The basket settled with a final, dusty thud on the warehouse floor.
Aurelia held herself rigid, a human statue tucked among the fragrant spheres. Through the weave, she could make out blurred, hulking shapes moving in the dim light—the dark creatures, unloading the rest of the baskets with unsettling ease.
One of them, the one who had dropped her, still lingered.
She could feel his presence, a dense shadow just beyond the reeds.
He watched as his counterparts hefted two baskets apiece, moving them to a stack with rough, efficient grace.
A low, curious grumble vibrated through the air. "What is actually inside this basket…" The words were a dark, thoughtful rumble, spoken more to himself than to the others.
Aurelia's blood turned to ice. She stopped breathing.
Then, a sound—a rasping, scraping against the outside of the basket. A tipped finger hooked into one of the holes above her head, testing the weave. The entire basket shifted slightly.
Why is everything not as planned? Where is Amora, the lady Calvus said I would see?
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drum that couldn't stop beating.
It was so loud she was certain the creature must hear it.
Slowly, agonizingly, a hand—broad, leathery, and grey—parted the top layer of oranges at the basket's rim. The citrus scent intensified as the fruit shifted.
Then, the hand descended, dipping into the basket itself. She could see it from below, a monstrous shape blotting out the pinpricks of light.
It moved downward, an inch at a time, probing through the fruit.
Closer.
The rough pad of his finger grazed the fabric of Camilla's hood, just over her ear.
Aurelia squeezed her eyes shut, every muscle locked in pure, silent terror.
Please just go away!
The finger paused, as if sensing something different—not the smooth, firm skin of an orange, but the textured weave of cloth.
Then, a sharp shout echoed across the warehouse. "Krogh! The foreman wants the tally now! Stop playing with the fruit!"
The hand jerked back as if scalded. The oranges tumbled back into place, covering her once more. The shadow moved away, grumbling in its guttural tongue.
The immediate pressure vanished, but the terror did not. Aurelia lay in the sudden, smothering quiet, her heart pounding a brutal, deafening rhythm against her ears.
She had been an inch from discovery.
An inch from the end.
The tears that came now were silent, hot, and born of sheer, shattered nerves. She was not free. She was prey in a crate, and the hunters had just sniffed at the lid.
Where is the lady Amora?
The thought was a silent scream in the stifling dark.
Before it could fully form, the basket shifted. Not a lift, but a smooth, deliberate slide across the rough floor.
Aurelia froze, breath trapped in her lungs. Was it the creature returning? My luck had actually ran out?
The movement stopped. A moment of absolute stillness pressed down on her.
Then, a hand—small parted the oranges at the top with a soft, purposeful rustle.
"You can get out now."
The voice was a woman's. Low, calm, and threaded with an iron certainty that felt utterly alien in the grimy warehouse.
Amora.
Aurelia uncurled, her limbs stiff and trembling. She pushed the fruit aside.
A hand reached down, strong and unhesitating. Aurelia took it, her own fingers cold and unsteady. With a firm pull, she was helped out of the basket, stumbling onto the solid ground. Her legs threatened to buckle, the patterned imprint of the weave stinging her skin.
She blinked in the dim light, confronting the woman who had extracted her.
Amora was young—perhaps only a few years older than Aurelia herself—and strikingly beautiful, but hers was a beauty of a different currency.
Where Aurelia's was a fading, palatial softness, Amora's was all sharp angles and contained force. Her hair was the colour of black coffee, cut bluntly at her jawline.
Her eyes, a piercing hazel that missed nothing, were framed by thick lashes but held no welcome, only assessment. High cheekbones and a full, unsmiling mouth gave her face a severe elegance.
She wore practical, dark travel clothes that hugged a lean, athletic frame, and she stood with the grounded readiness of someone who expected danger and was never surprised by it.
"You must be Aurelia," Amora said, her voice cool and even. There was no warmth in it, no pity for the dust and terror. It was a statement of fact. "Calvus told me a lot about you."
Amora's focus was absolute. She did not offer comfort or ask after the harrowing journey.
Her gaze swept over Aurelia once more, a final, dismissive inventory, before flicking toward a shadowed archway at the rear of the warehouse. "We cannot stay. The next patrol is due. Follow me closely, and step only where I step."
Without waiting for acknowledgment, Amora turned. She moved with a soundless, fluid grace toward the darkness, a shadow melting into deeper shadow.
Aurelia clutched her bag and hurried after, her soft-soled shoes whispering on the grit.
The sanctuary of the orange-scented basket already felt like a memory from another life.
A new, sharper anxiety took its place. This wasn't right. The path was wrong.
"Where is Calvus?" Aurelia's voice, thin with strain, cut through the dusty silence. Her hand shot out, fingers closing around Amora's wrist.
The contact was electric. Amora stopped dead. She didn't whirl or snatch her arm away with violence. Instead, she turned her head slowly, her cool hazel eyes dropping to Aurelia's fingers on her leather-clad wrist.
The look was one of pure, icy astonishment, as if a rabbit had just bared its teeth. Aurelia felt the coiled strength in the arm she held and let go, her hand falling back to her side.
"He is waiting for you," Amora said, her voice now edged with a frosty precision.
"This wasn't the plan," Aurelia insisted, the words tumbling out in a desperate whisper. "We were meant to be out of this land by now. Across the border. I have to go home."
A humorless, almost imperceptible smile touched Amora's lips. "I do not receive orders from you," she stated, each word a small, hard pellet of sound. "You will hear everything from him."
She resumed walking, her pace quicker now, leading Aurelia out of the warehouse through a narrow gate and into a grimy alley that stank of wet stone and rot.
At its mouth, waiting under a lone, flickering streetlamp, was a carriage. It was not the humble produce cart. This one was closed, small, and oddly, unsettlingly decorated with garlands of fresh white moon-flowers and trailing ivy, a bizarre parody of a festival ride.
Aurelia's steps faltered. Amora didn't pause. She opened the lacquered door and gestured inside, an impatient flick of her wrist.
Swallowing a lump of cold dread, Aurelia climbed in.
The interior was plush but close, the air thick with the cloying sweetness of the flowers and the smell of stale perfume. It choked her.
Before she could protest further, Amora leaned back out of the carriage.
A man emerged from the shadows beside the driver's seat. He was young, with a striking fall of brown hair that glowed in the lamplight, and a rakish, knowing smile.
"Thank you," Amora whispered, her voice suddenly molten, all its earlier ice gone. She reached for him.
Her lips found his in a deep, lingering kiss that was far from a mere peck of gratitude. Her body arched against his, moving with a practiced, rhythmic ease as her hand splayed possessively against his chest, pinning him closer.
Aurelia froze, then swiftly turned her face to the darkened window, her cheeks burning. She stared intently at the grimy brick wall opposite, pretending to see nothing.
The man's low chuckle vibrated through the small space. "Anything for a beautiful person like you," he murmured back, his voice like smoothed velvet.
There was a shift, a creak of leather. Aurelia felt his gaze land on her, a palpable weight.
"What about this other beauty here? Wow, she's too beautiful, " he purred. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand—pale and long-fingered—reach into the carriage, stretching toward her, aiming to brush a stray strand of hair from her cheek.
"No, no, no," Amora laughed, the sound bright and sharp as breaking glass. She caught his wrist, pulling it back with a firm, playful tug. "She is important. Hands off."
The man laughed again, a rich, unconcerned sound. The carriage rocked slightly as he presumably climbed onto the driver's perch. Amora slipped in beside Aurelia, pulling the door shut with a definitive click. The sweet, choking air sealed around them.
As the carriage lurched into motion, Aurelia kept her head turned away, staring unseeing at the passing trees. Her hands were clenched so tightly in her lap her knuckles ached.
This wasn't the plan. Not the route, not the strange, florid carriage, not the unsettling exchange she had just witnessed.
Calvus had promised discretion, a path of shadows. This felt like being delivered through a side door into a different, gaudier kind of trap.
Calvus, she thought, the name a vow and an accusation in her mind. You will hear from me when we meet.
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To be continued...