The Grand Market was a cacophony of life and desperation. The air, thick with the smell of exotic spices, rotting vegetables, and unwashed bodies, was a physical thing that clung to Ravi's skin. He moved through the throng, his borrowed cloak pulled low, a ghost of a man drowning in a sea of noise and color. Every shout from a merchant, every crying child, every rough shove from a passerby sent a jolt of raw adrenaline through him. His entire being screamed at him to turn back, to flee to the silent, stone embrace of the vault.
But Lyssara's parting words were a cage of their own. "Fear is your shield, Ravi. Go wear it."
In the center of the square, the crowd had formed a sullen, silent ring. And in that ring, the day's cruel theater was underway.
Captain Valerius was a monument to brutal authority. A bull of a man, his scarred face was set in a permanent sneer beneath a polished iron helmet. On his fists, he wore ornate, bronze-plated gauntlets chased with cruel-looking spikes, weapons of intimidation as much as combat. He was everything Ravi was not: loud, confident, and drenched in the casual violence of a man who had never lost a fight.
At his feet knelt an old man, his thin back bared to the midday sun. The weaver. His skin was crosshatched with bleeding red welts from the leather whip Valerius held loosely in his gloved hand. The weaver didn't cry out. He just knelt there, his dignity a silent, stubborn rock against the tide of Valerius's cruelty.
"This is the price of defiance," Valerius boomed, his voice rolling over the cowed crowd. "This is the cost of forgetting your place. The Warden is merciful, but his patience is not infinite. This one thought his craft was more important than his duty. Now… he will have neither."
He raised the whip again. The crowd flinched as one.
This was Ravi's cue. His cue to walk into the fire.
His feet felt like lead blocks. He had to physically command his leg to move, then the other. He broke through the ring of onlookers, his heart trying to claw its way up his throat. He felt hundreds of eyes fall on him, a weight of attention he could barely stand.
He didn't look brave. Lyssara's coaching was perfect because it aligned with his true nature. He stumbled slightly, his expression one of wide-eyed, foolish disbelief. He looked like a lost traveler who had wandered into the middle of a wolf pack's feeding.
"That's… that's enough," he said. The words were a faint tremor, barely audible over the market's hum.
Valerius, his arm still raised, slowly lowered the whip. He turned his head, a slow, incredulous motion. A smirk spread across his ugly face. "What was that, little mouse? Did you squeak?"
The guards flanking Valerius tensed, their hands on their swords. The crowd held its breath.
Ravi swallowed hard, forcing himself to meet the Captain's gaze. "He's an old man. You've made your point. Let him go."
For a moment, there was pure, stunned silence. Then, Valerius threw his head back and laughed. It was a loud, ugly, braying sound. "Let him go? The law says he belongs to the Warden now. And who are you to speak of law?" He took a menacing step forward, his spiked gauntlets catching the light. "Another Void-touched stray, whispering nonsense? Or just a fool with a death wish?"
"I'm nobody," Ravi said, and he had never spoken a truer word in his life. He took an involuntary step backward. He looked terrified. Helpless. Exactly as he was supposed to.
Valerius's smile vanished. The game was over. "Nobody is right," he growled. He began to stalk toward Ravi. "I will make an example of you, too. I'll teach this whole market what happens when vermin forget to fear the boot."
He drew back his right fist, the bronze gauntlet gleaming. It was not a quick punch. It was a showman's blow, a slow, telegraphed haymaker designed for maximum public effect. Ravi saw it coming a mile away.
His training, his instinct, his entire history screamed at him to duck, to dodge, to fall.
He stood his ground. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.
He didn't even try to block. As the fist closed the last few inches, he flinched, his eyes squeezing shut, his head turning away in a gesture of pure, abject cowardice.
The bronze-plated fist, driven by the full, furious power of Captain Valerius's body, slammed into Ravi's raised shoulder.
The sound was not the wet smack of flesh or the crack of bone.
It was a deep, sickening, grinding crunch. The sound of a complex machine being dropped into a smelter.
The crowd gasped. Ravi opened his eyes.
Captain Valerius was on his knees, screaming. It wasn't the furious bellow of a warrior, but the high, thin shriek of a man in absolute, unendurable agony. His right arm was a ruin. The bronze gauntlet was crumpled and torn, bent inward like a crushed can. From the mangled metal protruded splintered shards of bone. His entire arm, from the knuckles to the shoulder, was shattered, bent back at a series of impossible, horrifying angles. The force of his own blow, denied a target, had been reflected back up his limb, destroying it utterly.
He stared at his ruined arm, then at Ravi. His eyes were wide with a terror that eclipsed the pain. He saw a boy, standing completely unharmed, not even a tear in his cloak, looking down with what appeared to be stunned, innocent confusion.
Silence descended upon the market square. It was a heavy, profound silence, filled with a thousand unasked questions. Then, a single whisper cut through the air.
"The Jinx…"
Another voice picked it up. "He didn't move… the Captain just… broke."
"An accidental saint…"
The whispers multiplied, weaving together, growing from a murmur into a wave of hushed, superstitious awe. The architecture of fear Lyssara had designed was being built, right here, right now, brick by brick, whisper by whisper.
Ravi stumbled backward, his face a perfect mask of shock and fear, mirroring the crowd's own reaction. He melted back into the throng of onlookers just as Valerius's guards rushed to their fallen captain's side, their faces pale with terror.
He had almost made it to the edge of the square, to the alley Lyssara had marked as his escape route, when he felt it. A gaze. Not the awestruck or terrified gaze of the common folk. This one was different. It was sharp, intelligent, and deeply analytical.
He looked across the chaotic square, his eyes searching.
He saw her standing on the steps of the Scribe's Guildhall, partially shielded by a marble column. A young woman, impeccably dressed in the dark, elegant silks of the high nobility. Her face was a study in aristocratic calm, but her eyes—her sharp, impossibly perceptive eyes—were not on the writhing, screaming Captain Valerius.
They were fixed directly on him. And as their gazes met, a slow, thoughtful, and deeply calculating smile touched her lips.