The descent from the pristine, sun-bleached marble of the Concord Spire into the city’s underbelly was less a journey of distance than one of realms. With every downward-spiraling street, the air grew thick with the smells of damp brick, coal smoke, and exotic spices Kaelen couldn’t name.
The polished sigils of Concord authority gave way to cracked cobblestones and walls layered with the ghosts of faded graffiti. For Kaelen, it was like stepping off a map.
For Lyra, it was like coming home.
The curse, a phantom limb of golden light tethering them wrist to wrist, was a constant, searing reminder of their predicament. Every time Kaelen’s disciplined stride outpaced her more fluid gait, or she darted aside to avoid a puddle he plowed through, the chain pulled taut, sending a bolt of shared agony through them.
It forced a rhythm on them, a clumsy, resentful dance.
But here, in the shadowed district known only as the Undercroft, the rhythm changed. Lyra’s steps became sure, confident.
The tension in her shoulders eased, replaced by a watchful poise that was entirely different from the cornered-animal defiance she wore in the Spire. Kaelen, however, felt every muscle in his body tighten.
His hand instinctively rested on the hilt of his blade, his Warden training screaming that every shadow held a threat, every averted gaze a potential attack.
“Try not to look like you’re about to purge the entire neighborhood,” Lyra muttered, her voice low.
“You’re drawing more attention than a sun-dragon in a sewer.”
Kaelen’s jaw tightened.
“This place is a powder keg. Unregistered magic, illicit trade… it’s chaos.”
“It’s community,” she corrected, her eyes scanning the crowds.
“People watching out for each other because no one else will. Especially not your Wardens.”
He had no answer for that. The memory of Lyra’s genuine empathy at Elara’s bedside was still a fresh, confusing bruise on his certainty.
He’d seen her as a force of destruction, a loose thread in the city’s tapestry. But here, that thread was woven into the very fabric of this place.
She led him into a sprawling, covered market that thrummed with a life the upper city lacked. Mages with mismatched robes hawked charms that fizzed with volatile energy.
Goblins weighed shimmering dust on tarnished scales. The air tasted of ozone and roasted nuts.
People nodded to Lyra as she passed, their expressions a mixture of respect and caution. When their eyes landed on Kaelen, tethered to her like a prize or a punishment, they shuttered completely, a wall of mistrust slamming down.
He was the enemy here, the gilded cage personified. The thought was as unsettling as the unstable magic crackling around him.
Lyra stopped before a stall cluttered with dusty alembics and jars of desiccated, magical creatures. An old man with eyes like chips of obsidian and skin like creased parchment looked up from a grimoire.
“Whisper,” he rasped, his voice dry as autumn leaves. “It’s been a while. You’ve brought a stray.”
His gaze flickered to Kaelen, dismissive and sharp.
“Silas,” Lyra said, her tone softening with a familiarity that pricked at Kaelen’s unease.
“I need information. The quiet kind.”
“Information is never quiet, and it’s never free,” Silas countered, not taking his eyes off Kaelen.
“And I don’t talk to gilded cages, Warden. No matter how pretty the bars.”
Kaelen felt a surge of impatience. This was their best lead, born from Lyra’s vague assertion that the plague felt “too perfect.”
They were looking for any aberration, any ingredient or technique that stood out. “We’re investigating the plague,” Kaelen said, his voice carrying the clipped authority of the Concord.
“Any citizen withholding information—”
Silas let out a wheezing laugh that turned into a cough.
“Citizen? You hear that, Lyra? He thinks his laws reach down here.”
He spat on the ground, a glob of greenish phlegm sizzling near Kaelen’s boot. “Your laws are what made this place necessary.”
Lyra shot Kaelen a look that was pure fire. She stepped forward, placing herself between the two men, a deliberate movement that shifted the power dynamic completely.
“Ignore him, Silas. He’s new,” she said, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial murmur.
“Thinks a badge is a key when it’s just a lock. I’m not here for him. I’m here for me.”
Kaelen fell silent, stung and frustrated. He was used to being the one in control, the one who commanded respect through presence and position.
Here, he was less than nothing; he was a liability. Forced into the role of a silent observer, he watched Lyra work, and a part of him, the disciplined Warden, took meticulous notes.
She didn’t ask about the plague directly. She spoke of the flow of things, the hum of magic in the Undercroft.
She talked about a tremor she’d felt, a wrongness in the city’s current. Silas listened, his shrewd eyes never leaving hers.
It was a language Kaelen didn’t speak, a conversation held in metaphors and shared histories. She produced a small, silver locket from a pocket.
With a whisper, a flicker of her chaotic energy swirled inside it, not destructive, but contained—a tiny, captured storm.
“A favor,” she said, sliding it across the counter.
“To ward your door. It’ll turn back anything with intent, no matter how it’s structured.”
Silas picked it up, his gnarled fingers tracing the silver. He looked from the locket to Lyra, and then gave a slow, grudging nod.
“There’s been talk,” he finally conceded, his voice barely audible over the market din.
“Of a thirst. A demand for high-grade stabilizers. The kind that keep volatile spells from tearing themselves apart.”
Kaelen’s ears perked up. Magical stabilizers were one of the most heavily regulated components in Aethel.
They prevented catastrophic magical chain reactions. To have them on the black market was a serious crime.
To have a sudden demand for them…
“Who?” Lyra asked simply.
“An alchemist. Fenris,” Silas said.
“Works out of the old refinery district. Always been good, but ambitious. A month ago, he started buying up every stabilizer he could find, paying prices that made no sense. Then, two weeks back… he went quiet. His lab’s been dark ever since.”
“Fenris,” Kaelen repeated, committing the name to memory. “We need his location.”
Silas ignored him, looking only at Lyra.
“He was getting his raw components from a Concord-only supplier. Had papers and everything. Forged, I’d wager, but good enough to fool the gate guards.”
The final piece clicked into place, cold and sharp in Kaelen’s gut. The plague was deliberate, Lyra had said. Not chaotic.
A spell that intricate would need powerful stabilizers to hold its form, to keep it from dissipating. And the components were sourced from within the Concord itself.
“Where is the lab?” Lyra pressed.
Silas drew a crude map on a piece of scrap parchment and pushed it toward her.
“Be careful, Whisper. Fenris wasn’t just ambitious. He was paranoid. His workshop is said to have a will of its own.”
Lyra pocketed the map and the locket of chaotic energy, which Silas had pushed back to her.
“A favor for a favor, old friend. Keep this. On me.”
A flicker of surprise, and perhaps gratitude, crossed the old man’s face. He gave a final, sharp nod.
As they walked away, the market’s noise fading behind them, Kaelen was silent. He was replaying the entire exchange in his mind, dissecting it.
Lyra hadn’t commanded or threatened; she had negotiated. She had used respect, a shared history, and a gift freely given to get what they needed. His own methods would have yielded nothing but a spat-upon boot.
He had been so sure of his own authority, of the righteousness of Concord law, that he had never considered it could be a barrier.
He was so lost in thought that he nearly walked into her as she stopped abruptly in a narrow alleyway. The curse flared, a sharp reprimand of pain.
“What is it?” he asked, rubbing his wrist.
Lyra was looking at him, her expression unreadable in the dim light. “You see now, don’t you?” she said, her voice quiet but intense.
“There are other kinds of law than the ones written in your Concord books. Laws of survival. Laws of trust. You can’t command them. You have to earn them.”
He looked away from her piercing gaze, at the grime-covered walls, at the distant, gleaming needle of the Concord Spire that seemed a world away. He thought of his unwavering faith in the system, a faith that had led him to hunt this woman down.
A faith that had left his sister comatose and him blind to the corruption festering within his own order. For the first time, he felt a crack in that faith, a deep and terrifying fissure.
“Your way got us a lead,” he admitted, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. It was a concession, a surrender of a small piece of his pride.
A faint, humorless smile touched her lips. “My way got us a lead,” she agreed.
“Your way got your sister sick.”
The words struck him with the force of a physical blow, sharp and unerringly true. He had no defense against them.
He was a Warden of the Concord, a protector of Aethel, and he was utterly, painfully reliant on the chaos-wielding criminal he had captured. The chain that bound them suddenly felt less like a prison and more like a lifeline—one she held, and he desperately needed.
“Let’s go,” she said, turning and starting down the alley. “Let’s see what this alchemist was so paranoid about.”
Kaelen followed, the shared pain in his wrist a dull throb. He was no longer a Warden leading his prisoner.
He was an outsider in a foreign land, following the one person who knew the law of the shadows.