The chariot rolled into Rushway as if slipping into a painting–the street lived up to its name. Manicured hedges bowed from every entrance; the facades of the buildings were trimmed in lacquer and gilt. Crowds flowed in colors and cliques: silk-sleeved merchants, grim-faced guards, gossiping matrons. Scouts moved like shadows among them, discreet and precise. The whole avenue wore importance as plainly as banners wore crests.
But even a carefully painted street could sour.
The women who'd been sheltered in the chariot's shade whispered among themselves, voices thin as thread. "We're doomed," one said, glancing toward Kiaria. "Leiwis will not let this pass. His people–his family–they will come."
"He won't," another murmured, more to steel herself than to comfort the other. "He never forgives."
The words floated, and East Valley Wing heard them. Murmurs slid down the row of mercenaries like a cold breeze; hands tightened on hilts without anyone yet drawing steel.
Leiwis stood not far off, fan clenched like a saber. His face was a practiced mask–anger varnished with pride–but his eyes searched the crowd as if hoping to find something to hurt. He raised his fan, gesturing as if the boy were before him; the motion was a theatrical stab into air. Kiaria's chariot was empty of its master. Kiaria had not stepped out.
A stone struck the back of Leiwis's head with a dull thud. The man staggered, the mask sliding a fraction.
"You deserve to be beaten to death," a voice spat from the crowd, raw and unforgiving.
Another voice–an old merchant whose cart had been pushed aside–shouted, "Look at you, Leiwis! You lord it over us, then hide while children cry!"
More shouted. The words gathered like rain.
Leiwis's color shifted: from anger to a quick bilious panic. He twisted, half hiss, half laughter. "You little ants–today you turn on me? Insolent vermin! My–my family will see to you. My father–" He barked a laugh that failed to steady him. "You will all pay!"
The flare in his hand wasn't meant for show. He struck it; the signal flared, a hot bloom of orange that swallowed the early light for a breath. The sky accepted it and threw the message far.
From the roofs came answering silhouettes–hooded bodies sliding, leaping, teleporting with practiced speed. They assembled across the skyline like a new constellation. Leiwis displayed his token with a flourish; the pouch he tossed landed at the hands of a small, rough-voiced man–the dwarf who led them. The dwarf caught it with a grin that smelled of appetite.
"Master Leiwis, the order's taken. Blood is with us," the dwarf intoned, and the phrase folded into the hooded ranks like a litany. All repeated the line in precise, low cadence–"Blood is with us"–a vow and a threat.
The dwarf lifted two fingers and pointed. "Mazim–trace him." His voice was small, but it carried. "Find the boy. Do not fail."
Mazim stepped forward. He summoned his martial soul, a round, flat weapon–disc-like–its edge etched with tracer runes. Tracer-Disc, a guide martial soul. He took a pinch of earth from where Kiaria's chariot wheels had churned the road and, with a practiced breath, blew the soil into the disc. The dust spun, rose, and the tracer's surface shimmered into a living map.
The disc grew–ghostly and vast–suspended in air, casting the caravan and the Rushway beneath its pale glow. The hooded men watched until the image aligned, until the disc's light fell across the East Valley Wing's camp. With a single, silent snap–as if closing a camera shutter–the disc contracted and vanished. The roofs emptied. The shadowy hunters blinked out of Rushway and reappeared around the mercenaries like wolves.
The mercenaries stiffened as the hooded encirclement solidified. Dwarf leader and his company had them hemmed in.
Kiaria remained inside the chariot.
Leiwis stepped forward through the ring of men, fan held in an ostentatious point. "Boy!" he called, voice threaded with bravado. "Come out and face me! Aren't you arrogant when you can hide behind hired swords? Crawl out–walk to me on your knees, beg me for mercy–do that, and I will spare you. Beg until I am satisfied." His eyes slashed the crowd, seeking one face: a father's or a retainer's to affirm his command. None came.
The hooded men shifted, ready at Leiwis's sign–but they hesitated. The dwarf leader's fingers twitched, waiting for the signal. He expected obedience. Leiwis expected allegiance. The public expected spectacle.
Kiaria laughed then–a single, cold sound that rolled out from the closed curtains. It was not the shout of a child; it was precise, contained, and savage in its clarity.
"You think you command fear," Kiaria said, voice carrying, "because you've bought a few men and a token. You mistake cost for courage. I did not kill you because you are not worth the stain. You have no spine to meet a man face to face. Look at you–shouting for loyalty you never earned. Begging for trouble. If you want to die for show, then die. I will not spoil my hands with your stench."
The words landed like stones. They were sharper than any blade. At first, the crowd murmured–uncertainty, then an ugly delight. People had long memories. Bystanders recalled Leiwis's swagger, his slaps in market lanes, the way he'd seized carts and called the watch blind. Now the tune of his arrogance was being turned against him by a boy.
A merchant spat toward Leiwis. "You always hid behind names and favors! Where are your men now, Leiwis? Your family's teeth?"
A group of youths, who the evening before had been shoved from the pavement by one of Leiwis's lackeys, closed in and began to mimic him–mocking his posture, flapping imaginary fans, his voice thinning in parody. Laughter rippled and then swelled into a chorus. People–housewives, tradesmen, even some soldiers who'd watched cynically–leaned forward and jeered.
"You're nothing!" someone called. "Coward!" another screamed. "Show your face, or hold your fan and weep!"
One of the crowd threw a stone. It clipped Leiwis's shoulder; the fan tumbled from his hand and struck the pavement. For an instant he looked human–exposed and small. He scrambled for the fan, but hands came quicker. A boy snatched it and waved it like a prize.
The hooded men went rigid–waiting for the word. Leiwis's face changed as he looked not to his men but to the crowd. He had expected a rally, not ridicule. The assembled people had not shown reverence; they had shown scorn. Voices that had been cowed a week ago filled their lungs and spat defiance.
His jaw worked. A bright panic bloomed red at the edges of his composure. He held his head, as though bearing the weight of a shame too large to carry. "My father–my family–" He forced the words like rusted hinges. "They will–" He choked. The sentence fractured.
The dwarf leader, sensing the unraveling, stepped up, voice like a rasp. "Master Leiwis–give the order. Kill or take them. There is no time for spectacle." His hand pressed the pouch against Leiwis as if to affirm that money and men were answers enough.
Leiwis did try. He straightened, forced the old mask of command back into place, and called to his men in a voice meant to be iron. "Arrest them! Take the boy! Make them kneel!" But the words had no authority anymore. Even his own cadres, a little, faltering at the edge, looked at the crowd and found only faces that now judged them.
Someone near the stone-thrower–an elderly woman whose cart had been seized by Leiwis's men the month prior–stepped forward and spat in Leiwis's direction. "We are done with you!"
The sound of the woman's spit was the final collapse. Around him, years of entitlement cracked like thin ice. He staggered back as if struck. The fan, the token, the hooded men–none of it could repair the fissure that had opened in the public eye.
For a moment, his chest tightened with an animal panic he had never permitted himself. All the blows and small cruelties he had made others swallow now returned as a thousand thin cuts. He saw their faces turned away from him with pity and disgust, not defiance. His father hadn't taught him how to taste humiliation–only how to mete it out. Now the lesson came in reverse.
The flaccid bravery of a man who had always believed power to be a permanent garment fell from him. His hands trembled. He raised his fan and, in a movement half-ceremonial and half-mad, slashed its edge against his neck.
The sound was not loud. The act itself was final.
Blood spattered the cobbles. The crowd sucked in the air like a single creature. Men who had only moments before shouted for his death faltered when the deed arrived in reality; it was too raw, too immediate. Leiwis's knees folded. He toppled forward as his life leaked into the dust.
For a heartbeat there was only silence–and then a thousand small sounds: a woman's wail, the clatter of a pail kicked over, a child's cry. The hooded men stepped back, too late to block the sudden, private horror that had become public.
Mazim's tracer disc, still warm from its work, hummed faintly. The dwarf leader's face distended and softened–what had been an instrument had birthed an outcome he had not wanted. He tossed the pouch back to the man who'd thrown it, a useless offering.
Within moments cavalry thundered. Word of the flare had spread swiftly–Leiwis's signal had been a beacon to the wrong kind of kingship. Royal palace troops converged on the street, uniforms bright, standards snapping. They sealed the road. Soldiers formed a ring, closing off escape routes and covering the fallen.
The commander of the arriving force was a man whose armor shone like a mirror under the sun. He dismounted and strode forward with slow gravity. His eyes took in the carnage, the blood on cobbles, the face of the man who'd bled out. Then they settled on the chariot where Kiaria stood tall and composed.
"Who witnessed this?" the commander called out, voice rolling across the crowd.
When silence answered, Kiaria pushed the curtain aside and raised his hand. His voice, steady and clear, filled the hush. "I do."
The commander's gaze slid to him. For a long beat he did nothing. Then he lowered himself slightly–not a full bow, but the reflexive dip of a man who recognized rank and action both.
"Young Master," he said, the title slipped out in protocol as automatic as breath. His hand went to the pommel of his sword in courtesy, not threat. "Please rise. Tell me what occurred."
Kiaria stepped from the chariot and the dust. He looked at the fallen Leiwis without satisfaction–only the gravity of consequence. "He tried to command violence," Kiaria said simply. "He threatened the innocent, struck out at those who could not defend themselves. I answered him. He chose to end himself before justice could be served."
The commander peered closer, then at the faces of the mercenaries, at the injured couple nearby. "Is this true?"
"True," Staley said, stepping forward. "We were present. He threatened the crowd and flared the signal. When his command failed and people rose in voice, he retaliated by murdering himself."
The commander's jaw tightened. He turned to the assembled soldiers and lowered his voice so only they could hear. "Gather witnesses. Seal the area. Report everything to the palace at once. This family–no matter how near the throne–will face inquiry."
He faced Kiaria once more. "Young Master, you have my thanks for preventing riots. I will order an investigation and ensure none of these people are further harassed."
Kiaria nodded. Then he drew out the cloth-letter from Broken Mirror City–the dried, blood-stained confession and the plea. He smoothed it only with his fingertips and extended it to the commander. "There are three things that must be sent to my father," he said with a calm that made each word weigh heavy.
"One: warn the people from plotting against us–those who would ambush again. Someone or a group attacked me and my brothers at Hunter's Bay."
"Two: look into Dijun's charges and clear his name. Also begin an immediate ssearch for the Deca-millennium Soul-Amity flower. I want it so bad."
"And three," Kiaria added, handing over the folded letter, "this confession from Xenin–investigate it fully and deliver justice if guilt is found. These matters are confidential; they touch the honor of this land."
The commander took the letter and the charge with a crisp motion. "Consider it done," he answered. Then, without fanfare, he signaled his men. Orders flew–messengers mounted, rosters called, detachments set. The troops began to move, dividing tasks: secure the scene, escort the injured, and begin the search for the family implicated.
Staley turned to Kiaria, respect mixing with the old man's rough affection. "You did what needed doing, little brother."
Kiaria did not smile. He folded his hands in front of him and watched as the soldiers lifted Leiwis's body carefully, shrouding it at their command. The dwarf leader and his hooded hunters melted back into alleys, their vows of "Blood is with us" now hollow in the face of what their summons had birthed.
The crowd's energy thinned into whispers and then into the slow business of the day: carts were righted, wounds bound, and the flagstones of Rushway scrubbed of someone's sin. The commander rode off with a retinue to carry Kiaria's messages to the palace.
As the chariot pulled away, the street resumed a brittle normality. The lesson hardened like a scab over the town's memory: humiliation, once public, could break a man more quickly than any sword. And Kiaria, whose hands had never known parental comfort, watched the people move on–his own quiet deliverance as much from pity as from victory.
Far behind them, the tracer disc lay still–its map gone, its glow faded. The words "Blood is with us" no longer rang like a vow; they echoed like a warning.