Chapter 10: The Serpent's Tongue
The tavern, The Guttering Candle, was a place of shadows and muttered deals, deep in the city's belly. The air was thick with the smell of stale beer and desperation. Elara, draped in heavy, dark robes and a veil that obscured her face, felt the weight of the serpent ring on her finger like a brand. The echo of Korvus a cold, cruel confidence was a constant whisper in her mind, a mask she had to wear as her own.
Kaelen was her silent shadow, positioned as her bodyguard near the door, his presence a steady anchor in the swirling unease. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. Serek was here.
The Lord entered alone, his finery looking absurdly out of place. His face was pale, his eyes darting nervously. He slid into the booth opposite her, his hands trembling as he clasped them on the sticky table.
"Korvus," he began, his voice too loud, too eager. "Thank you for meeting me. These… accusations… they are lies, but the baron has withdrawn his support. My liquidity is… temporarily constrained."
Elara remained silent, letting the pressure build. She slowly pulled the blank ledger and the pen from her robes. The silence was a weapon, and she wielded it with the coldness she drew from the ring.
"I need an extension," Serek pleaded, sweating. "Just three months. The northern steel routes will be mine, I swear it. The profits will be immense."
She dipped the pen in the inkwell she had brought. She did not write. She simply let the nib hover over the page, a silent demand.
"Fifty percent!" Serek blurted out. "You'll get fifty percent of the profits from the route, once it's secured."
Liar, the ring's echo whispered. She felt the ghost of a dozen broken promises. She tilted her head, a gesture of contempt she had not known she possessed.
"S-sixty?" he stammered.
She began to write. Not the surrender document, not yet. She wrote a single line, her script adopting the sharp, aggressive slant she'd felt in the ring's memory. "The truth of the northern route."
She pushed the ledger toward him.
Serek's eyes widened in confusion, then fear. "What is this? A game?"
She tapped the paper impatiently.
He licked his lips, his story unraveling under her silent scrutiny. "There… there are complications. The Spymaster… Vorlan… he has agents everywhere. He's blocking the permits. He wants a cut, but his price is too high! He wants control, not just coin."
Elara's blood ran cold, even as the Korvus-mask remained fixed. Serek was confirming everything. She wrote again, the magic flowing from the ring, fueling her command of the scene. "Your solution."
"I have allies!" Serek leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Others who are tired of Vorlan's chokehold. There's a list… names of those who would see him fall. With that list, we could force his hand, break his power!"
A list. The Spymaster's enemies, gathered in one place. It was a weapon far more powerful than any single forged letter. This was what Vorlan truly wanted. This was why he was crushing Serek.
She had to get it.
She slid the real document across the table the asset surrender. Serek's eyes scanned it, and he recoiled as if bitten. "No! This is everything! This is my family's legacy!"
Elara leaned forward. For the first time, she spoke, her voice a low, distorted rasp, filtered through the veil and fueled by Korvus's echo. "The list… or your legacy is dust."
The directness shocked him. He looked from the document to her veiled face, to the imposing form of Kaelen by the door. He was a cornered animal. She saw the moment calculation turned to recklessness in his eyes.
"You're not Korvus," he hissed, his fear transforming into fury. "Korvus would have broken my knees by now. Who are you? One of Vorlan's hounds?"
He shot to his feet, his chair screeching against the floor. "Guards!"
The door to the tavern slammed open. Two of Serek's men stood there, swords drawn. Kaelen moved instantly, a whirlwind of controlled violence. He disarmed the first man with a brutal twist of his wrist, sending the sword clattering away, and used the man's body as a shield against the second.
"The list, Serek!" Elara demanded, standing, the pretense gone.
"It's gone!" he spat, backing away. "I gave it to someone for safekeeping! You'll never find it!"
He drew a small, ornate dagger from his belt. It wasn't a nobleman's ornament; it was a killer's tool. He lunged at her, not to stab, but to pull away her veil.
Time seemed to slow. The echo from the serpent ring surged not of Korvus, but of a dozen violent ends met by his enemies. She didn't think. She acted. She dropped the pen and grabbed the inkwell. As Serek's hand closed on her veil, she threw the dark liquid into his face.
He screamed, clawing at his eyes. But it was more than ink. She had poured the ring's memory of suffocating darkness into it, a psychic shock that amplified the physical blindness. He staggered back, crashing into a table, writhing as much from the magical assault as the ink in his eyes.
Kaelen finished with the second guard, a precise strike to the temple rendering him unconscious. He was at her side in an instant, his sword pointed at the moaning Serek.
"The list. Now," Kaelen's voice was colder than steel.
"My… my scribe," Serek whimpered, blinded and broken. "Alaric. He has it. He doesn't know what it is… just a private document to be hidden."
Kaelen looked at Elara, his chest heaving. The tavern was silent except for Serek's sobs. The mission had failed and succeeded in ways they never anticipated. They didn't get the signed surrender, but they had a name. Alaric.
And they had a new, terrifying problem. Serek knew the Spymaster was moving against him. The element of surprise was gone. The war was now out in the open.
Kaelen grabbed her arm. "We have to go. Now."
As they fled the tavern, leaving the wreckage of their deception behind, Elara looked back at the lord writhing on the floor. The serpent ring felt heavy on her finger. She had worn the mask of a monster to survive, and a part of it had seeped into her. She had learned a new lesson tonight: some truths could only be extracted with a kind of violence.