Anya shivered violently, her teeth audibly chattering as the damp sea spray finally began to seep through the wool of her heavy cloak. "Can we please go back inside now? The island moved and now I am currently freezing to death."
Doren finally managed an exhausted nod. He took one last look out at the thrashing water and the newly elevated western peaks of Shifton Island. The elemental assassins were waiting somewhere on the island, completely isolated by the deadly moat of the strait. He silently hoped that whatever awaited them across the water would be the sanctuary they desperately needed with the information they were seeking, rather than another trap.
"Let's go," Doren agreed, pulling his collar back up. "We have one more day to rest. We shouldn't waste it out here in the cold."
Together, the three of them turned their backs on the churning ocean and began the steep walk back up the hill toward the Greet, Eat, and Sleep, ready to hunker down and wait for the ferryman to arrive.
The heavy doors of the Greet, Eat, and Sleep shut firmly behind them as they entered, instantly cutting off the coastal wind and the roar of the ocean. The sudden, overwhelming warmth of the tavern's massive hearth washed over the three, thawing the chill from their bones as they made their way across the room.
The morning rush had thinned out considerably. The town guards had left long ago to begin their patrols, leaving the tavern relatively quiet except for a couple people. Doren, Katarina, and Anya easily navigated back to their small, familiar table in the corner where they sat that morning. Beside them, the thick frost that had coated the windowpane had already begun to melt, weeping down the glass in slow droplets.
As they took their seats, a harsh, agitated voice cut through the quiet hum of the inn.
"What do you mean all the rooms are taken up?"
Doren instinctively paused, his chair halfway pulled out. He glanced toward the heavy wooden bar near the kitchen. Standing across from Frella was a man who immediately stood out from the typical Iliadis locals. He wore no heavy winter cloak to protect against the bitter sea winds, just a dark, rugged tunic and a deep hood pulled up over his head, casting his face in heavy shadow. He threw his hands upward in an exasperated gesture.
Frella didn't flinch. She crossed her flour-dusted arms, looking entirely unbothered by the man's sudden outburst. "Urduun, you need to calm down," Frella said, her voice firm. "It's three travelers, they offered a large amount of gold coin. It is what it is. You're just too late to the party."
At the mention of "three travelers" and "gold coin," the atmosphere at the corner table instantly changed. Anya froze, her eyes darting nervously between Doren and the hooded man at the bar. Katarina didn't even bother sitting down. Her posture snapped into focus, her instincts completely overriding her exhaustion. She casually leaned against the back of her wooden chair, but her eyes were fixed squarely on the man named Urduun, her right hand resting dangerously close to the hip where she normally kept her blade.
Doren slowly lowered himself into his seat, keeping his movements unthreatening. He kept his eyes averted, pretending to focus on the melting frost on the window, but every ounce of his attention was locked onto the conversation at the bar.
If this hooded man was looking for a room in an inn explicitly known for housing the elemental assassins of Shifton Island, his sudden interest in the three travelers who had bought out the entire floor was a very dangerous complication.
"Ridiculous, who okayed that?!" Urduun demanded, his voice thick with irritation.
"Mandee," Frella answered simply, not giving an inch. "My mum."
Urduun let out a harsh, bitter scoff, his shoulders slumping slightly in defeat. He seemed to realize he wasn't going to win a stubbornness contest against the innkeeper's daughter. He pinched the bridge of his nose from beneath the shadow of his hood. "Stables clean as of late? I'll just bunk with the mounts. If Greeg will let me that is."
"Greeg takes good care of the stalls since you assassins bought them," Frella stated, entirely unfazed and unworried by casually calling the man what he was. "I'm sure they're clean."
At the corner table, Katarina's jaw tightened. The casual confirmation that the man standing under the same roof as them was a member of the exact lethal guild they were seeking sent a sharp spike of adrenaline through her veins. Anya went incredibly still, her eyes going wide as she stared down at the grain of the wooden table.
Oblivious to the sudden spike in tension across the room, Frella turned her back to the hooded killer. She reached for the heavy wooden tap, expertly sliding three fresh tankards beneath it. "Now, if you'll excuse me," Frella said over her shoulder, the pale ale beginning to foam over the brims, "I have three guests to attend to."
As Frella picked up the tankards and turned toward their corner, Urduun watched where she was going. From beneath the heavy cowl of his hood, he followed Frella's path, his unseen gaze locking directly onto Doren, Katarina, and Anya.
Frella approached their corner table, and set the three foaming tankards of ale down with a heavy, satisfying thud. "There you are," she greeted them with a quick, bright smile.
Before Doren could even offer his thanks, the heavy, measured tread of boots on floorboards echoed behind the server. Urduun was crossing the room, his sights set directly on their table.
He didn't make it more than a couple of feet before Frella spun around, planting her hands firmly on her hips to physically block his path. "You be nice, Urduun," she warned, her tone sounding more like a mother warning a misbehaving child than a server addressing a lethal killer.
Urduun stopped in his tracks. He slowly turned his hooded head toward Frella and, with a childish, mocking pitch that completely contrasted his menacing presence, repeated her exact words. "You be nice, Urduun." He mocked. Frella rolled her eyes, muttered something under her breath, and marched past him back toward the kitchen hearth.
With the Frella out of the way, Urduun turned his full, undivided attention back to the three travelers. He stepped closer, towering over their small table. The heavy shadow of his deep cowl concealed his eyes, but the sharp, scrutinizing angle of his jaw was visible.
Urduun had been to Iliadis a hundred times over. He knew the ebb and flow of the tides, the patrol routes of the local guards, and every single weathered, sea-beaten face in the village. The three young, battered faces staring back at him were completely foreign.
"You three took the rooms upstairs? All of them?" Urduun asked. His voice had dropped the mocking pitch, settling back into a rough, calculating voice, aged by his work. He rested one hand casually on his hip, the leather of his tunic pulling back just enough to reveal the dark pommel of a dagger. "You don't look like locals."
At the table, the tension spiked. The air had grown uncomfortable around them.
Anya shrank back into her chair, gripping her warm tankard so tightly the veins in her wrists began to show. Katarina didn't move an inch, but her posture locked into total readiness. The subtle, invisible currents of air around her chair grew fractionally colder as her patience grew thinner. Not having slept all night, she was feeling irritated.
Doren, recognizing that a single wrong word could turn the tavern floor into a brawl, took a slow breath. He kept his hands flat and entirely visible on the scratched wood of the table, looking up at the hooded man with a perfectly neutral expression.
"We aren't," Doren answered, keeping his voice level and devoid of any challenge. "We're just passing through."
"Just passing through," Urduun echoed, his voice dripping with condescension as he adopted the same mocking pitch he had used on Frella moments ago. He reached over to a neighboring table, wrapping a scarred hand around the back of an empty wooden chair. He dragged it across the floorboards with a loud, grating screech that made Anya wince, and slammed it down right next to her.
He threw his leg over the seat, sitting backward with his arms resting casually over the back of the chair. He leaned in close to Anya, invading her space until the heavy scent of stale ale, old leather, and blood rolled off his cloak.
"How much of a man can you be," Urduun purred, turning his hooded head to fix a degrading sneer entirely on Doren, "letting these ladies sleep by themselves."
He shifted his weight, leaning even closer to Anya. He didn't even get the chance to blink. Katarina moved with a speed that defied the naked eye. There was no hesitation, no deep breath, and no warning.
A loud thwack was produced right into the wooden table. The heavy steel dagger in Katarina's hand drove violently down into the table nearly two inches deep into the scarred wood. The sudden hit on the table rattled the tankards and splashed ale across the tabletop. The dagger was planted exactly half an inch from Urduun's resting fingers.
The ambient noise in the tavern instantly died. The few remaining morning patrons froze, their conversations cutting off mid-sentence as they turned to look at the sudden commotion in the corner.
Katarina leaned forward across the table, her face inches from the hooded assassin's. The air in the corner of the room noticeably dropped in temperature, a subtle, dangerous swirl of elemental wind rustling the edge of Urduun's cowl. Her eyes were completely dead, devoid of any fear or hesitation. All the festering resentment and volatile grief from the past twenty-four hours shown forth into pure, lethal intent.
"Next spot," Katarina promised, her voice a deadly, whispered calm that cut right to the bone, "I'm severing your second head."
For a long, agonizing second, the tavern held its breath. A fight with an elemental assassin was a guaranteed death sentence. But Urduun didn't reach for the pommel at his waist. He looked at the trembling steel buried in the wood, then up at Katarina's murderous expression, and let out a laugh. It was a genuine amused expression.
He slowly raised his hands in mock surrender, the leather of his gloves creaking as he pushed himself up from the chair and took a deliberate step back from the table. They saw the hidden blade tethered to both of his wrists.
"With the mounts it is," Urduun chuckled, brushing off the near death encounter as if it were a mild inconvenience. He looked Katarina and Anya up and down one last time, a smug, knowing smirk stretching across his scarred face. "I see what's going on."
He lifted a gloved finger, pointing back and forth between Katarina and Anya. He let the crass, unspoken implication hang heavy in the air for a moment, clearly satisfied with his own conclusion about why they were sleeping 'alone'.
Without another word, Urduun turned on his heel and sauntered toward the heavy front doors, leaving the three travelers alone in the tense silence of the tavern. The heavy tavern door swung shut, cutting off the chilling coastal wind and leaving a stunned silence in Urduun's wake.
For a long moment, nobody at the table moved. Then, with a sharp exhale, Katarina wrapped her hand around the leather hilt of her dagger and yanked it free from the scarred wood. She wiped the blade clean on her thigh and inspected before she sheathed it in one fluid motion. There was a cold, murderous aura surrounding her that finally faded back into the ambient warmth of the room.
Anya finally let go of her tankard, her hands visibly shaking. As the adrenaline flushed from her system, the reality of Urduun's parting gesture finally clicked in her mind. A deep, mortified flush crept up her neck and instantly painted her cheeks bright red.
"You don't think he thinks that we-" Anya stammered, looking frantically between Katarina and Doren, utterly embarrassed by the gross implication.
"He's a perverted pig with half a functioning brain," Katarina stated flatly, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair. "If his mind is in the gutter, it just means he isn't thinking clearly. Not much of an assassin because of it, if you ask me. Let him think whatever he wants."
Doren nodded in agreement, staring at the fresh puncture wound in the table. "As long as he's sleeping with the mounts and staying away from our rooms, I don't care what he thinks. We just need to lay low until that ferry arrives. He can forget who we are."
After finishing their breakfast, the three companions left the suffocating confines of the inn to wander the sloping, sea-sprayed streets of Iliadis. The village was alive with an anxious, vibrating energy. The Shifton Strait continued its violent thrashing against the docks, the deafening roar of the water served as a constant reminder of the tilted, mountainous island looming on the horizon.
Doren, Katarina, and Anya spent the hours carefully navigating the bustling marketplaces and narrow alleys, gathering information from the patrons as they walked through town. They focused their casual interrogations on the older, more deeply rooted locals. They asked about the Shifton Island's transformation, but also brought up one specific name. Fennix. The man. Who could see everything, past, present, and future.
The answers they received were wildly contradictory.
Near a stall selling dried kelp was an elderly fisherman who laughed at the inquiry. "Fennix?" the old man wheezed, waving a dismissive hand towards them. "He's just a kooky old hermit. The man claims he can see the unknowing, but I ain't ever talked to him."
However, less than an hour later, the narrative violently shifted. They had taken shelter from the biting wind under the awning of a blacksmith's forge. The smith, a giant, heavily scarred man with dark hair. He gave them a much darker warning when the name was dropped.
"Don't let the crazy old man routine fool you," the blacksmith grunted, pausing his hammer strikes to look at the three. The glowing embers of the forge cast long, menacing shadows across his face. "Fennix is sharp. Years ago, long before our current king, Fennix helped the crown hunt down a fugitive." The blacksmith raised his hammer and pointed it at him. "And not just a petty thief. A very dangerous one. He knows how to track, he knows how to hunt, and he knows how to hide. If you're dealing with him, tread lightly. The man can see every move before it happens."
As they walked away from the forge and back out into the freezing coastal air, a heavy silence fell over the three travelers.
Doren pulled his cloak tighter, lost in deep thought. If Fennix was a kooky old man, convincing him to help them might be impossible. But if Fennix was a lethal tracker who had previously worked with the royal crown, they were walking straight into the jaws of a man who could easily hand them over to the Order for a couple coin.