# Chapter 114: The Magistrate's Price
The silence in the infirmary was a physical weight. Soren lay unmoving, a statue carved from resentment and despair. Nyra finally stood, her movements stiff, and walked to the door. "I'll get you some broth," she said, her voice hollow. "You need to keep your strength up." He didn't respond. He just stared at the wall, counting the cracks, each one a reminder of a promise broken. But as the door clicked shut, a different kind of fire began to smolder in the ashes of his hope. It wasn't warmth. It was cold, hard, and sharp. Betrayal had not broken him. It had forged him. He was no one's asset. He was no one's prophecy. He was a debt, and he would collect. He began to think, not of escape, but of payment. And he knew exactly where to start collecting.
Three days later, the broth had been consumed, the wounds had scabbed over, and the silence had become an unbearable roar. Soren's recovery was a testament to Sister Judit's skill, but his spirit remained a wasteland. He moved through the small infirmary space with a pained deliberation, testing the limits of his body. Every motion was a calculation, a measurement of his own weakness. Nyra watched him, her presence a constant, suffocating blanket of concern he refused to acknowledge. She would leave food, change his bandages, and retreat to a corner, her face a mask of controlled misery. Lena, the tavern owner, came and went, her pragmatic commentary a staccato counterpoint to the gloom.
"He's healing," Lena stated one afternoon, her voice echoing slightly in the stone room. She tossed a clean roll of bandages onto a nearby table. "The stitches are holding. He'll be on his feet in a week if he doesn't tear them open."
Nyra nodded, not taking her eyes off Soren, who was methodically doing a series of slow, painful stretches. "Thank you, Lena."
"Don't thank me," Lena grunted, wiping her hands on her apron. "Thank the Sable League's coin. It buys the best poultices." She gave Nyra a pointed look. "It also buys a ticking clock. They expect a return on their investment, and a moping invalid isn't one."
The words were a splash of ice water. Nyra knew Lena was right. Her confession had shattered the fragile trust between them, and now she was paying the price. She had severed her ties to her family, to her mission, all for him, and in return, she had received only his cold contempt. She was as much a prisoner as he was, trapped by her own choices and the League's expectations.
That evening, as the sounds of the tavern above drifted down—the clatter of tankards, the low murmur of conversation, a burst of raucous laughter—Soren finally broke his silence. He was sitting on the edge of his cot, his back to her, staring at the damp stone wall.
"Magistrate Corvin," he said. His voice was a low rasp, unused for days.
Nyra froze, her hand halfway to a plate of dried meat. "What?"
"Corvin," he repeated, turning his head slightly. The profile of his face was sharp, all angles and shadows in the lantern light. "A low-level functionary in the Ladder Commission. Records keeper for the lower rungs. He has a weakness for rare vintages and a wife with expensive tastes."
Nyra slowly lowered her hand. "How do you know this?"
"When you fight for scraps, you learn who holds the ladle," Soren said, a bitter edge to his tone. "He was always good for a few extra coin if you made his favorite fighter look good. Or if you lost to the right person. He's corrupt. And he's scared."
He stood up, his movements still stiff but more certain than before. He faced her, and for the first time since his collapse, his eyes held something other than emptiness. They held a chilling, focused purpose. "The Synod is hunting me. The League owns me. I need to know what they know. I need a weapon. Corvin is a weapon. A small, rusty one, but it's a start."
Nyra felt a flicker of something she hadn't dared to feel for days: hope. This was a plan. A path. It was a desperate, dangerous path, but it was movement. "You want to bribe him?"
"I want to buy information," Soren corrected. "Information on unusual recruitment patterns. On any Gifted who've been… disappeared. The Synod is up to something. I want to know what it is. And you," he said, his gaze hardening, "are going to help me."
It wasn't a request. It was a command. He was treating her like a tool, a resource to be used. It stung, a sharp, familiar pain, but she pushed it down. This was her chance. A chance to prove her loyalty, not with words, but with actions. "I can get a message to him," she said, her voice steady. "Discreetly. It will cost."
"Everything costs," Soren replied, his eyes flat. "The League has deep pockets. Use them."
The plan was set into motion. Nyra, using a series of dead drops and coded phrases she'd learned in her training, contacted one of her League handlers. She didn't explain the full situation, only that she needed to establish contact with a specific, low-level Commission official for intelligence gathering. The response came back within a day, a single, encrypted line: *Asset authorized. Proceed. Expense account opened.*
Two days later, a reply arrived from Corvin. It was a simple note, slipped into a loaf of bread delivered by a street urchin. *The Weeping Peddler. Midnight. Come alone. And bring something to dry my tears.*
The Weeping Peddler was a stall in the sprawling, chaotic heart of the city's black market, a place known as the Sump. It was a labyrinth of narrow, refuse-choked alleys, makeshift stalls, and a permanent twilight cast by the tangled canopy of tarps and laundry lines strung between crumbling tenements. The air was thick with the smell of frying oil, unwashed bodies, and the acrid tang of cheap chemical lamps.
Soren, his body still aching, pulled the deep hood of his borrowed cloak lower over his face. Beside him, Nyra was a shadow, her movements fluid and confident in the oppressive gloom. They had argued about her coming. Soren had insisted on going alone.
"You're the asset they're hunting," she had countered, her voice firm. "I'm the ghost they're not looking for. You need a lookout, and you need someone who can handle the negotiation. You're in no condition to intimidate anyone."
He had relented, a concession born of pure pragmatism. He hated it, but she was right.
They navigated the throng, a river of desperate humanity. Hawkers shouted their wares—stolen ration cards, scavenged tech, questionable medicinal herbs. A woman with a cinder-tattoo of a coiled serpent on her neck sold roasted rats on a stick. The press of bodies was suffocating, a constant reminder of the world outside the Ladder's gilded cage, the world he was fighting for.
The Weeping Peddler's stall was tucked away in a particularly foul-smelling corner, near a runoff channel that oozed a viscous, grey sludge. The stall itself was a small, rickety structure piled high with junk—rusty gears, broken data-slates, bundles of frayed wiring. A hunched figure sat on a stool behind a counter cluttered with odds and ends. It was an old man, his face a roadmap of wrinkles, his eyes milky with cataracts. He was the perfect cover.
Soren and Nyra approached. Soren placed a small, heavy pouch on the counter. It clinked with the sound of solid gold marks, a sound that cut through the market's din like a knife.
The old man didn't move. A voice, smooth and surprisingly young, spoke from the shadows behind the stall. "A down payment. Wise. But my tears are expensive."
Magistrate Corvin stepped out. He was a weasel of a man, small and wiry, with slicked-back dark hair and a suit that was too fine for the Sump. His eyes, small and black, darted nervously around them before settling on the pouch. He licked his thin lips.
"Magistrate," Nyra said, her voice cool and neutral.
Corvin gave a short, sharp nod. "You're the League's whisper. And you," he said, his gaze flicking to Soren's hooded figure, "are the ghost who shouldn't exist. The Hollow Soul. It's an… honor." The word was laced with avarice. "What does the great Sable League want with a humble records keeper?"
"We want to know what the Radiant Synod is doing," Soren said, his voice a low growl. "Specifically, any unusual activity in the Ladder recruitment. Gifted fighters being fast-tracked. Others vanishing. Anything that doesn't fit the normal pattern."
Corvin chuckled, a dry, rustling sound. "The Synod is always up to something. Their piety is a mask for their ambition. But you're right. There has been… a pattern." He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "They're not just recruiting. They're curating. Pulling specific Gifted from obscurity. Fighters with defensive powers. Healers. Those with sensory Gifts. And they're not putting them in the Ladder. They're taking them somewhere else."
"Where?" Nyra pressed.
"That," Corvin said, tapping a long finger on the counter, "is the kind of information that costs more than a pouch of gold. That's the kind of information that buys you a one-way ticket to a labor pit if you're caught with it."
Soren slid another, larger pouch across the counter. This one was heavier. "We're not interested in your safety. We're interested in the data."
Corvin's eyes gleamed as he palmed the second pouch. He weighed it in his hand, a flicker of satisfaction on his face. "The Synod calls it the 'Sanctuary Program.' Officially, it's a retreat for Gifted who have suffered too much Cinder Cost. Unofficially… it's a farm. They're building an army. A specialized unit. And they're being very, very quiet about it."
He paused, letting the information sink in. An army. Not for the Ladder, but for something else. For what? A war with the Crownlands? A purge of the Sable League? The implications were staggering.
"Names," Soren demanded. "We need names. Locations. Transfer records."
Corvin smiled, a reptilian expression. "Of course. I anticipated your needs." He reached under the counter and produced a slim, dark data-slate. It was an older model, scuffed and unremarkable. He activated it, and a list of names and dates glowed in the dim light. "Every transfer in the last six months. Every name. Their last known location. Their Gift. It's all here."
He slid the slate across the table. It stopped just short of Soren's hand. "This will tell you who the Synod is watching," he whispered, his eyes gleaming with a manic light. "But for what's on here, I'll need a favor that could get us all killed."
Nyra stiffened. "We paid your price, Corvin."
"You paid for the data," he corrected, his voice dropping even lower. "The favor is for the risk of me *getting* the data. And for keeping my mouth shut after you leave." He leaned back, a smug look on his face. "There's a Synod supply convoy leaving the city tomorrow night. It's not official. No guards, no markings. Just a couple of unmarked cargo haulers. It's heading east, toward the Bloom-Wastes."
He let the statement hang in the air. The Bloom-Wastes. The cursed lands where the magical cataclysm still raged. No one went there willingly.
"I want it to not arrive," Corvin said simply. "I don't care how. A broken axle. A 'spontaneous' fire. A little… bad luck. Make it look like an accident. Destroy the cargo. Do that for me, and our transaction is complete. Refuse," he said, his smile vanishing, "and I might have to have a… crisis of conscience. I might feel compelled to report an attempt by the Sable League to acquire stolen Synod property."
He was trapping them. Forcing their hand. This was no longer a simple transaction. It was a test. A mission. And it was a suicide run.
Soren stared at the data-slate, then at Corvin's smug face. The cold fire inside him roared to life. This was it. This was the edge he needed. The information was a weapon. The favor was the price of wielding it. He didn't hesitate. He reached out and placed his hand on the slate, his fingers covering the glowing names.
"We'll do it," he said, his voice devoid of all emotion. "Consider your convoy blessed with misfortune."