The rain fell heavy on the cobblestones of Verleth City, turning the market district into a maze of dark reflections and muted sounds. Kael Vorden pressed himself against the cold stone wall of a spice merchant's shop, his eyes tracking the movements of three figures crossing the square ahead. They wore the brown leather coats common to dock workers, but their boots were too clean and their postures too alert. Guards pretending to be laborers, which meant someone important was moving through the area tonight.
Kael had learned long ago that the most dangerous moment in any job was when you thought you understood what was happening. Right now, he understood that he was supposed to retrieve a sealed case from a warehouse on the eastern docks. His employer, a woman named Marca Threyn who ran a trading company called the Silvered Path, had paid him half up front with a promise of triple his usual rate for a simple retrieval. The case supposedly contained contracts for a shipping route dispute. Simple, she had said. Barely worth mentioning the details.
Which was exactly why Kael had spent the last two days watching the warehouse, mapping the guard rotations, and asking careful questions in the taverns where dock workers gathered after their shifts. What he had learned made his jaw tight with tension. The warehouse belonged to the Merchants Guild officially, but three separate groups had visited it in the past week, each arriving at night with armed escorts. One group wore the silver pins of the Prismatic Assembly, the cultivation sect that claimed authority over Aetheric research in the eastern territories. Another group had carried the wooden tokens of the Resonance Council, the governing body that licensed all legal Aetheric practice.
The third group had carried no identification at all, which made them the most interesting.
Kael waited until the false dock workers crossed into the next street before he moved from his position. He kept to the shadows naturally, his body moving with the practiced ease of someone who had survived fifteen years of dangerous work. His hand rested on the wrapped hilt of his blade, a curved knife made from treated steel that could disrupt Aetheric techniques if wielded correctly. He was not a powerful cultivator by any measure. His connection to the Aether was functional but unimpressive, allowing him to strengthen his body temporarily and, more importantly, to disrupt and negate the techniques of others within a short range.
Most cultivators spent their lives reaching for greater power, attuning themselves to higher frequencies of the Aether to perform spectacular feats. Kael had realized early that he had neither the talent nor the inclination for that path. Instead, he had focused on being difficult to kill. His specialty was making other people's techniques fail at critical moments, then putting a knife in their ribs while they stood confused. It was not glorious work, but he was still alive when many more talented cultivators had died pursuing their ambitions.
The warehouse stood at the end of a narrow street lined with closed shops. A single lantern burned above the main entrance, casting weak light across the wooden door reinforced with iron bands. Kael studied the building from the alley across the street, counting windows and noting the lack of visible guards. Too quiet. The building should have had at least one bored watchman leaning against the door, especially if it contained anything valuable.
He waited in the darkness, rain soaking through his coat, and watched. Twenty minutes passed before he saw the flicker of candlelight behind a second-story window, visible for just a moment before it vanished. Someone was inside, moving without lanterns to avoid drawing attention. Professional work.
Kael considered his options carefully. The smart choice was to walk away from this job, return Marca's advance payment, and find employment elsewhere. The presence of multiple interested parties, combined with the careful security, suggested this was not a simple contract dispute. This was the kind of situation that left bodies in the harbor and names forgotten by anyone who valued their continued health.
But Kael had been in Verleth City for three months now, and his funds were running low. The work had been scarce lately, and he had standards about the jobs he would accept. No killing without cause. No working for slavers or flesh traders. No jobs that targeted children or families. These standards made him a difficult employee in a profession that rarely rewarded moral complexity, which meant he often went hungry between legitimate opportunities.
He needed this payment. Which meant he needed to be smarter than whoever was waiting inside that warehouse.
Kael circled the building through the adjoining alleys, checking for secondary entrances and escape routes. He found a loading dock in the rear with a door that showed fresh scratches around the lock, suggesting recent forced entry. He also found two more watchers positioned on nearby rooftops, visible only because he knew to look for the subtle displacement of rainwater running off the edges. Four people at minimum, possibly more inside.
This was not a retrieval job. This was a trap, or at the very least, a situation that would become violent the moment he touched whatever was in that warehouse.
Kael retreated to a covered alcove two streets away and sat on a dry section of stone step, thinking through his situation. Marca Threyn had been pleasant during their meeting, professional and straightforward. She had explained the job clearly, answered his questions without hesitation, and provided detailed information about the warehouse layout. All of which now seemed like careful preparation to make him comfortable enough to walk into danger without adequate caution.
The rain continued its steady fall as Kael considered his next move. He could confront Marca directly, demand answers about what he was really being hired to retrieve. But if she was willing to lie about the job's nature, she would certainly lie when confronted. He could walk away entirely, but that meant losing the advance payment and likely making an enemy of the Silvered Path trading company, which had influence throughout the merchant district.
Or he could do what he did best. Watch, wait, and let other people make mistakes first.
Kael settled in to observe the warehouse from a distance. He wrapped his coat tighter against the chill and prepared for a long night. Professional patience was a skill that had saved his life more times than his blade had. Most people grew restless when nothing happened, their attention wandering until they missed the critical moment. Kael had learned to find comfort in stillness, to let his mind drift across possibilities while his eyes continued their steady watch.
An hour passed before the first movement occurred. A carriage rolled down the street, its wheels splashing through accumulated water. It was a expensive vehicle, with enclosed sides and a driver wearing the livery of a private household. The carriage stopped in front of the warehouse, and four people emerged.
Kael recognized two of them immediately. The first was Marca Threyn herself, her distinctive red hair bound up beneath a wide-brimmed hat that shed the rain effectively. The second was a man named Jestin Vole, a mid-level administrator in the Merchants Guild who supplemented his official income by arranging discreet transactions between parties who preferred not to meet directly.
The other two were strangers. One was a tall woman wearing the practical clothing of a serious cultivator, her posture suggesting significant martial training. The other was a smaller figure whose face was hidden beneath a hood, but whose movements suggested either injury or extreme caution about being observed.
They entered the warehouse together, and Kael saw no signs of conflict or surprise from the watchers he had identified earlier. Which meant those watchers belonged to this group, not to some rival faction. Marca had not sent him into a trap. She had intended to exclude him from whatever transaction was occurring inside that building.
Kael smiled without humor. He had been hired as misdirection, possibly as a scapegoat if something went wrong. Someone looking into tonight's events would find his name connected to the warehouse, creating a convenient distraction while the real business concluded. It was actually a clever plan, assuming he was foolish enough to follow his instructions without question.
He stood up from his covered position and began moving toward the warehouse with renewed purpose. If Marca wanted him to be the obvious thief, he might as well learn what was valuable enough to require such elaborate deception. The presence of a cultivator suggested Aetheric materials or techniques, which was consistent with the interest from the Prismatic Assembly and Resonance Council.
Kael approached the building from the side, avoiding the rooftop watchers' sight lines by staying close to the walls. The warehouse had been built decades ago when this district was more prosperous, and its construction showed it. Solid stone foundation, wooden upper structure with reinforced corners, and windows placed for ventilation rather than security. He found a drainage pipe that would support his weight and began climbing.
The rain worked in his favor now, masking the small sounds of his movement and keeping potential observers focused on staying dry rather than watching empty walls. Kael reached a second-story window and carefully tested it. Unlocked, which confirmed his suspicion that the watchers were meant to observe approaches to the building rather than prevent all entry. They expected threats to come from the front, from official channels or rival groups.
He eased the window open and slipped inside, finding himself in a storage room filled with crates stamped with various merchant marks. The voices from below were clear enough to hear but muffled enough that he could not distinguish individual words. Kael moved carefully across the floor, testing each step before committing his weight, avoiding the boards that looked warped or weakened by age.
A stairway descended to the main warehouse floor, and Kael positioned himself at the top where darkness and stacked crates provided cover. From here he could see the group gathered around a cleared space in the center of the room. Someone had set up a working area with several lanterns, their light reflecting off something metallic on the floor.
Marca was speaking with controlled urgency. "The timeline has moved forward. We need to complete the transfer tonight, before the Assembly realizes what we have acquired."
Jestin Vole looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "If they discover we intercepted their shipment, they will not respond with bureaucratic complaints. The Assembly has kill squads for situations like this."
The tall cultivator woman spoke with a voice that carried absolute confidence. "The Assembly's attention is focused on the northern border conflicts. They have no resources to spare hunting down a single lost artifact, especially when their records will show it was destroyed in transit. By the time they realize the truth, we will have completed our research and moved the results beyond their jurisdiction."
The hooded figure finally spoke, and Kael felt his entire understanding of the situation shift. The voice was wrong somehow, carrying multiple tones simultaneously, as if several people were speaking the same words with slight delays. "The Mirror of Reflected Truths should not exist in this era. Its presence creates discontinuities in the Aetheric pattern. We must study it before deciding its final disposition."
Marca nodded sharply. "Which is exactly why the Silvered Path secured it for you. Our agreement stands. You get six months of exclusive research access, then we broker its sale to the highest bidder among the cultivation sects. Everyone profits, and the Assembly's monopoly on advanced artifacts diminishes by one more piece."
Kael processed this information with growing concern. He knew the name "Mirror of Reflected Truths" from stories told in taverns and cautionary tales shared among cultivators. It was supposed to be a legendary artifact from before the Aetheric Wars, a tool created by ancient practitioners whose understanding of the Aether surpassed modern knowledge. The stories varied wildly in details, but they agreed on one thing. The Mirror showed truth, but the price of that revelation was always higher than expected.
He had no idea what such an artifact might actually be worth, but if the Prismatic Assembly was willing to kill to keep it, and this group was willing to risk their lives to steal it, the value was measured in more than simple currency.
Kael made his decision quickly. This situation was beyond his capability to influence or control. The smart move was to retreat, disappear from Verleth City tonight, and let these factions fight over their prize without his involvement. He had survived fifteen years by recognizing when he was outmatched and withdrawing before commitment became fatal.
He began backing away from his vantage point, moving with the same careful patience that had brought him here. He reached the window and was halfway through when he heard the shout from below.
"The wards just detected someone! Second floor, eastern section!"
Kael dropped pretense and threw himself through the window, rolling as he hit the ground outside. He came up running, his mind already mapping escape routes through the dark streets. Behind him he heard the warehouse door slam open and the sound of pursuit beginning.
The night was about to become significantly more complicated.
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