__________________________________________________________________
Before we begin Chapter 118, a quick question for you:
How far would you go for a shortcut?
Would you walk a month through bandit infested roads? Or would you take a deal with a stranger no questions asked?
Aris just made his choice. Let's see if it was the right one.
Drop your answer in the comments after the chapter: Was he crazy to say yes?
__________________________________________________________________
Chapter 118: The Poet's Price
The city rose from the plain like a stone ship anchored in a sea of dust. Its walls were thirty feet high, weathered by wind and time, their surfaces marked with the faded symbols of noble houses long ascended to power. The gates were open, the guards bored, the merchants calling out their wares in the crowded streets beyond.
Aris walked through the gates without stopping. His Ore mapped the city as he moved—the narrow alleys branching off the main thoroughfare, the taller buildings where the wealthy lived, the denser clusters of humanity where the poor huddled together for warmth and safety. The city was sixty kilometers from wall to wall, large enough to be important, small enough to be overlooked.
He had heard its name once, in passing: Velden. A trading hub, controlled by a noble family whose name he had not bothered to remember. Nobles were nobles. They came and went. The city would remain.
He walked deeper into the streets, his senses reaching, searching.
The poet sat in a square near the center of the city, his back against a fountain that had long since stopped flowing. He was old, or looked old—his hair was gray, his face lined, his hands gnarled around the neck of a lute that had been repaired so many times it was more glue than wood. His eyes were closed, his lips moving silently, as if he was rehearsing a song he had sung a thousand times before.
Aris stopped in front of him.
The poet opened his eyes. They were pale, almost colorless, but sharp—sharper than they should have been.
"A blind boy," he said. "Interesting."
"I need information," Aris said.
The poet laughed. "Everyone needs something. Sit, Listen and then ask."
He began to play.
The song was old, older than the city, older than the noble family that ruled it. It spoke of the Hidden City of Sky, of its walls that touched the clouds, of its towers that pierced the heavens. It spoke of the Kings who had ruled there—not the Emperors who sat on thrones of gold and commanded armies of men, but the Sky Kings who commanded the very forces of nature.
"First came Valeran, who raised the walls,
Who bound the runes that hide the halls.
He walked the edge of light and dark,
And left his mark upon the arc."
The poet's fingers moved across the lute, the notes clear and bright.
"Then Solas came, the golden son,
Who broke the beast and claimed the throne.
He held the sky with his own hand,
And bent the light to his command.
He ruled for centuries, strong and proud,
Until the dragon came and the seal broke loud."
The song shifted, the tempo slowing, the notes growing heavier.
"And now the son, Arthur, wears the crown,
The youngest King to hold the town.
His light is bright, his will is steel,
But the weight of the throne is all he feels."
The poet's hands stilled. The last note faded into the afternoon air.
"That's the story," he said. "Or part of it. The rest you'll have to pay for."
Aris reached into his pack and set a small pouch on the stone between them. The poet weighed it in his hand, nodded, and tucked it into his coat.
"You're not from here," the poet said. "You're heading north."
"To the Hidden City."
The poet's eyes narrowed. "You know the way?"
"I know there are openings." Aris paused. "Walking would take me a month, maybe more. Not because of the distance—because of the openings. They're not easy to find."
The poet studied him for a long moment. Then he smiled.
"You want to travel with me."
"You have a proper cultivation technique and you're connected to the Hidden City." Aris met his gaze. "You could get me there faster."
The poet leaned back against the fountain, his fingers idly plucking at the lute strings.
"I could," he said. "But everything has a price."
"I have money."
"I don't want your money." The poet's smile widened. "I want a girl."
Aris was silent.
"There's a woman in this city," the poet continued. "Young, beautiful, running from something. She's been hiding here for weeks. My information says she's somewhere in the black market." He shrugged. "Find her and bring her to me. And I'll take you to the Hidden City."
Aris's jaw tightened. He thought about walking away. He thought about the roads, the bandits, the beasts, the month of walking and searching and hoping. He thought about Ezra's words—This is a test for you—and Lucas's expectations, and the weight of everything he was trying to prove.
He sighed.
"Fine."
The poet grinned. "Good, She's somewhere in the black market. That's all I know."
Aris studied him. "You're not an Elite of the Hidden City."
"No."
"Then how do you have their cultivation technique?"
The poet's grin faded. "I travel."
Aris did not believe him. The man was at the peak of the Iron Stage—too strong to be a simple traveler, too weak to be anything more. There was a story there, a secret, a reason he had left the Hidden City or been cast out. But Aris did not ask.
He turned and walked away when the poet gave him a picture.
The man who had given him the ride to Velden was waiting at a tavern near the gates. He looked up when Aris entered, his expression wary, his hand resting on the knife at his belt.
"You're back," he said.
"I need to know where the black market is."
The man's eyes widened. "The black market? That's—"
"Where is it?"
The man was silent for a moment. Then he nodded toward the window, toward the eastern quarter of the city.
"The old warehouse district, follow the smell of rot. You'll find it." He paused and sighed
Aris turned and walked out.
The eastern quarter was dark, the buildings pressed close together, the streets narrow and winding. The smell was there, just as the man had said—decay and waste and something else, something metallic.
His Ore stretched outward, searching.
The black market was not a place. It was a network—a web of connections and passwords and hidden doors that only those in the know could find.
He closed his eyes and listened.
The city spoke to him—not in words, but in auras, in the flicker of fear and desperation that marked those who had something to hide. He felt them all around him, the hunted and the hiding, the criminals and the victims, the ones who had chosen to disappear.
And somewhere among them, her.
He began to walk.