The chambers beneath Tlekaneth darkened as ProlixalParagon followed PillowHorror into a sanctum lit by glowworms coiled in spiraled shells. A circular table was laid out with a map etched on stretched coral hide. It smelled faintly of salt and old blood.

  “The journey begins above,” PillowHorror said, tapping the eastern coast of the Lunar Empire. “From the docks of Ardent-Silk—a hidden port favored by pearl runners and political disappearances. Your ship will bear no standard and carry only three passengers: yourself, a navigator loyal to the guild, and a ‘sea apothecary’ for cover.”

  He traced a winding line across the reef-painted sea. “You’ll cross into Draggor waters under the guise of trade and illness. If questioned, you are delivering salt-well elixirs to a reclusive nobleman suffering from brinefever.”

  Prolix blinked. “And… the brinefever’s not real?”

  “It is. That is what makes it convincing.”

  PillowHorror turned to a second scroll—a stylized map of the western Draggor Kingdom. The provincial sprawl of Eadrin was marked in ochre ink, its forests a bristling, leaf-dark smudge around a lone city: Kyrbane.

  “Prince Tomlin waits in the abandoned hunting estate of House Vellmar, just east of Kyrbane’s outer walls. It is shielded by old warding stones and rarely patrolled. The meeting must be swift. There are spies in every pocket of the court, and your presence—especially as a Fennician—will not go unnoticed.”

  Prolix’s claws tapped the edge of the table. “You said he was entitled. Desperate. Why trust he won’t back out?”

  PillowHorror’s gill-fronds pulsed faintly. “Because the Empress has betrothed him to a foreign duchess to stifle scandal. And because his Altacian partner is already in hiding with their child. There is no life for them in Draggor—only chains gilded in ceremony.”

  A moment passed between them.

  Prolix exhaled slowly, gaze settling on the thin inked lines of rivers near Kyrbane. “So I meet him. We fake his death. Then what?”

  “You ensure the illusion holds. Burn what must be burned. Leave the right bones in the right place. He will vanish beneath another name, and you—” PillowHorror’s eyes glinted with seaborn mirth—“will return south, carrying a future no one will yet see coming.”

  Preparations came swiftly after that.

  Within a day, Prolix had briefed Lyra and the troupe. Supplies were divvied, tools gathered. Ralyria handed him an oil-treated pouch of flashpowder "just in case," while Havryn added a spare cloak lined with sootcloth. Marx handed him a carved bone ring that bore an old Draggor emblem—“for credibility,” he said, eyes guarded but trusting.

  Kaelthari clasped Prolix’s shoulder with her gauntleted hand. “Find your target. Cut the illusion clean. Come back with no tail.”

  And Lyra—quiet, luminous Lyra—offered only a nod and a whisper at the gates of Tlekaneth.

  “Remember, little spark,” she said, brushing her paw against his cheek. “Smoke is the truth of fire, not its lie.”

  Two days later, under the slate-gray dawn sky, the ship Whale’s Veil pushed from the reef-swathed cove, sail dark against the breaking sea. Prolix stood at the prow beside a long-limbed navigator with sea-lantern eyes, his breath tasting of salt and alchemy.

  Behind them, the coral towers of Tlekaneth faded into foam and memory.

  Ahead lay the tangled coast of Eadrin. A ruined estate. A desperate prince.

  And a lie that would change the world—if he could make it true.

  The Whale’s Veil creaked like a tired storyteller, its hull stitched from driftwood and polished bone, sails patchworked with sea-silk and some kind of bioluminescent cloth that shimmered in moonlight. It wasn’t fast, but it was nearly invisible on open water—neither merchant nor warship, neither predator nor prey.

  ProlixalParagon slept in a narrow bunk beneath the forward deck, lulled by the rhythmic groan of the ship and the murmur of brine-song from the sea apothecary’s cabin.

  His only companions for the voyage were odd, even by Fennician standards.

  The navigator was a woman named Saithra, a thin-faced, kelp-haired Tievelin with ritual scars shaped like tidal glyphs across her collarbone. She spoke rarely, preferring whistles and taps on the ship’s brass pipes to communicate course changes. She seemed to know the ocean the way a blacksmith knew fire—intimately, dangerously, and with scars she didn’t bother hiding.

  The sea apothecary, meanwhile, went by Doctor Cindle, and he was less a man than a puzzle in motion. He wore thick goggles smeared with wax to block the saltlight, and spent much of the journey humming tunelessly while distilling syrupy elixirs from plankton, bone coral, and dried kelpblood. He insisted on feeding Prolix a daily spoonful of something “to keep your spine aligned with the stars.”

  It tasted like fermented shellfish and regret.

  When Prolix wasn’t enduring Cindle’s tonics, he spent hours above deck, repairing small gadgets, mapping out routes with Saithra, and trying not to obsess over what awaited him in Eadrin.

  This is what you asked for, he reminded himself, gazing out over the endless teal-gray sea. A chance to carve something different into the story of this world. Not just for yourself—for all of them.

  One night, as gulls wheeled overhead and the moon turned the sea to silver cloth, Prolix sat beneath the tiller, turning over the bone ring Marx had given him. He thought about the prince he had never met. A human noble. A man who had the world but wanted only freedom.

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  Why do we all want to run?

  Saithra joined him quietly, crouching beside the crate he was using as a bench. “You think too loud,” she said, voice soft as surf.

  He chuckled. “Do I?”

  “Loud as thunder. Storms on land. Storms at sea. You carry both.”

  “…Do you know Tomlin?” Prolix asked, careful.

  She shook her head. “Only know he’s brave or foolish. Hard to tell which before the storm hits.”

  There wasn’t much more to say after that.

  They sailed on through two more sunrises and one brief squall, during which Prolix had to lash himself to the deck to avoid being flung into the sea. He half-suspected Saithra steered them into the storm deliberately to test the ship—and him.

  By the fifth day, the scent of pine and wet leaves drifted on the wind. Land was near.

  Saithra pointed with her knuckle. “Kyrbane’s smoke. West ridge.”

  Through a veil of morning fog, Prolix glimpsed the far-off shape of forested hills, dark against the horizon, and—beneath them—a patchwork of turrets, roads, and smoke plumes: the edge of Kyrbane, nestled like a secret between river and ridge.

  Cindle prepared a bundle of things: a sealed bottle of slowfire, a sprig of frostbark (“for truth”), and a paper mask soaked in ghost-milk sap.

  Prolix took them all without question.

  That night, they docked under shadowed rocks and brambles, miles from any official port. The crew said no goodbyes, only nods.

  Wrapped in a soot-gray cloak and carrying only his satchel and tools, Prolix stepped ashore into Eadrin.

  The grass was cold.

  The air smelled of woodsmoke, damp loam, and something old.

  The hunt was about to begin.

  The estate was a ruin by noble standards—ivy-choked battlements, shattered stained glass, and a west wing so collapsed that moss and wind made their home among its fallen beams. Locals called it Yuldan's Folly, a hunting lodge once gifted to a disfavored cousin of the royal family, now forgotten by all but maps and myths. It sat nestled deep within a forest glen near Kyrbane’s outskirts, accessible only by a game trail so narrow Prolix had to duck beneath thorned branches and hop a half-frozen stream to reach it.

  The air here tasted of rain and old stone. Magic clung to the place like damp fur—residual wards barely holding, old protections faded to suggestion.

  A flicker of heat caught his attention: not firelight, but the shimmer of concealed movement.

  A voice called out.

  "You're late."

  From behind the arch of the broken gate emerged a young man dressed in oiled leathers and a gray cloak pulled high. His features were unmistakably noble—fine-boned, sharp-eyed, with the faintest curl of disdain trying to disguise anxiety. He wasn’t tall, but he stood as though the ground owed him something. His brown hair was uncombed, his face gaunt with sleeplessness.

  This was Tomlin, Crown Prince of Draggor.

  "Late is better than absent," Prolix replied mildly, stepping forward. "ProlixalParagon. You asked for a ghost-maker."

  Tomlin eyed him for a long moment before giving a stiff nod. “And you're... not what I expected.”

  “Likewise,” Prolix said. “You're younger.”

  That earned a faint smirk. “You’re older.”

  Before more words could fumble between them, a shadow emerged from the broken manor’s entry. The figure was tall, sleek, powerful—a female Altacian, with burnished gold fur and ink-black rosettes, her striped mane tied in a practical knot behind her ears. Her armor was mismatched but polished, and the moment she saw Tomlin, something in her shoulders relaxed.

  She carried a child against her chest.

  The infant blinked with pale gold eyes, soft tufts of downy fur along his cheeks, and a human’s rounded ears nearly hidden by Altacian fuzz.

  “My mate,” Tomlin said simply, stepping to the Altacian’s side. “Her name is Velai, and this is our son, Lioren.”

  Velai studied Prolix with piercing intensity, her nostrils twitching slightly as if scent told her more than words. “You don't smell like a mercenary.”

  “I'm not,” Prolix answered, bowing slightly. “I’m a Tinkerer. But I have experience… with difficult logistics.”

  That seemed to satisfy her. She stepped aside, motioning for him to enter the half-ruined estate.

  Inside, the main hall was eerily intact, warmed by a fire built in a cracked hearth, with furs laid out to make a crude semblance of living quarters. Prolix was offered broth and a place to sit.

  They spoke as the fire cracked.

  “I’ve prepared documentation, enchanted jewelry, and a credible escape route,” Tomlin explained, spreading out a half-scorched map and a letter bearing his seal. “The death needs to look real. Believable to my father and the court. No body—just enough blood and destruction to sell the story. I’ll vanish. Velai and I will head west, into Baigai.”

  “There’s a caravan that could shelter you,” Prolix offered without thinking. “Nomadic. They’ve made it across borders before.”

  Tomlin looked surprised. “…You’d share that?”

  “I’m not doing this for you alone.”

  That earned him another long look. Not hostile—just curious.

  Velai finally spoke again. “Do you believe in this? Or are you only here because someone pulled strings?”

  Prolix answered truthfully. “I believe the world needs more broken rules. And fewer broken families.”

  Velai smiled faintly. “That’ll do.”

  Plans were laid.

  Prolix would use old war charms, disguised magic traps, and one of Cindle’s slowfire phials to create the illusion of an assassination. A burned cloak. Scattered fragments. Royal blood—donated willingly, with several complaints, by Tomlin himself.

  Once the scene was set, a decoy trail would lead toward a nearby ravine. By the time the Draggor crown’s agents reached the site, the royal heir would be smoke and memory.

  And hopefully, already gone.

  They had four days to prepare.

  By the second day, the abandoned estate was more workshop than refuge.

  ProlixalParagon had commandeered what had once been a dining hall, now cleared of its half-rotten tables and ivy-wrapped chairs. Tools clinked and whirred across a spread of salvaged surfaces—clockwork hinges, alchemical vials, powdered rustroot, and a lattice of copper runes that pulsed dimly in the gloom.

  “This isn’t just about vanishing,” Prolix muttered to himself as he worked. “This is theater.”

  He assembled a construct from bones and charcoal—humanoid in shape, draped in a duplicate of Tomlin’s cloak and padded out with wire and straw soaked in blood drawn the night before. It was grotesque, but necessary. Once the illusion spells were anchored, it would even smell like a burned corpse, just long enough to convince any inspection before decay made truth indistinguishable.

  The blood itself had been stabilized with goblin binding-salt, ensuring it wouldn’t coagulate or fade too fast. Ralyria would have been impressed. Or disgusted.

  In the courtyard, Tomlin watched with guarded curiosity, Velai keeping Lioren close to her chest. She didn't interrupt often, though she occasionally whispered with her mate about the escape trail she had scouted through the hills. It was clear that she had lived as a soldier, and still thought like one.

  On the third night, the dry run began.

  The "body" was placed in the crumbling remains of the east wing. Prolix arranged the scene: signs of a break-in, a struggle—splinters of a shattered door, marks of fire along the wall, and a volatile charm linked to one of Pillowhorror’s runes. It would detonate when proximity wards sensed an unfamiliar presence. Not enough to kill, but enough to make scavengers think twice and investigators flinch.

  Prolix used a minor illusion to distort the visual signature of the corpse—enough to look convincingly burned, face unrecognizable but with Tomlin’s ring embedded in the ruined hand.

  He stepped back, sweat sticking his tunic to his back, gears clicking behind his eyes as calculations settled into certainty.

  “It’s ready.”

  Tomlin, pale but composed, stared at the decoy that would become his legacy. “That’s going to be me, then.”

  “Only in the eyes of those who want to control you,” Prolix said.

  Velai stood beside him, placing a pawed hand on his shoulder. “It’s time.”

  At dawn, Prolix activated the timed glyphs. Slowfire began to creep from the hearth outward, catching on soaked wood and fabricated flammables. They fled through the servant’s tunnel, Velai carrying Lioren and Tomlin cloaked and silent beside her. The fire would burn through in minutes. The charms would collapse the ceiling in the designated wing. The illusion ward would warp the air with choking heat, mimicking the aftershock of combat magic.

  From the forest ridge above, they watched the estate become a smear of smoke and ash.

  Tomlin exhaled slowly, fingers white around Velai’s.

  “That’s it,” he murmured. “The prince of Draggor is dead.”

  “No,” Velai whispered, her tone soft as dusk. “He’s free.”

  Prolix said nothing. But a quiet satisfaction warmed his chest—an echo of choice made and consequence embraced.

  Now came the harder part: escorting a royal ghost and his family to the borders of the Lunar Empire without being hunted.