Varun followed Ilthor as they stepped into the open sunlight of the lower terrace, where the buzz of organized labor echoed up the stone walls like a chorus of industry. Ilthor's estate was perched above his district, a fortress of carved brick and reinforced granite, but it overlooked a world in motion.
"This," Ilthor said, spreading his arms wide, "is mine."
Below, the grain yards came into view. Massive warehouse gates stood open, revealing stacks of grain crates stamped with the golden crest of his company. Teams of brightbloods and bonded workers moved in seamless rhythm, unloading carts, checking manifests, sharpening tools, moving like ants under the direction of a few well-fed foremen.
"You see that wheelhouse?" Ilthor said, tapping his cane toward a squat, steam-belching building.
"That's my kiln. Burns half the coal, pulls double the yield. We cook grain down to grainbrick, ship it sealed and dry, feeds a regiment or keeps six months in a cellar. Merchants pay double to not lose half their cargo to mold. Grain in, coin out. Every day."
"My youngest thinks it runs on magic. She's not wrong. Mana and sweat, that's what it takes to keep a city alive."
He led Varun along the carved path down the terrace steps, pausing now and then to gesture.
"My father built the first two mills, back when Newfyre still smelled like revolution and the streets were full of men playing hero," Ilthor said. "He saw the gap, bought the grain routes, and kept his head down while the old world burned. That's how you stay alive when crowns fall... you buy the right silence."
Varun gave a small nod. "I hear you, Ilthor."
They stepped onto a broad loading platform where a line of carts waited, the air thick with grain dust and steam. Laborers moved in rhythm, hoisting stamped sacks of processed grain onto wagons bound for every corner of Blackmount. A clerk barked orders in gutter-cant, voice sharp and rapid, while two guards lounged beside a cart stacked with sealed crates of diluted Glacium waste slurry, low-tier runoff, but still worth coin to the right smelters with the right filters.
Ilthor turned, his smile wide and white beneath a dark, well-trimmed beard. There was pride there, not vanity, something earned.
"But me?" he said. "I didn't just inherit. I built this from bones and ash. Tripled the routes. Paid for the roads myself. Hired half the damn quarter. You know how many mouths I feed? Sixty thousand. Between my yards, my mills, my holdings. And not one of 'em's gone hungry under my coin—not once."
Varun blinked. "It's... impressive."
Ilthor slowed as they reached the next platform, where bags were sealed with wax stamps and slid into reinforced crates. The scent of dried grain mixed with iron and steam.
Ilthor snorted. "It's empire. Not the kind they draw maps for. The kind you build in ledger columns and supply chains."
They passed a side building where a few scribes scratched figures on slates, flanked by a boy running orders on a rusted mana-cycle with three wheels. Ilthor nodded to him, then leaned in slightly to Varun.
"You see, Syr Varun, the nobles in their marble towers, they laugh at men like me. Say I'm fat, say I'm loud, say I married too many wives and wear too much gold. But when their daughters cry for bread? They call me."
He stopped near a platform that overlooked the entire operation, the river Tine to one side, the Gutters visible in the distance, and above them, the noble quarter peeking through the haze like a smirking lie.
"They've got heritage. I've got contracts. And contracts feed cities."
He turned back to Varun, his grin now sharp, his voice edged with something darker.
"So tell me. When the Governor chokes on his last breath and Varentis starts to shift, do you want to be in the tower that falls, or on the wheel that turns?"
Varun didn't answer immediately. His eyes drifted across the yard, watching the grain carts, the scribes, the guards with their idle hands and wary eyes.
Then he turned, composed as ever.
"I'll discuss it with the Council," Varun said smoothly. "You'll have my ear, Ilthor. That's more than most can say."
Ilthor blinked, frowning slightly. "The Council. Of course. And here I thought you came all this way just for me."
Varun smiled, just enough to be polite. "I have… other business in Varentis as well."
Ilthor's brow lifted. "May I pry?"
Varun leaned in slightly, voice dipping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Black market Glacium. Crates of it. Gutterside. Found a crew with a load willing to sell, quietly. Church-grade cut, untagged."
Ilthor's grin broke—not shattered, but cracked just enough to show what lay beneath. His hand tightened on the head of his cane.
"Church-grade?" he said, more breath than voice. "And untagged?"
Varun didn't reply. He didn't need to.
Ilthor looked away for a moment, across the yard, where the steam carts puffed and clerks barked over weight tallies. It was the look of a man remembering every asset he owned, and how quickly they'd all go up in smoke if the wrong ears heard the wrong word.
He gave a slow exhale through his nose.
"Basst's mercy, Varun… You don't play small."
There was no reprimand in his tone, only the unease of a man who knew the shape of the fire and had just seen someone dancing inside it. He tapped his cane once on the stone floor, a nervous tic he probably didn't know he had.
"That's not smuggler's stock," he muttered. "That's Church gold in another man's pocket."
The words hung there.
Everyone in Enada knew the Manabassic Church didn't just regulate Glacium, it owned it. At least in law, in fear, and in blood. But the raw supply? That came from the northern region of the Eastern Lang, in the frozen viceroyalty of Coldscar, where the ground split open into a jagged, howling wound known as the Frostmaw.
It was the largest known Glacium deposit in the world, an abyss that breathed cold and coughed wealth. Ninety percent of the continent's Glacium came from that single pit. And by decree, every shard mined was sold exclusively to the Church.
That deal, the Empire providing the lifeblood, the Church holding the veins, was what gave Newfyre its leverage on the international stage. The heart of magic's fuel channeled through a single frozen throat. A monopoly in all but name.
From the Frostmaw to the smallest sanctioned shard in a cobbler's workshop, every sliver was tracked, tithed, and sanctified. The Church didn't forgive theft. It erased it. Entire bloodlines had vanished under Inquisitor Orders for less.
Ilthor straightened his collar, then glanced sideways, lowering his voice out of habit more than necessity.
"Even the Empire steps quiet around that sort of thing," he said. "You know how the saying goes; not everything in Basstadt was seen. But nothing, ever, went unseen."
He looked back at Varun, and though the grin returned, it didn't reach his eyes this time.
"Still," he said slowly, "if you've found a crew reckless enough to handle it… well. Just don't let 'em get caught. And if they do, make sure your name isn't the one they remember."
Varun chuckled, low in his throat. "You think I'm that stupid?" he said, brushing a speck of dust from his cuff. "Please. I know the cost."
Ilthor exhaled, half relief, half tension leaving him in a hiss. But Varun wasn't finished.
"I only mentioned it because now I know your secret," he added, flashing a smile that was all edge and implication. "Your grain plan, your nice little pressure cooker of a famine waiting to boil over.
Thought I'd share something dangerous of my own. Balance the scales."
Ilthor shot him a sideways glance. "You're a bastard."
"I'm from Tyrellis," Varun said. "Same thing."
They both laughed. Not long, not loudly, but long enough to sound like men who didn't know what was coming next.
They turned to walk back toward the main platform. The light was harsh now, the sun crawling higher through the city haze, casting sharp shadows from the edge of the grain sheds and the towering stacks of cargo. Ilthor tapped his cane idly as he walked, his steps returning to their usual swagger.
Then Varun slowed.
Subtle, almost imperceptible, his head tilting ever so slightly, as if listening to something no one else could hear. A faint shift in the air. A disturbance in the pressure. A hum beneath the world.
His mana was whispering.
Attuned casters felt it differently, some like sparks along the spine, others like pressure in the skull.
For Varun, it came as movement in the sand beneath his feet, even when no sand was there. A ripple through dust, a tremor in stillness. And right now, it was screaming.
He turned his head slowly, upward, toward the sloped rooftop of a nearby loading loft.
Ilthor noticed the look a second later, cane pausing mid-tap.
"What is it?" he asked, voice quieter now.
Varun didn't answer.
His eyes had already locked on the shadow just beyond the grain lift tower, still at first, barely visible, then shifting like a coiled animal poised to strike.
A heartbeat passed.
"Above us," Varun murmured.
Ilthor followed his line of sight. "Spy?"
"Maybe," Varun muttered.
Then the shape moved.
Fast.
Then leapt.
"Shit," Varun barked. "Assassin!"
The figure fell like a hawk, dagger out, form compact and trained, all momentum aimed directly at Ilthor's chest.
But Varun was already moving.
His eyes bled instantly, thin red streams tracing down his cheekbones as power surged through him. His fingers cut the air in a sharp arc, and the ground obeyed.
Sand coiled upward from the dust and cracks, pulled from every nook and cranny. It surged like a whip, fast and precise.
The assassin struck the wave mid-air.
Sand exploded around him, coiling upward in a spiraling blast that hit like a crashing tide, disarming him as the dagger flew out of his hands.
But the assassin landed on his feet.
Stunned, yes. But alive.
His boots skidded across the stone as he braced low, eyes wild. Then, his veins flared.
Light pulsed beneath his skin, golden, angry, flickering like wildfire behind his eyes. The jagged lines of glowing mana crawled up his arms and neck, veins straining with the effort. Then he moved.
Not ran... launched.
A blur of motion, faster than the eye should track. His feet hit the ground with such force the stone cracked beneath them, and in an instant he closed the distance to where his dagger had fallen.
He scooped it mid-stride, momentum never breaking, the weapon back in his grip as if it had never left.
The air thundered in his wake. Dust kicked up in spirals behind him.
Ilthor's breath caught. "Brightblood assassin—!"
"Third Circle," Varun said calmly, watching the glow rise. "No chance."
He didn't move.
He didn't need to.
The assassin lunged forward, even faster, his body enhanced, his limbs unnaturally fluid, blade blurring through the air. He was aiming not just to kill, but to overwhelm.
Varun raised a single hand.
Blood leaked from both eyes in slow, steady streams.
And then the aura dropped.
Six golden circles flared into being above his head, each one burning with a different geometric sigil, glowing brighter with every heartbeat. The air vibrated. The light from the assassin's aura dimmed like a candle caught in a sandstorm.
Ilthor took a step back. Even the guards froze.
The assassin did too.
His foot caught mid-stride. His eyes widened, not with surprise. With recognition. With terror.
A caster of the Sixth Circle was not someone you fought. It was someone you fled.
He turned to run.
Varun sighed through his nose. "Predictable."
He held out one arm, palm low, and flicked two fingers upward.
The ground answered.
A spike of compressed sand exploded from the earth like a dagger from Basst himself, razor-thin, silent, and perfectly aimed. It shot through the assassin's jaw and out the back of his skull with surgical precision.
Crack.
Brain matter splattered across the crates around him. The body convulsed once. Then crumpled.
All that remained was twitching limbs and pooling blood, and the six golden circles still glowing above Varun's head, suspended in the air like rings of divine judgement. Each one pulsed faintly with residual mana, their light casting long, warping shadows across the stone.
Blood streamed from his eyes in slow, steady lines, not tears, but the cost. The blood cut paths down his face, soaking into the collar of his finely tailored coat. His breathing was even, controlled, but there was a tension in his frame, a tremble in his fingers.
Not weakness. Just the toll.
Magic came from somewhere. In Varun's case, a Caster, it came from him.
Ilthor stared at the burst skull, the mess of brain and bone splattered like spoiled fruit across the crates.
Varun lowered his hand. The circles faded.
Ilthor exhaled, long and low, his face a portrait of awe and dread.
The guards shouted, already running forward, but the threat had already ended.
The assassin's corpse twitched once, then stilled, the scent of scorched blood and ruptured bone thick in the air.
Ilthor stood motionless, "That wasn't just an assassin."
"No," Varun said calmly. "Someone was sending you a lovely message."
He turned to face Ilthor, blood still streaking from both eyes like paint.
Then, with precise, practiced ease, he reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a folded square of cloth, deep black, stitched with fine golden thread, humming faintly with embedded runes.
The moment it touched his face, the blood vanished, pulled cleanly from his skin, from the corners of his eyes, even from the soaked threads of his tunic beneath. Within seconds, he was spotless. Dry. Immaculate.
Then, without looking, he flicked two fingers.
The cloth burst into sand in his palm, no smoke, no ash, just silent disintegration.
Then turned his head toward Ilthor and smiled.
"I always clean up after myself."
Ilthor exhaled slowly, one hand tightening on his cane. For all his power, for all his reach, he had just seen why the rest of the continent whispered the name Sand Serpent like it might bite if said too loudly.