Chương 64: Epilogue (Book 1 End)

Narbok Blackbriar stood outside his family's manor, shifting his weight to his good leg from the one Specialist Spinova had healed. The magic had been flawless, and the skin was smooth and whole. But every heartbeat sent a phantom pinch through his thigh. That damned kitchen boy! That mongrel half-breed who smells of onions! Fading fungal motifs, remnants of the Mycari heritage his father so desperately clung to covered the old wood of the door.

The ground-floor windows, usually bright with pleasant green light, remained dark, transforming the house into a silent monolith within the enclave. I just need to sleep. Narbok grimaced, running through his excuses. I'll explain in the morning. I'll tell him the boy cheated, that the bastard used an elixir to pierce the mist. Bile rose in his throat as he reached for the iron latch. Shink. Metal scraped on the other side of the entryway as the deadbolt slid home. Narbok stilled.

He reached for the latch with a trembling hand.

"Father?" The word felt small in the night air. Silence was his only answer. Heat spiked in his chest. He gripped the handle and twisted it hard, but the door held fast.

"Father!" From inside, he heard the sound of footsteps moving away. Herod Blackbriar was retreating deeper into the house, putting walls and distance between himself and the son who had stained the Mistblood name.

"Father!" Narbok called out again, the word breaking. He hammered his fist against the wood.

"Let me in! You have no reason to—you can't leave me out here!" The last light in an upper window winked out. Narbok stepped back, his breath hitching. The healed flesh of his leg throbbed. Around the enclave the other houses sat silent, curtains drawn tight. He turned his back on the door. Begging was beneath him. He was a Blackbriar, a descendant of the Mistblood, and if his father wanted to play the stoic patriarch, let him. The barracks had benches.

He could sleep there until morning, when he would find a way to exact the price the half-breed owed him.

"A discouraging turn of events, wouldn't you agree?" The voice drifted from the darkness to his left. It was melodic and warm, entirely at odds with the chilly mist. Narbok spun, reaching for the bone-hilt of his dagger. A figure peeled itself away from the shadowed wall of the neighboring manor and approached to within a few yards. Then he leaned back against the Blackbriar estate, one boot propped up against the wood, examining his fingernails.

He wore a tailored vest and dark trousers that were unblemished by the grime of the alley. Narbok looked over the man. Unmarked skin, soft hands, and a vest that cost more than a soldier's yearly wage. Reaching out with his [Spiritual Perception], he brushed against the stranger's aura. It felt thin, almost frail. The red of a martial path appeared as a washed-out shade, tepid and dim. A gentle flutter resonated from the core, the mark of a low F-tier who had barely Awakened. Weak. Pathetically weak.

The assessment confirmed his first impression. He's probably just a dandy. Some village merchant lost in the enclave, or perhaps a noble looking for illicit goods who had taken a wrong turn. Regardless, I am not in the mood to deal with him. Narbok straightened, his chest puffing out. The kitchen boy was behind him. Here, he was a Mycari in the heart of his people's territory, a predator compared to this soft-skinned man.

"You're lost, human." Narbok sneered, stepping away from the door to face the stranger.

"This is a private enclave. Turn around and walk away before I decide to take that vest as a tribute." The stranger ignored the threat, and after a long moment finally looked up, offering a polite smile.

"A tribute," the man mused, testing the word on his tongue.

"An interesting concept, though given the rather final sound of that deadbolt behind you, I'd say you're in a poor position to be making demands. You look more like refuse left on the curb for collection." Color crept up Narbok's neck.

"I am Narbok. Blackbriar. I am a descendant of the Mistblood! And you are about to bleed!" Narbok drew his dagger, the bone-handled blade hissing against the sheath. He expected the dandy to flinch, to backpedal. Instead, the stranger simply pushed himself off the wall, striding forward with a grace that set alarm bells ringing through Narbok's head.

"Mistblood," the stranger murmured.

"A lovely name. Historic, even. Though I suppose history doesn't help much when a Duskborn half-elf beats you even with all of your vaunted powers, hm?" Narbok snarled and lunged. It was a warning thrust jabbed deliberately wide, meant to terrify; but the stranger moved faster than Narbok could track. One moment he was standing there, and the next he stood clear of the blade's path. Narbok stumbled forward, his momentum carrying him off balance.

Before he could recover, the stranger caught his shoulder in an immovable grip, like an iron shackle clamping down.

"Careful now," the stranger whispered in his ear, amused.

"We wouldn't want you to trip. You've done enough falling for one day." Twisting against the grasp, Narbok slashed backward with the dagger. The stranger bore down and dug a thumb into the soft junction of his neck and collarbone, finding a nerve cluster. Pain exploded behind Narbok's eyes. Sensation fled his arm, and the dagger clattered to the wet cobblestones. He buckled at the knees, the world tilting sideways as he collapsed. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent.

Report any sightings. Narbok gasped while his vision swam.

"Who... who are you?" The stranger leaned in, smelling of lemon and juniper. He was close now, watching with flat eyes that absorbed the enclave's runelight.

"Just a concerned party. A consultant, let's say. I specialize in… waste management." The stranger relaxed his hold, allowing Narbok to stand, before immediately towing him down the street like a recalcitrant child.

"Get your hands off me! My father will—""—continue to stare at the back of his door. He's decided you're a liability, and liabilities, my young friend, are usually discarded. We, however, see an asset." Narbok lurched as the stranger dragged him from the enclave, overpowering him with deceptive strength. Whenever he tried to resist, a quick pinch at that same spot reduced his rebellion to a twitching grimace. Then the man began to whistle a jaunty folk tune through the night air.

It was a happy sound, terrifying in its disconnect from the violence of his treatment.

"Where are you taking me?" The question came out smaller than he wanted.

"To see a man about a job." The stranger whistled another bar of the song.

"A man who believes that the Reaping Tournament was an… anomaly, let's call it."

"I don't want a job."

"Everyone needs a trade, Narbok. Currently, yours seems to be 'public disappointment.' We're offering a career change." They emerged from the enclave's narrow lane onto the main thoroughfare. After a while, they approached a building that stood as a monument to commerce, its clean stonework and wood a rebuke to the village's grime. Light spilled from its large, spotless windows, illuminating neat displays of potions within.

Above the door, a polished copper sign gathered what little runelight there was, holding it in a soft gleam. The Verdant Phial. Narbok faltered. He stopped fighting the grip, staring at the sign.

"Zarven Mault?" Narbok whispered. Mault owned half the town. He was the reason the enclave's costs kept rising. The stranger continued marching Narbok toward the door.

"Mr. Mault is a man of significant schedule, but for you, for the protagonist who was cheated out of his glory, he has cleared his calendar." Narbok looked at the man holding him.

"You're his dog." Narbok swallowed hard as the rumors met reality.

"You're the one they talk about in the taverns." Cillian Drekcil's mouth curved, and for the first time, the smile looked genuine. It was the expression of a prowler that had successfully cornered a deer.

"I prefer 'his Associate.'" Cillian stopped them in front of the store. A figure opened the shop door and stepped through. Checking a silver pocket watch, the man snapped the lid shut with a click before smoothing the front of his pristine charcoal-gray coat.

"Ah. Mr. Drekcil and young Master Blackbriar. On schedule to the minute. Excellent." Cillian let go, sending Narbok pitching forward while rubbing his bruised shoulder. He eyed the two men: the smiling wolf and the immaculate accountant.

"I didn't agree to this." Narbok backed up a step, then squared his shoulders.

"I'm leaving." The man in the coat didn't move to stop him. He simply clasped his hands behind his back, tilting his head as if evaluating a column of figures that refused to balance.

"You could do that. You could return to the enclave and could explain to your father why the Blackbriar name has lost a large share of its social value in a single afternoon. Perhaps if you are diligent, you might earn back a fraction of his respect over the next decade." Narbok flinched. Those words struck harder than Cillian's grip.

"My name is Loric Thane, and we are here to offer an alternative solution." Loric stepped closer.

"You should come inside and speak with men who understand that the tournament's result was not a failure of skill, but a failure of market regulation." Narbok worked his jaw.

"He humiliated me."

"He devalued you. He took a premium legacy in your birthright and allowed a common laborer to tarnish it. It is inefficient when the order of things is disrupted by statistical anomalies, but anomalies can be corrected with the right investments." Cillian leaned against the doorframe, picking his teeth with a small knife.

"Daddy locked you out, kid. That's cold. But in there? The hearth's lit. And we have opportunities you'll want to hear." Narbok looked back toward the enclave. He imagined his father sitting in the dark, the silence of the house judging him. He thought of the whispers of the neighbors and his own marred reputation. Then he turned to Loric, who was offering him a chance.

"What kind of corrections?" The man gestured toward the entrance.

"The kind that ensure the next transaction ends in your favor." Narbok stepped forward, and Loric opened the door. They led him through the main shop past walls littered with glowing potions, bypassing the counter and ascending a narrow, winding staircase at the back. The air grew stiller as they climbed. Below them, the sounds of the street and shop faded, replaced by the persistent ticking of a clock from above. They reached a door of lacquered wood. Loric knocked once, then opened it immediately.

"After you." Narbok entered. The office was oppressive in its size, lined with books and ledgers, lit by the steady white glow of runelights. The carpet swallowed the sound of their boots. Behind a desk large enough to serve a banquet on, a human man sat working. He was thinner than Narbok expected, with a narrow, ascetic face and hair slicked back from a high forehead. Robes of plain, severe black draped his frame.

He dragged a stylus across the ledger, scratching out notes on whatever dark business he was involved with. Narbok stood in the center of the room, Cillian and Loric on either side. The phantom pain in his leg throbbed, a dull bass line to the hush. On the corner of the desk, bathed in the light of a dedicated lamp, sat a glass container. Clear, viscous fluid filled the preservation jar. A bulbous organ the size of a man's fist floated in the suspension, its surface coated in a pearlescent sheen.

Ugly veins crisscrossed the tissue. Even through the glass, it seemed to radiate a nauseating aura of red and black. Narbok stared at it and a shiver ran through him. It was a monster part. A trophy. Is that… the feral goblin matriarch's gland? The rumors flashed through his mind. This had to be it. The proof of Thalorin's rise, sitting on Zarven Mault's desk like a paperweight. The door behind Narbok clicked shut.

"Mr. Mault." Loric spoke with quiet respect.

"Our guest has arrived." Zarven continued to write, the quill rasping. Narbok's palms dampened. He looked at Cillian, but the enforcer was just resting against the wall, flashing that predatory grin. Loric advanced, placing a hand on the back of a chair opposite the desk.

"It's frustrating, isn't it Narbok? To see resources mis-allocated; to watch a system fail to protect its most valuable assets?" Narbok swallowed.

"I don't know what you want from me."

"We want to facilitate a merger of interests. We understand that you are a victim of an unfortunate situation, and believe that with the proper backing, the balance can be corrected. Offer you a position of employment, Narbok. A chance to be effective." The scratching of the stylus ceased. Zarven placed it in its holder and deliberately closed the ledger, while the silence in the room stretched taut as a bowstring. Finally, the merchant lord looked up.

His eyes were dark and emotionless, like when he regarded the world he saw only columns of profit and loss. He judged Narbok in a way that made his knees tremble. The man reached out and flicked the glass jar. Ting. Narbok flinched. Zarven ignored Loric and Cillian entirely, leaning forward to fix Narbok with an intense stare.

"So… tell me about this kitchen boy."