Ahead of Kael, three massive arches of moss-covered rock stood, wide enough for an army to march through side by side and high enough for a small mountain to pass through.
Streams of water ran down both sides of each entrance, tracing along the ground until they joined the same creek he had crossed just a few days ago.
Today his goal was simple. Get familiar with the city, starting with the first layer.
He walked up to the entrance and placed a hand on the stone. Water ran through the moss alongside his fingers, giving it something close to a magical quality, and cold enough that holding it there too long would begin to sting.
'Not much in the way of protection for the first layer.'
He must have stepped directly into the main flow of the city, because the number of mortals around him was likely greater than the entire populations of Farkath and Velthoria combined. Possibly more.
A massive road cut straight through the heart of the first layer, running in a direct line toward the entrance of the second, perhaps six thousand steps ahead.
Just as he was about to walk on, a mortal carrying a basket bumped into him by accident. Kael stood like a stone pillar and the man fell onto his back.
"Apologies."
He said it with a smile. Then his eyes found Kael's and his pupils shrinked.
The man threw the basket aside and dropped into a deep bow, pressing his forehead against the cobblestone.
"I'm sorry, sir Luminaire." His voice shook. "I wasn't looking where I was going. Such a fool I am. Please forgive me."
Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
Kael crouched down and placed a hand on the man's shoulder.
"Hey. What's the big idea?"
His voice was soft, almost warm.
The man froze. Was he being mocked? Was this Luminaire about to kill him?
Only when Kael stood and walked over to the basket, beginning to collect the fallen items, did the man dare raise his eyes.
He rushed over and snatched the basket from Kael's hands.
Kael looked at his empty hands.
Realising what he had done the man went into another deep bow, nearly cracking his forehead on the stone below.
A circle had formed around them now. Luminaires and mortals alike.
"That man is dead."
"It almost looked like the Luminaire was going to help him. Why did he grab the basket? He's finished."
"His mind must have gone blank."
The words didn't help. The man's hands shook beyond his control.
"Sir, I didn't mean to take it from you." He had to stop himself from screaming. "It's just, I couldn't bear to see someone as prestigious as you picking up my things. Please. Let me handle my own things. Please spare me."
Kael looked down at him.
He hadn't anticipated the gap being this wide. They didn't just respect Luminaires here. They feared them like actual Gods.
"Kill him." A voice from the crowd said. "Kill him and show the rest that mistakes like that won't be tolerated."
Kael's gaze moved from the trembling man to the voice.
A rank two Luminaire stood at the edge of the circle, broad shouldered, a cigar between his teeth, hands pocketed. His expression carried no sympathy. Not for the mortal. Not for Kael either.
Kael closed his eyes and shook his head, ignoring the rank two entirely. He bent down and took the mortal by the arm, pulling him upright.
"Don't shiver at my feet for something as shallow as this. I walk this road the same as you. An imperfect man, nothing more."
He flashed a warm smile and brushed down the mortal's coat.
The mortal stood in absolute silence, as though his tongue had been removed.
Kael gathered the fallen items and placed the basket back in his hands.
"Go. And don't bow in my presence again. We're equals, not animals."
Stunned and confused, the mortal pushed back through the crowd and disappeared.
Whispers moved through the circle. The mortals' eyes held something that couldn't quite be named. The Luminaires' eyes darkened.
The rank two grabbed a mortal who was standing in his path and flung him aside. A scream rang out as the body hit a wall beyond the crowd. A path cleared and he walked through it toward Kael, eyes burning with a fury so hot it could melt iron.
"What do you think you're doing, rank one?"
He towered over Kael like a felled tree waiting to happen. Kael's eyes remained indifferent as they settled on his.
"Why didn't you kill him when I gave the order?"
Kael pushed down the mocking smile that threatened to form.
This was the fragility that afflicted so many Luminaires. When Kael had treated the mortal as an equal it hadn't only affected that one man. It had rippled outward. Luminaires were above mortals, and the system depended on that remaining unquestioned. But that wasn't what had them furious. What had them furious was simpler and uglier than that. If Kael brought himself down to a mortal's level, he dragged every Luminaire around him down with him, at least in the eyes of anyone watching. What they feared wasn't a civil war. Mortals would never win one. What they feared was the feeling of power loosening in their grip. To them that feeling was everything. Intoxicating when present, and unbearable when threatened.
This was, Kael reflected, the one thing that would never bother him.
When no answer came the man grabbed Kael by the collar and pulled him up.
"Is this how you treat a noble?"
Kael said it softly, almost pleasantly.
The man's hand stilled for a fraction of a second. Then he pulled him closer.
"You're no noble."
His voice was noticeably lower than before.
"Am I not?"
Kael pulled at the fabric on his shoulder. A symbol emerged, dark against the cloth. A black sword driven through a body, rose thorns coiled around it. Small enough to be invisible from any real distance.
The man's breath hitched for just a moment. He was experienced enough to pull it back quickly.
He might not recognise the specific family the crest belonged to. But it was widely understood that only families recognised by the Royal Noble families were permitted to bear one.
"Release me and walk away. I'll forget about it."
Kael's voice was even.
He looked around. Luminaires stood on every side, eyes carrying something close to anticipation.
Kael had spoken quietly enough that no one else could hear. A way out that cost the man nothing in front of his audience.
"Tsk."
The man set Kael down and turned away.
"Just some newly advanced. Don't pay attention to him."
He waved a hand as he said it.
Whispers moved through the circle.
"Gracious of him to spare the fool."
"If that's the case we can forgive it."
"Hmph. The mortals had better not get any ideas from this."
Reputation was everything to people like this, and not without reason. Reputation shaped opinion, and opinion opened doors. The man had released him because his own standing was high enough that harming a noble, however minor, would cost him more than letting it go. Disrespecting a noble was, in its own indirect way, disrespecting the Royal Noble families who had recognised them. That carried weight.
Of course, reputation only reached so far. Individual strength still sat above everything else in the final count.
Kael brushed off his collar and turned. The crowd already dissolving back into the usual flow of Luminaires and mortals going about their day.
The sun hung just above the colossal wall when he heard a muffled voice. He walked to the nearest corner and looked around it.
"Where are the gold coins?"
"I don't have them. I'll pay back next time. Trust me."
Kael's eyes narrowed.
'A drug deal?'
From what he understood these were common here, especially in the first layer. Not surprising exactly. The pattern was consistent across every larger city he had passed through. The poorer the population, the higher the substance use, which seemed counterintuitive given the cost, but the reasoning wasn't difficult to follow. Desperation needed somewhere to go.
What he was watching was almost certainly a substance distributed by Luminaires. The city could have put a stop to it. It chose not to. The addicted needed motivation to work, and dependency provided that more reliably than most other things. The gamble was managing the side effects. Keep the punishment for crime violent enough that it outweighed the risk, and the addicted would work harder rather than steal. It was a cruel calculation, but it was a calculation.
When the exchange was done one mortal slipped into the alley and disappeared. The dealer looked around slowly, then crouched, lifted a sewer lid, and climbed down.
Kael noted both faces and the location, then continued down the street.
The road and the buildings lining it were on a different scale here. More carefully kept, and deliberate in their presentation. The houses were colourful, some blue, some pink, each one fitted with a window box of bright flowers.
The streets were quieter too.
This was where the most successful residents of the first layer lived, and the only part of it where mindstones were accepted as currency alongside gold coins.
Kael stopped at a display window. Breads and pastries made from tropical fruits he had never seen before filled it, arranged with the kind of care that suggested the baker took it personally.
He continued to the next building.
The window was draped over. Above the entrance a metal top hat swayed on a chain, forged from black iron.
A dull ring followed him inside.
An old man sat far behind the counter at a small table, magnifying glass in hand, bent over a coat with complete absorption.
Kael called out once. The man didn't respond. His hearing had apparently decided to retire before the rest of him.
Kael walked to the counter and waved until he caught the man's attention. He was old. Old enough that someone seeing him for the first time might reasonably wonder if he had recently returned from somewhere permanent. But his eyes were different. Sharp behind the weathered exterior, the kind of eyes that had simply outlasted everything around them.
"A pleasure to meet you, Sir Corieve."
The man set down his needle and narrowed his eyes as though trying to bring Kael into focus.
"A new face." Sir Corieve rasped. Even his voice sounded like it had been used longer than most things were built to last.
Kael nodded with a welcoming smile and reached into his pocket, pulling out a bag of mindstones.
"I was wondering if you could spare some of your considerable talent to help me find a fitting piece."
The old man let out a full-bodied laugh that shook him from the shoulders down. A cough followed shortly after.
"The day I turn down a young man looking for something dashing to wear is the day you'll have to bury me."
Something in Kael's mind stalled for just a moment, quietly wondering whether that day hadn't already been scheduled roughly eight decades ago.
Sir Corieve was just a mortal, but at the same time everything except an ordinary one. Across the entire western continent he was the only mortal who had ever been knighted by the Royal Noble family, earning their protection through the sheer weight of his craft alone.
From a political standpoint, even if Kael genuinely were a noble, the two of them would stand on roughly equal footing. And if you went by rarity, Sir Corieve might as well have been Royal Noble compared to any family with a crest.
This was the man noble families traveled across the continent to see, just to have him put his hands on a piece of fabric.
Kael reached into his pocket and placed the Eireindaile family crest on the counter. This one golden.
"I was hoping you might tailor me a military cape with my family crest sewn into it."
Sir Corieve picked it up and brought it close, studying it with complete absorption, entirely unbothered by Kael's Luminaire status.
"Mm. You're one of Taric's? Oh, how long has it been since I last saw that old geezer." He scratched the back of his head. "Of course I can. I don't think you could have found anyone more qualified. It's one of my favourite pieces to make."
He set the crest down and reached for a measuring tape.
"Remove your shirt, young man. I'll even give you a discount, for old times' sake with your father."
Kael began unbuttoning his shirt without hesitation.
It had taken some careful bargaining and precise wording to get Syleena to hand over her family crest, but she had folded eventually.
Thinking back, that was probably the most confused he had ever seen her.
"Any preferences for the cape? Don't be shy about asking now. It becomes difficult to change once it's done." Sir Corieve said, drawing the measuring tape across Kael's lean frame without a wasted movement.
Kael thought for a moment.
"Black, to match my other clothes. Gold threading to complement my eye and match the crest. And I want the crest on the shoulder of my missing arm, visible to anyone who looks."
Sir Corieve paused and looked up at him.
"Heterochromia that golden? You look royal already." He said it with a smile. "What about a shoulder sash? I'm thinking black silk with a gold line along the top."
"That would be adequate."
When he finished with the measurements he pulled a paper from somewhere and took the pen from behind his ear.
"Oh!" He laughed. "I didn't even ask your name."
"Valerian. Valerian Eireindaile."
Kael said it without shame.
Sir Corieve nodded, already writing.
"Taric always had his way with names."
Kael's eye drifted from the occupied old man to a scrap of fabric on the floor.
From this point forward he would no longer walk the streets of Sole as Kael Sinclaire. He would walk them as Valerian Eireindaile, an honourable but forgotten member of a slaughtered family. Under that name he would climb, openly and without apology, until he stood level with whoever sat at the top. Alone he would raise the Eireindaile name high enough that there wouldn't be a noble family on the continent that couldn't place it.
Was it foolish? He didn't know. But he understood one thing clearly. To build a foundation solid enough to hold a city upright he couldn't do it alone. He would work the system from the inside, find loopholes so unreasonable they became almost elegant, use everyone who had climbed before him as the next step up, until he reached the rumoured sixth.
And from there, whatever came next.