumbling over each other as they scrambled for the door.
Zac remained still, his instincts screaming to act, to leap across the room and silence the mage before the man could cast another spell—but he couldn't. Not yet. Not as Zac. Not with dozens of witnesses. So instead, he watched carefully… waiting for a mistake.
The mage pointed toward the door.
A young man—barely older than a boy—had almost made it out. His hand gripped the latch.
The wind spell hit him in a blink.
It didn't just knock him down—it cleaved straight through his shin, slicing his leg off just below the knee with sickening ease.
He collapsed with a high-pitched scream, blood spraying across the wall like an overturned wine bottle.
The crowd froze.
Even the most desperate turned to stone. Mothers shielded children. Husbands clutched wives. No one moved. No one dared challenge the mage now.
The mage smiled wider. His fingers twitched as if craving another spell.
"Good," he said calmly. "Now you understand."
The boy screamed behind him, twitching on the floor, reaching for a leg that wasn't there anymore.
"Each and every one of you will rot in prison for aiding a wanted man," the mage declared. "For harboring Nightshade. For worshipping him."
A few gasps fluttered through the crowd, but no one protested.
Zac sipped his ale slowly and narrowed his eyes.
He enjoys this. The mage didn't care about Nightshade. He wasn't sent here for justice. He was here to hurt people. To show dominance. The magic wasn't controlled—it was barely reined in.