The Gilded Hook smelled of salt, cheap wine, and the particular desperation of men who had come to Verance to get rich and ended up settling for getting drunk.
Zenith sat at a corner table with a glass of dark red wine he had no intention of drinking, his white curls loose against his collar, his posture just relaxed enough to seem careless. He was blissfully staring at nothing, content with the emptiness of the moment. He liked doing nothing. Enjoyed it, even.
His vision focused, and he took in the atmosphere of the bar.
'Man, this place blows. Wonder if my fa—'
A woman slid into the seat across from him without asking. He didn't flinch. He simply let his lips part into something that wasn't quite a smile and waited.
She was older, sharp-eyed, with silver threading through her dark hair. She smelled of sandalwood and saffron.
'Mmmh. I don't feel like entertaining cougars right now. I better take my le—'
"They say you can get things," the woman said, her voice low and smooth. "Things that don't want to be found."
;She really loves interrupting a guy's thoughts, doesn't she…'
She placed a small iron key on the table between them. Zenith let his gaze drop to it for just a moment before returning to her face. On closer inspection, he noticed her assets—noticeably the ones dangling right on her chest.
'Hmmnnn. I am a wild cat enthusiast. It would be wrong to let such a dangerous feline prowl around. What if another unsuspecting individual gets targeted? That could end bad. Yes, really, really bad.'
He mused for a moment longer, then sighed internally.
'Sigh. This is why the city needs me. I truly am a hero.'
She pushed the key an inch closer with one manicured nail. "I'll pay 10 silver. And a favor, if you ever need one in this old city."
Zenith finally let the smile reach his eyes. He didn't touch the key. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, letting his gaze drift from her face down to the key, then back up again—slow enough to be noticed, quick enough to be forgiven.
"Keep the silver," he said, his voice unhurried. "I just want your attention."
His eyes softened as he pierced into hers, the same practiced stare that had swooned hundreds of women.
The woman blinked. Then she laughed—a low, genuine sound that softened the sharp edges of her face. "Bold. I've had kings ask for gold. Mercenaries, steel. But you… you want my attention."
She folded her arms beneath her chest, and Zenith very deliberately did not look.
"Alright," she said, something amused and dangerous flickering in her expression. "Impress me."
'Ugh, the eye thing usually works first try. RNGesus, why have you forsaken me?' He sighed internally. 'Whatever. A little pizazz wouldn't hurt once in a while. This is a high-quality find; of course the bar is high.'
The silver-haired woman shifted her gaze toward the entrance, and right on cue, a man in a heavy cloak walked in. He settled at the bar, hunched over a small wooden chest, his back half-turned. Every few moments, he glanced toward the door, as if expecting someone..or something. The chest sat on the stool beside him, dark wood bound with iron, unremarkable to anyone who didn't know it was anything but.
Zenith rose from his chair, wine glass in hand. He let his posture soften, his steps loosen, the practiced sway of a man who'd had one too many but was still charmingly upright. The room paid him no mind. A drunk in a dockside bar was barely worth a glance.
He slipped out the door like a ghost, steps so light the bar would have to be dead quiet just to hear them. Then he slipped back in just as the man checked the entrance, wine nowhere to be seen.
He walked over to the hooded man. "Hey, buddy."
The man looked back, suspicion riddled on his face.
"I think you dropped somethin' back there. A box, was it?"
The burly man looked at Zenith like he was an idiot. "You're talkin' about this box right here?" He patted the stool beside him, and his eyes went wide.
The chest was gone.
He looked under the chair, above the counter, saw nothing. Then he rushed out the door, retracing his steps to find the missing box.
'Aha ha ha, suckerrrr.' Zenith mused. "Works every time."
He grabbed the chest and walked calmly back to his seat.
She watched the entire scene unfold, her expression unreadable. One moment the cloaked man was hunched over his chest at the bar. The next, Zenith was walking back toward her with the chest tucked under his arm, moving through the tavern's dim light like a shadow that had decided to take a stroll.
He slid into his seat and set the chest on the table between them.
"Did I pass?" he asked.
Her eyes flicked from his face to the chest and back again. "What just happened?"
"I'd tell you," he said, leaning back, "but that'd ruin the surprise."
She was not amused. Her fingers pressed flat against the table. "Tell me how you did it."
'Ugh. I really should have left when I had the chance, shouldn't I?' He thought, exasperated.
He let the silence stretch, then shrugged. "Illusion magic. Just messing with his head a little."
She stared at him. In the low lantern light, his hair caught the flame and burned bronze, almost amber. Something shifted in her expression—curiosity, perhaps, or the first crack in her armor.
She opened the chest. Inside, nestled in faded velvet, was a locket and a small bronze ring.
She took the locket, closing her fingers around it. The ring she left.
"You're fast," she said, closing the lid. "And clever." She tilted her head, studying him with new eyes. "The magic. How much of it was real?"
'Gosh is she a judge, questioning me like im a criminal or somthing.'
"Enough," he said.
Her lips quirked. "You're not going to give me a straight answer, are you?"
"I find straight answers are usually the least interesting ones."
She reached into her coat and produced a small leather pouch, tossing it onto the table with a soft jingle. "Ten silver."
Zenith stared at the pouch for a moment, then stuffed it into his coat pocket. 'Ten silvers richer. No reason not to take the offer. Man, maybe she isn't that bad after all.'
"You mentioned a favor," he said.
She tilted her head. "I did."
"You have piqued my interest."
For a long moment she simply looked at him, something unreadable passing behind her eyes. Then she reached into her coat again and produced a silver ring set with a dark stone that seemed to drink the light. She placed it on the table beside the key.
"You want a favor? Take this. Show it at the Velvet Rope in three days. Ask for me." She paused. "And keep the bronze ring from the chest. Consider it a token."
'More cash, sweeeet!' he jubilated inwardly.
Zenith picked up the silver ring, turning it between his fingers. The stone was cool, heavier than it looked. "No questions?"
She smiled, brief but genuine. "Plenty. But I save my questions for men who keep their word." She stood, smoothing her skirts. "Three days, Zenith. Don't be late."
She was halfway to the door when she glanced back over her shoulder. Her gaze swept over him—the white curls, the perfect angularity, features less dimorphic than the average male but still alluring. "And for what it's worth," she said, "you're prettier than half the courtesans in the Velvet Quarter. I almost asked for a different kind of favor."
Then she was gone, swallowed by the tavern's noise and shadow.
Zenith sat alone at the corner table. The pouch of silver. The key. Two rings—one bronze, one silver. He slipped them all into his coat, leaving the empty chest behind.
'Thought I would have scored tonight,' he thought exasperatedly. 'Sigh. Can't win 'em all.'
He refocused his thoughts. 'Three days. Velvet Rope.'
He rose, nodded once to the bartender, and stepped out into the salt-tinged night.
'Tch. What's stopping me from just not going? I am a busy man, y'know.'
Then he realized he had been wandering through the city for the past couple days doing jack shit and fuck all.
Zenith had no source of income, no extracurricular activities he participated in—unless you counted sleeping with women and stealing as extracurriculars. Just swooning stall owners and rich court maids for food and money, and outright being a dysfunctional member of the economy and society.
In simple terms, Zenith was a bum.
'On second thought… I really don't do anything… I may as well see this through.'
Zenith stood alone in the alley, the pouch Elara had given him tucked into his coat, the silver ring already on his finger. She was gone. The locket was gone. The job was done.
'Ten silver.' he thought.
He looked down at the pouch in his hand. Considered opening it. Considered tossing it in the harbor.
'Three days until I have to decide if I'm stupid enough to walk into her den.'
He pocketed the pouch.
'Screw it. I need to a walk.'
The night was still young when Zenith found himself wandering toward Verance's pleasure district. Three streets near the old fountain, where lanterns burned low and red, and laughter drifted through cracked windows like perfume. He hadn't planned to come here. His feet just… carried him.
Well, he thought, watching a woman in a crimson dress lean out a second-story window to call down to a passing sailor, when life gives you ten silver and a bruised ego, you spend it somewhere warm.
He picked a building at random—three stories, painted the color of dried blood, with a carved wooden sign swinging overhead. The Scarlet Curtain. He pushed through the door.
Inside was a wall of heat and scent: beeswax, cheap wine, something floral trying too hard. A woman with copper skin and a lazy smile leaned against the bar, fanning herself with a hand of cards. She looked him up and down, gaze lingering on his face, his hair, the cut of his coat.
"Pretty," she said. "We don't get pretty often. What are you looking for?"
'If another person calls me that, I'm gonna lose it… '
Zenith is coping. Though he does not want to admit he is in fact objectively pretty, his features are more androgynous than masculine though he has other masculine traits like his height, shoulders, and physique. If you're 3 shots down at the bar it would be hard to tell if he was a guy or gal.
Zenith waved away the negative thought leaned against the bar beside her and let his smile do the work. "Room. Company. In that order."
Her eyebrow lifted, amused. "Straight to the point. I like that. But why would a man that looks as good as you need a comfort girl."
Zenith shrugged, "Its my life, and I just got paid so why not"
The women noticed his dismissive tone and dropped the topic. She jerked her head toward a curtain at the back. "Back hall, third door on the left. Name's Lyra. She'll take care of you."
The room was small, lit by a single oil lamp. Cushions piled in the corner. A low table with a decanter of something amber. And a woman sitting cross-legged among the pillows, a book open in her lap.
She looked up as he entered. Dark hair loose around her shoulders. Sharp, intelligent eyes. The kind of eyes that measured a man before he opened his mouth.
"Welcome," she said, closing her book. "You look like a man who's had a long night."
"You have no idea."
He lied, his day was spent doing nothing strenuous or meaningful. But he likes playing the victim for no other reason than sympathy points.
She patted the cushion beside her. "Then sit. Tell me about it. Or don't." She poured two glasses from the decanter, slid one toward him. "Your coin buys you whatever you need. Silence, conversation, or something in between."
Zenith settled onto the cushions, the wine warm in his chest, the tension in his shoulders starting to loosen. He told her bits and pieces—nothing about Elara or the chest, just the shape of a frustrating night, a woman who gave him jewelry instead of answers, the vague feeling that he'd stumbled into something he didn't fully understand.
Lying came easily to him, he had always had a golden tongue. He was a great story teller and drew people with tales. This night in particular he was not much in a pretentious mood.
Lyra listened. She had a way of listening that made a man want to keep talking. And fortunately or unfortunately for her Zenith loved the sound of his own voice, and could talk to a shit stained rock for hours if he had nothing to do.
"So you took a job from a woman you don't know," she said, "for a locket you didn't care about, and now you're sitting in my room wondering if you made a mistake."
He laughed. "When you put it that way."
"I put it the way it is." She swirled her wine. "What do you do, when you're not taking mysterious jobs from mysterious women?"
He shrugged. "A bit of this. A bit of that." He let his fingers drift through the air, and for just a moment, the candlelight bent around his hand, casting a second shadow on the wall that moved when he didn't.
Lyra's eyes tracked the shadow. Held there.
"Illusions," she said. Not a question.
"Party tricks," he said, letting the shadow dissolve. "Nothing serious."
She set her glass down, studying him with new interest. "I've seen serious illusions. The kind that make you question what's real and what's not. They're not party tricks." She reached out, turning his hand over, examining his palm like she was reading a map. "You have the hands for it. Long fingers. Steady." She looked up at him. "There's a woman in the Warrens. Mira Velden. She teaches real illusionists—the kind who can make a man see his dead wife or walk off a dock because he thinks the water is solid."
She released his hand, leaning back against the cushions.
"She doesn't take students often. But if you show her that little shadow trick, and maybe something more, she might talk to you." A faint smile. "Consider that my advice. Free of charge."
Zenith turned his glass in his hands. "What's her angle?"
"No angle. She just hates watching talent get wasted on bar tricks." Lyra reached for the decanter again, refilling both their glasses. "But that's a conversation for tomorrow. Tonight, you said you wanted company."
She set the decanter down, and her eyes met his with the same sharp, measuring gaze, softened now by something warmer.
"So tell me, pretty man. Are you going to keep talking, or are you going to let me do my job?"
——————————
The Morning After
——————————
The Warrens' morning light was pale and thin, cutting through the haze like milk through water. Zenith sat on a bench near the old cistern, children kicking a leather ball across the square, an old woman selling dried herbs from a cart. Passerbuys stole glances at the man, wondering why he is turning a worn leather pouch over in his hands.
He'd been carrying it since last night. Elara's payment. Her "favor".
'Let's see what the hell I'm walking into.'
He pulled the drawstring loose and tipped the contents into his palm.
Three things.
A key. Small, brass, no bigger than his thumbnail. The teeth were shaped like nothing he'd ever seen. Curving, almost floral, like a key for a lock that didn't exist in any normal door.
A folded note. The paper was soft, worn, the ink faded to brown. A single line in a cramped, hurried hand:
When the ring grows warm, run.
Below it, in different handwriting, sharper, more controlled:
He knows. He always knows. Don't trust the—
The sentence ended there. The bottom edge was torn, ragged, as if someone had ripped away the rest in haste.
A small glass vial. Clear liquid inside, sealed with black wax. No label. No marking. Just the faintest shimmer when he tilted it toward the light.
Zenith stared at the three objects in his palm.
'A key. A warning. And whatever the hell this is. Every hour that goes by I regret taking this gig more and more.'
He held the vial up to the light. The liquid inside caught the sun for a moment, throwing a pale rainbow across his hand, then went still.
'Poison? Perfume? Something that'll turn my skin blue?'
He tucked everything back into the pouch, then into his coat.
'Elara, what the hell did you just drag me into?'
He sat there for a long moment, watching the children play. The ring on his finger was cool. The pouch was heavy against his chest. And somewhere in the Warrens, a woman named Mira Velden was supposedly teaching real illusions to people who didn't waste their talent on bar tricks.
'One thing at a time,' he decided. 'I'll find that stupid illusionist, figure out what I'm carrying and then decide if I'm stupid enough to meet Elara in three days.'
'What a drag…'
A.N:This is a one-shot series, it would most likely end between chapters 10-15, Even though the story is already fixed and finished by the time I have published this don't be afraid to drop your opinions I love reading comments. Just strap in for the ride and who knows, If it gets a bunch of love I MIGHT write more.
P.S: If you like Naruto check out my other fanfic Naruto: Genesis Of a Broken Scroll.