—Zeta—

  Oh, shit. A really big city.

  Veridia.

  Even the name sounded like it would give you a rash.

  My extensive experience with… well, with existing, had taught me one immutable truth: more people invariably meant more problems.

  It was a fundamental law of the universe, right up there with gravity and the tendency for toast to land butter-side down. Even with a memory wiped cleaner than a freshly bleached skull, I could arrive at that conclusion.

  Some truths are just self-evident. This was one of them.

  The journey here had been a masterclass in sustained discomfort. Days of sun-baked roads, D’s relentless attempts at cheerfulness disguised as terrible singing, and Jay radiating enough silent frustration to power a small, miserable nation.

  Our “disguises” were an insult to common sense and the concept of visual perception itself.

  D, in his ill-fitting dress, looked less like a farmer’s wife and more like a particularly confused scarecrow who’d lost a bet. He insisted on walking with a sway in his hips and kept adjusting the oversized fruit-stuffed bodice like he was smuggling cantaloupes. Every time his fake bosom shifted, I died a little more inside.

  My own bandaged visage—meant to evoke sympathy for a tragic burn victim—probably just made people assume I was contagious with something medieval, horrifying, and possibly airborne.

  Jay, beneath his oversized straw hat, simply looked like Jay. But with straw. And the quiet desperation of a man clinging to the last threads of a lie.

  Oh, and then there was the cat.

  Not just any cat.

  A three-eyed, two-tailed, shadow-drenched little monster that had apparently decided to perch across Jay’s shoulders like a living scarf. Its fur shimmered like heat haze, its third eye blinked sideways, and it purred like a broken engine filled with malice.

  I called it the Hellcat. Not to its face, obviously. I liked my face.

  The weirdest part?

  Nobody noticed.

  It was like the damn thing didn’t exist in their eyes. As if their minds just… skipped over it. I tested it once—stared directly at the creature while making a vague comment about “nice weather for three-eyed shoulder beasts,” and all I got was a blank look.

  Either we were cursed, or it was using some kind of ambient illusion magic.

  Possibly both.

  The city gates loomed ahead—iron-studded and imposing, manned by guards who looked like they gargled gravel and ate rusted nails for breakfast. My internal ‘this-is-where-it-all-goes-wrong’ alarm, a finely tuned instrument honed by weeks of near-death experiences and poor life choices, began its familiar, mournful wail.

  We were, of course, stopped.

  Because the universe hates us.

  It hadn’t even been three hours since Jay sweet-talked our way past the last checkpoint—burning his precious ‘Serpent’s Tongue’ ability in the process. One-use-a-day magic persuasion, now officially on cooldown.

  I hoped it was worth it, because now we were running on raw nerves, bad lies, and whatever gods-forsaken luck we had left.

  The soldiers at this outpost looked less bored and more bored but murdery, which was somehow worse. You could smell the suspicion on them—like damp socks and stale ale.

  The moment they raised their hands, signaling for us to halt, I felt that familiar drop in my stomach. The one that said: welp, time to improvise.

  Jay took the lead, as usual. Confident. Relaxed. Lying through his damn teeth.

  "Name?"

  "Jareth. Jareth Tillman," Jay said, adjusting his straw hat like he’d been born in a barn. “From Maple Hollow. I’m a farmer.”

  The guard gave him a look like he was allergic to vegetables.

  “And them?”

  Jay gestured to us with an easy, practiced motion.

  “My wife,” he said, motioning toward D—who was hunched awkwardly in a cloak, doing his best impression of a modest peasant woman and failing gloriously. “Delilah.”

  D straightened, fluffed the edge of his shawl, and curtsied. Badly. Then he winked.

  “Oh, bless your hearts,” he said in a voice that was at least three octaves above his usual register, swaying his hips as he moved forward. The fake breasts Jay had cobbled together from rags and old fruit jiggled. The movement was hypnotic.

  Horrifying. Mostly horrifying.

  “Such fine uniforms,” D cooed, fluttering his fingers at one of the guards. “I bet you keep the roads ever so safe.”

  The guard blinked. Then blinked again. I wasn’t sure if he was confused, aroused, or trying not to vomit.

  Jay coughed—loudly.

  “And that’s her brother,” he added quickly, pointing at me. “Zedrick. Been sickly since birth. Doesn’t talk much. Bit... soft in the head, bless him.”

  I coughed once and let my head loll slightly to the side, aiming for ‘tragic and terminal.’ One of the guards looked away. The other looked like he was debating whether to stab me out of mercy or paperwork avoidance.

  “Purpose of travel?”

  “Family pilgrimage,” Jay said smoothly. “We’re seeking a blessing for Zedrick’s... condition.”

  He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. “Doctor said he wouldn’t last another winter.”

  The guard grunted. D sniffled on cue, then patted one of his fake breasts like a grieving widow. I almost broke character right there.

  They let us through.

  Just like that.

  As soon as we were out of earshot and well beyond sword range, Jay finally exhaled.

  “Flawless,” he muttered.

  “I think I bruised a melon,” D whispered, adjusting his makeshift cleavage.

  I just kept walking, because honestly, stopping might’ve meant laughing or dying and I wasn’t sure which would come first.

  Seriously.

  My relief was minimal. We’d merely traded one potential catastrophe for a sprawling, densely populated certainty of future catastrophes.

  Stepping through the gates of Veridia was like being plunged headfirst into a churning cauldron of humanity.

  The noise was an immediate assault – a thousand voices shouting, haggling, laughing, crying, all blending into a deafening, inescapable roar. The air, thick and cloying, was a miasma of smells: roasting meat, stale beer, unwashed bodies, exotic spices, animal dung, and something vaguely metallic that might have been blood or just poorly maintained plumbing.

  Towering buildings of stone and timber pressed in on all sides, their upper stories leaning precariously over narrow, cobbled streets choked with a relentless tide of people.

  Merchants hawked their wares from brightly colored stalls, beggars pleaded for coin, children darted underfoot like hyperactive vermin, and everywhere, the constant, jostling press of bodies.

  It was, in short, my personal version of hell. But with more interesting architecture, I suppose. I could almost hear D’s internal monologue squealing with delight at the "immersive fantasy city experience." My own was mostly just a long, sustained groan.

  The sheer scale of it was… oppressive. This wasn’t a town; it was a self-contained ecosystem of potential annoyances.

  We shuffled along, swept up in the current of the crowd. The cacophony suggested a large market district lay just ahead, its siren song of commerce and chaos drawing the masses.

  Jay, ever the pragmatist, stopped abruptly, forcing me to nearly collide with his back. The Minfu on his shoulder let out a soft hiss of disapproval.

  "Alright," Jay said, his voice tight, pitched just loud enough to be heard over the din. "Rule number one: we stick together. No wandering off. No distractions. Am I clear?"

  He turned, presumably to glare at D, the usual instigator of unplanned detours.

  His glare, however, met only me.

  D… was gone.

  Vanished into the teeming throng as if he’d been swallowed by a particularly enthusiastic, brightly-dressed amoeba.

  Jay’s face went through a fascinating series of micro-expressions: surprise, disbelief, then a familiar, simmering rage that made the air around him crackle. A string of curses that would have made a pirate blush escaped his lips, impressively creative even by his standards.

  "Thirty seconds," he seethed. "It lasted approximately thirty seconds."

  With another, more potent curse, he plunged back into the crowd, scanning wildly. I followed, not because I particularly cared about D’s immediate fate – he had an uncanny ability to land on his feet, usually after causing maximum collateral damage – but because being alone in this maelstrom was an even less appealing prospect.

  We pushed through the packed streets, Jay muttering threats against D’s continued existence, me mostly trying to avoid eye contact with anyone. We’d taken perhaps twenty steps when a small figure, darting through the crowd like a startled rabbit, collided hard with Jay’s legs. The kid, no older than ten, all elbows and shins, stumbled, then shot off down a narrow alleyway without a backward glance.

  Jay let out another guttural curse, more out of general irritation than any real injury.

  "Ah," I said, a flicker of something almost like interest stirring within my usual torpor. "The classic pickpocket gambit. Right out of a poorly written street urchin’s manual." I even managed a small, weary gesture towards the fleeing child.

  "You might want to check your pockets, Jay. Or, in this case, your belt pouch."

  Jay’s eyes narrowed. He clapped a hand to his side. The small, unassuming leather pouch that Lorens had given him – containing our entire fortune of a few dozen copper coins – was gone.

  "Damn it all to the seven hells!" he roared, the farmer disguise momentarily forgotten.

  He was gone in an instant, a blur of borrowed trousers and righteous fury, disappearing down the same alleyway in pursuit of the diminutive thief.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Leaving me behind.

  I sighed. More problems. Always more problems.

  And now, apparently, I was alone with them, stranded in a city that smelled faintly of despair and unwashed socks.

  Yeah… so much for ‘we stick together.’

  Fantastic.

  I did the only sensible thing.

  I found a relatively clean patch of wall, leaned against it, and closed my eyes. Maybe if I wished hard enough, the next apocalypse would be a quiet one.

  Ten minutes hadn’t even passed—or perhaps they had. Time tended to lose all meaning when one was contemplating the void and the structural integrity of a nearby drainpipe.

  That was when a soft tink diverted me from my architectural musings.

  A small copper coin lay on the grimy cobblestones at my feet. Roughly the size of my thumbnail, thinner than the ones Lorens had given us when we arrived. I regarded it with deep suspicion.

  Then another tink.

  And another.

  Oh.

  People were… giving me money.

  Apparently, my combination of bandages, thousand-yard stare, and overall tragic aura was working. I’d become a charity case.

  Somewhere in the back of my sleep-deprived brain, Lyra’s voice resurfaced—her usual "I’m explaining this once, don’t ask again" tone included.

  “There are three metals in circulation: copper, silver, and gold. Each comes in three denominations—small, medium, and large. The size matters. Small is one unit. Medium’s worth five. Large is ten. So a large copper’s worth ten small coppers. A small silver? Ten small coppers. A large gold? That’s a hundred. Easy, right?”

  It wasn’t.

  Especially when she’d pulled out examples.

  The coins didn’t have numbers—just stylized animals and varying thickness.

  Copper bore cobras: small ones coiled, medium ones mid-strike, large ones hood flared, fangs bared.

  Silver carried hawks.

  Gold, lions.

  Or whatever passed for their equivalents in this damn world.

  “No one uses paper money,” she’d added, “unless you're dealing with merchant guilds, and even then it’s mostly for absurd sums. Coin’s king. Heavy purses, heavier wallets.”

  Which meant the tiny copper now lying at my feet was worth… one. One what? One unit. One moment of pity from a stranger. One reminder that, in this world, I was even less than broke—I was worthy of alms.

  Another coin dropped beside it. A medium copper this time.

  Progress.

  I nodded solemnly at the giver—a middle-aged woman who looked at me with such tragic sympathy that I almost felt bad for not actually being crippled, maimed, or plagued.

  Almost.

  The afternoon wore on. The relentless sun, which had earlier seemed intent on personally incinerating us, began its slow descent, painting the sky in hues of bruised purple and angry orange. The cacophony of the city shifted, the market cries softening, replaced by the murmur of evening crowds.

  I watched them pass, a parade of human endeavor I had no interest in joining.

  Merchants, their faces etched with the day’s bartering, hurried by, some tossing a coin with a dismissive flick of the wrist. Well-dressed matrons, noses held high, occasionally instructed a servant to deposit a coin, as if performing a distasteful civic duty. Even a few rough-looking guards, off-duty perhaps, swaggered past, one chucking a coin with a gruff, "There ya go, unfortunate bastard."

  After what felt like an eternity – probably closer to four hours – a respectable pile of these diminutive coppers had accumulated. At least thirty of them. Enough for… well, probably not enough to escape this city. Definitely not enough to escape my own bleak outlook.

  No sign of D. No sign of Jay. Predictable.

  With a sigh that seemed to emanate from the very core of my weary soul, I gathered the coins, their metallic clink a small, depressing sound. I pushed myself off the wall, limbs stiff. Time to find a less conspicuous patch of misery.

  Just as I straightened, a figure detached itself from the evening throng, planting itself before me.

  Not another pitying passerby. This one radiated hostility.

  He was a wiry man, clothes ragged, face a roadmap of bad decisions, eyes small and mean. A greasy leather cap sat askew on his lank hair.

  "Oi, you!" he snarled, voice a gravelly rasp. "This is my spot, you bandaged freak! You think you can just waltz in and steal my earnings?"

  I just stared. Earnings? I was merely existing in a slightly more lucrative fashion.

  He took my silence as defiance. "Think you're too good to answer, eh?" He stepped closer, breath a noxious cloud of stale alcohol. He reached into his grimy tunic and produced a knife. Short, rusty, but capable of making an unpleasant day significantly worse.

  My internal ‘this-is-where-it-all-goes-wrong’ alarm blared at full volume.

  "Now, now, brother. Is that any way to treat a fellow unfortunate soul?"

  The voice was soft, melodic, carrying a gentle authority.

  He froze, knife hand wavering.

  I looked.

  A woman stood a few paces away, bathed in the warm glow of a streetlamp. Clad in simple, dark robes, a hood shadowing her face, a cascade of dark, tightly braided hair visible. Around her neck hung a medallion – a stylized, eight-pointed star of dark wood.

  The crowd, a constant, swirling presence, seemed to have momentarily thinned.

  "He's on my patch, Sister," the wiry man grumbled.

  "There is enough misfortune in this city for all, brother," the woman said, voice calm. "This poor man," she gestured towards me, "is clearly unwell. He means no harm. Put away your blade."

  The wiry man hesitated.

  Then his gaze shifted—eyes narrowing into a lewd appraisal.

  "And you… what’s a pretty little dove like you doin’ out so late, eh?"

  His voice dripped with mockery, with expectation.

  "Maybe you’d like to offer me some comfort, Sister?" He stepped forward.

  Not toward me.

  Toward her.

  She didn’t move.

  "Oi! Borin!" he called over his shoulder. "Get over here! Got us a bit o' fun!"

  Another figure slouched out from an alley, larger, beefier, carrying a club. "What is it, Finn?" he grunted, a slow, unpleasant smile spreading across his face as he eyed the woman.

  "Just a couple of strays we need to teach a lesson," Finn said, confidence returning. He turned back to the woman, knife glinting. "Now, Sister, about that comfort…"

  The woman stood her ground, posture unchanged. "Leave him be," she said, voice still calm, but with an undercurrent of steel. "And you will leave me be."

  Finn laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "Oh, I think there's profit to be had, eh, Borin?" Borin chuckled, thumping his club. "She's a ripe one."

  "Pretty robes, too," Finn added. "Wonder what's underneath."

  Something in me stirred. Annoyance? Disgust? Maybe just a profound weariness.

  "Leave her alone," I heard myself say, my voice raspy. It was barely a mumble.

  They both looked at me, surprised, then burst out laughing. "Lookie here!" Finn crowed. "The mummy speaks!"

  “Gonna protect your little lady friend, are ya?” Borin sneered, taking a step toward me, club raised.

  I opened my mouth—ready to deliver something cutting, something biting—

  But they struck first.

  Finn lunged low, blade flashing, aiming for her stomach.

  Borin swung—two hands, full force—aiming for where my head had been.

  His club whistled through the air, a blunt promise of brain damage.

  I tried to move.

  I really did.

  But my limbs, traitorous and slow, responded like I’d woken them from a long nap—sluggish, half-asleep, one step away from mutiny. I staggered back with all the grace of a collapsing bookshelf, narrowly avoiding the first blow by pure accident and the tilt of uneven cobblestone.

  There was a blur of movement beside me.

  She moved—not with the grace of a dancer, but with the terrifying efficiency of a guillotine.

  No warning. No flourish. Just motion and death.

  Her robes flared as she pivoted. Steel flashed—two blades, curved like crescent moons and twice as unforgiving.

  Finn’s knife never made contact.

  She twisted sideways, impossibly fast, and slashed. A clean, shallow arc—just enough.

  The blade bit into his wrist with a hiss of steel on flesh. His weapon clattered to the ground.

  Then came the second cut.

  A swift, horizontal slash across his throat—so fast I didn’t register it until the blood came.

  Finn made a wet, startled noise. Like a man trying to speak underwater.

  His eyes widened.

  He crumpled like a dropped puppet.

  Borin’s club swung down—arcing straight for my skull.

  I wasn’t ready.

  I flinched, still on the ground—

  And then she was there.

  One moment I was a soon-to-be smear on the cobbles, the next, she crossed the space between us like a shadow given form.

  Her hand lashed out, catching Borin’s wrist mid-swing. There was a horrible pop as his shoulder dislocated from the force of her twist. He screamed—but it was cut short.

  Both her daggers drove into his torso in a vicious, upward thrust, right beneath the ribs. The sound was wet. Too wet. I heard it more than I saw it—sinew parting, organs punctured.

  Borin choked on his own breath, his eyes going glassy as he dropped the club.

  He dropped everything.

  She let him fall.

  And just like that… it was over.

  Five seconds. Maybe less.

  Finn gurgled softly where he lay, the final notes of a body shutting down.

  Borin landed hard, his weight shaking the ground, limbs twitching uselessly.

  I stood frozen, trying to remember how breathing worked.

  The woman straightened, slow and deliberate.

  No labored panting. No adrenaline-fueled frenzy.

  Just calm, composed murder.

  Her daggers caught the light one last time before she wiped them clean—first on Finn’s sleeve, then on Borin’s tattered shirt.

  One flick each. Precise. Almost reverent.

  She sheathed them in a motion so fluid it seemed to vanish into the folds of her robes.

  Then she turned.

  Her hood had slipped during the fight, revealing sharp cheekbones, a firm mouth, and eyes the color of molten amber.

  Beautiful? Yes.

  In the way a dagger is beautiful when it’s not pointed at you.

  I was still struggling to form thoughts, still processing—

  So naturally, the most intelligent sentence I could muster was:

  "…Thanks."

  She arched an eyebrow, wiping a bit of blood from her cheek with the back of her sleeve.

  “You’re welcome,” she said simply, as if she hadn’t just turned two men into meat.

  I looked down at the corpses.

  Then back at her.

  Then down at myself—half-collapsed, half-breathless.

  “Just to be clear,” I muttered, “I totally had him.”

  She didn’t smile. Not really. But there was a flicker of something—amusement? pity?

  Whatever it was, it made me feel even smaller.

  Of course I hadn’t had him.

  Hell, I’d barely had balance.

  "Are you alright?" she asked, voice once again soft.

  I managed a nod. Words seemed… inadequate.

  "This city," she said, a hint of weariness in her tone, "can be unkind to those who are alone and vulnerable." She glanced at the bodies. "Come. My Order runs a shelter not far from here. You'll be safe, at least for the night. You look like you could use a proper meal and a place to rest."

  My mind raced. A nun who fought like an assassin. An Order. Complications.

  I was profoundly tired of complications.

  The alternative was a night alone on the streets.

  And she had, undeniably, just saved me.

  "Okay," I rasped. A shelter sounded marginally better than a gutter.

  She offered a small, almost sad smile. "Good. Follow me." She turned and began to walk, steps silent and sure.

  I hesitated only a moment, then pushed myself off the wall, following. The jingle of my newly acquired coppers a small, metallic counterpoint to the profound silence she left.

  We walked for a few minutes, the city’s noise fading as we moved into quieter, narrower alleyways.

  "My name is Nyx," she said, without looking back. "Of the Order of the Guiding Star."

  Nyx. It suited her. Ethereal and sharp.

  Order of the Guiding Star. Less reassuring. Stars were distant, cold, and often signaled impending doom in cheap fiction.

  Just my luck.