They moved through the Quiet Tongue.
The fog had rolled in thick that night, curling around Karihad’s slums as if it were a hungry thing.
No one loitered in the alleys. No drunks stumbled from the taverns. Doors were shut, lanterns dimd. The only light ca from the soft glow of smoldering ash in the barrels outside—a flicker of fire amid the silence.
Lan walked at the center of the group, cloaked in a dark overcoat, his face entirely obscured by a lacquered black mask with no markings.
Only his pale eyes shone from within, cold and unreadable. Bragg followed at his right like a moving wall of fur and muscle, his own mask carved with the jagged teeth of a beast.
Venom, who had led them here, moved with casual confidence, the only one among them who wore no full mask—just a crimson cloth tied across his face.
They said nothing. No nas were spoken.
Here, in the Quiet Tongue, silence was safer than breath.
Venom stopped at a rusted door nestled between two collapsed shrines. It bore no markings, save for a single iron triangle nailed into the center.
He knocked once. Waited. Knocked again—two short taps.
The door creaked open without a word, and they stepped inside.
The corridor beyond was dim and narrow, lit only by strips of phosphorescent moss embedded in the walls. The floor sloped downward as they descended into the earth, each step muffled by thick dust and silence.
Sowhere, water dripped rhythmically.
They arrived at a chamber—large, candlelit, and smoky.
Around a long table sat twelve figures. So wore masks. Others didn’t. There were won and n, old and young, mages and warriors and criminals alike.
The air reeked of wealth, blood, and distrust.
The one at the head of the table rose. A bald man with dark eyes and a fur-trimd robe. He gestured toward the empty seats across from him.
Lan did not sit.
"State your business," the bald man said.
Venom stepped forward. "We’re here to make you rich."
Murmurs. Smirks. One of the seated figures—a lean man with slicked hair and silver piercings along his brow—laughed.
"And we’re here to waste ti, clearly."
Lan raised a hand, silencing Venom.
He reached into his coat and produced a small velvet pouch. He tossed it onto the table.
The bald man opened it and poured the contents onto the table.
Coins spilled out—pure Solaris-mint gold, but heavier, darker, less refined. Raw. Freshly slted. Untraceable.
Every eye in the room was on the gold.
"You’ve got our attention," the bald man said. "What’s the pitch?"
Lan spoke, his voice low and distorted through the mask. "Six hundred pounds of raw gold per week."
The room went quiet.
Then ca the laughter.
"SIX hundred? What mine are you looting?" the pierced man scoffed.
"Do we look like idiots?" another said.
A younger woman leaned forward, eyes narrowing.
"You’re either lying... or suicidal."
Lan remained silent, letting the weight of his offer sit like a corpse on the table.
The bald man finally spoke again. "Assuming you’re not wasting our ti, what do you want in return?"
"Sixty gold coins per pound," Lan said calmly.
A mont of stunned silence.
Then an older, grizzled man at the corner of the table slamd a fist down.
"Sixty? That’s royal court pricing! For raw?"
"You want sixty," the bald man said slowly, "for gold that isn’t even processed?"
Lan tilted his head. "It’s clean. No magical markings. No noble seals. Untraceable. That’s what you’re buying. Gold without history. Gold that no one can link back to you."
"And what guarantee do we have that you’ll deliver?"
"You’ll see it before you pay. Always."
Murmurs again. So doubtful. So intrigued.
Then, the slick-haired man leaned forward and said, "I think this is all a very elaborate lie. Probably a noble brat playing gas."
He gestured to one of the guards near the back. "Remove his mask."
The mont the guard stepped forward, Lan moved.
No one saw him draw.
No one saw the strike.
Only the aftermath.
The guard’s sword arm hit the ground first, severed clean at the elbow. He fell after, screaming as blood poured across the stone floor.
The room exploded into chaos—but only briefly. Lan had already returned to stillness.
The black blade of Devil’s Lie hung loosely in his hand, steam rising from its surface.
Bragg cracked his knuckles. Venom didn’t even move. He knew he didn’t have to.
The bald man raised a hand. "Enough."
Silence returned. The slick-haired man’s face had gone pale.
"You’ll forgive us," the bald man said with a tight smile. "The Quiet Tongue is full of liars."
"I’m not one of them," Lan replied.
A different man spoke this ti, his voice tired. "If you are who you say you are, why stay masked?"
Lan turned his masked face to him.
"Because you are useful to alive," he said. "And if you knew who I was, you’d all be dead tomorrow. So you don’t get nas. You get coin. And gold. And nothing else."
More silence.
The bald man sat back, considering.
"Fifty. That’s as high as I go."
"Sixty," Lan said. "No compromise."
"Fifty-five, then. And we don’t ask where it’s from."
Lan turned to leave.
The room shifted, the tension rising again.
He stopped at the door. "You think you have options. You don’t. I offer you the cleanest gold in the Empire, with no strings, no titles, and no witnesses."
"You walk away now," he added, "I go to Salvarra."
That na chilled the room. Salvarra was the southern syndicate—unhinged, ruthless, and utterly loyal to coin.
The bald man sighed. "Sixty."
The word fell like a bell toll.
Lan turned, nodded once.
The deal was done.
Docunts were produced, unsealed, unsigned. All verbal, all mory. One man wrote the terms in arcane script that vanished after being read aloud.
Lan gave them nothing.
No na.
No origin.
Not even the direction from which the shipnts would arrive.
But they agreed to a neutral trade zone—an abandoned quarry several leagues west of Karihad. No guards. No spells. Just crates and coin.
Every week.
When they stepped back into the night, the door sealed shut behind them, no one spoke for a long while.
Finally, Bragg broke the silence.
"Sixty per pound?"
Venom whistled low. "They’ll be bleeding from their eyes when the first shipnt hits. They know they’ve been robbed, and they still shook hands."
Lan walked through the fog as if it parted just for him.
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