The tavern smelled of sour ale and desperation, a familiar scent to Vaelreth, who sat tucked into the corner where the lamplight barely reached. His hood was up, not for secrecy—gods, no—but because it amused him to watch people squirm, wondering if they should fear the shadowed figure or ignore him. Most chose to ignore. That was their first mistake.
He swirled the dregs of his drink, a watery wine that tasted like regret. The room buzzed with the usual chatter: merchants haggling over grain prices, a bard mangling a lute tune, and a table of mercenaries boasting about scars they didn't earn. Vaelreth's lips twitched into a half-smile. Predictable. The world was a scroll of the same tired stories, looping endlessly. He'd read them all before he was twenty, back when he was just a scholar with ink-stained fingers and too many questions.
Now, at thirty-two, he was something else entirely. Not a hero, not a villain—those labels were for people who cared about applause or infamy. Vaelreth cared for neither. He wanted the world to move, to twist and spark and surprise him. And tonight, in this nowhere tavern in the crumbling city of Eryndor, he was about to nudge it.
His eyes, sharp and green as cut jade, flicked to the door as it creaked open. A man stumbled in, cloaked in the ostentatious red of a royal courier. The room didn't quiet—nobody cared about King Tormund's lackeys anymore—but Vaelreth leaned forward, just enough to show interest. The courier clutched a sealed parchment, its wax stamp glinting like a warning. Vaelreth's smile widened. He knew that seal: the twin serpents of House Varn, advisors to the throne. Schemers, liars, and—most importantly—boring.
He set his cup down, the faintest clink against the table. Across the room, a mercenary glanced his way, then quickly looked elsewhere. Good. Vaelreth didn't need attention yet. He needed the courier to reach the bar, to hand over that parchment to the barkeep, who'd pass it to the hooded woman waiting upstairs. A simple exchange, one of a hundred happening across Eryndor tonight. Except this one wasn't.
Vaelreth's fingers twitched, and the air around him shivered—not enough for anyone to notice, but enough to wake something older than the city itself. Beneath the tavern, deep in the earth, a forgotten rune hummed. He'd found it weeks ago, buried under layers of dirt and denial, a relic from a time when magic wasn't just parlor tricks for charlatans. One whisper from him, one spark of intent, and that rune could split the tavern's foundation like an overripe fruit.
He didn't plan to destroy the place. Not tonight. Chaos wasn't about destruction; it was about possibility. And that parchment? It held a possibility that made his pulse quicken.
The courier reached the bar, muttering to the barkeep, who nodded toward the stairs. Vaelreth's gaze followed the exchange, his mind already three steps ahead. The parchment contained orders—orders to move a certain prisoner from the king's dungeons to a black-site fortress in the mountains. A prisoner nobody was supposed to know about. A prisoner who, if freed, could unravel Tormund's fragile grip on the throne.
Vaelreth didn't care about the throne. He didn't care about the prisoner, either, not really. What he cared about was the ripple effect: the panic in the court, the whispers in the streets, the way every lord and beggar would suddenly wonder what else they'd missed. A world on edge was a world worth watching.
He rose, smooth as a shadow sliding across a wall, and slipped toward the stairs. Nobody stopped him. Nobody dared. The mercenaries kept their eyes on their ale, the bard kept butchering his song, and the courier didn't even glance his way. Vaelreth was a ghost until he chose to be a storm.
Upstairs, the hooded woman waited in a cramped room that smelled of mildew and secrets. She didn't flinch when Vaelreth entered without knocking, but her hand hovered near the dagger at her belt. Smart. He liked smart.
"Vaelreth," she said, her voice low, like she was tasting the name for poison. "You're late."
"I'm exactly when I need to be, Lirien." He leaned against the doorframe, casual but not careless. "Got the parchment?"
She held it up, the wax seal unbroken. "You sure about this? Stealing from House Varn isn't a game."
He chuckled, a sound like dry leaves skittering across stone. "Everything's a game if you play it right."
Lirien's eyes narrowed, but she handed over the parchment. Vaelreth broke the seal with a flick of his thumb, scanning the crabbed handwriting. Just as he'd thought: orders to move the prisoner, signed by Lord Varn himself. The kind of orders that could start wars or end them, depending on who held the pen.
"You're not going to read it?" Lirien asked, suspicion sharp in her tone.
"Don't need to," Vaelreth said, tucking the parchment into his cloak. "I already know what it says."
"Then why—"
"Because it's not about the words." He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a murmur. "It's about what happens when they're gone."
Lirien stiffened, but she didn't back away. "You're mad."
"Probably." His smile was a blade, quick and bright. "But the world's too dull without a little madness."
He turned to leave, but paused at the door, glancing back. "Oh, and Lirien? When the screaming starts, don't blame me. Blame the ones who thought they could keep secrets from a shadow."
He was gone before she could reply, slipping down the stairs and out into the night. The air was cold, sharp with the promise of frost, and Eryndor's streets were a maze of torchlight and suspicion. Vaelreth moved through them like he was born to it, his steps silent, his mind alight with possibilities.
The parchment was just the beginning. A nudge, a spark, a crack in the foundation of a world too comfortable in its routines. By morning, House Varn would be scrambling, the king would be paranoid, and the prisoner—well, the prisoner would be a problem for someone else.
Vaelreth didn't care who won or lost. He cared that the game had started.
And for the first time in weeks, he wasn't bored