An Unsavory Invitation

The silence in our rented room was a lie.

It wasn't the empty quiet of the forest. This was a crafted silence, a deliberate pause in the ceaseless, grinding noise of Lenspear. A fraud.

Asverta sat by the window, a cup of wine in her hands. She was a statue of purple silk and pale skin, watching the river of people flow through the street below. Her gaze was distant, as if she were merely watching the patterns in a meaningless dance.

In another corner, Mu slept.

The three books we had bought were arranged beside him like offerings. His breathing was the room’s only metronome, a soft, rhythmic beat marking the passage of time that led only to decay.

How does a blind child read?

The question was a flicker of static in my mind. Asverta had explained it, of course. He felt the books, the echo of thought left on the page. A ghost of a voice.

He felt the world as a whisper of old intentions. I saw it as a series of predictable disappointments. Two different paths to the same, empty conclusion.

The quiet was broken by a soft, specific knock at the door. Two quick taps, a pause, then one more.

Not a social call. A summons.

Asverta’s languid posture evaporated. She was at the door in an instant, her grace unsettling. A whispered exchange, a password I didn't care to learn, and she closed the door again.

Her gaze fell on me, then shifted to the sleeping boy.

“You’re with me,” she said. It was not a request. “He stays.”

A shimmering veil of power, invisible to most, pulsed around Mu for a second before fading. A cage of protection.

“Lock the door. Open it for no one.”

We followed the nondescript messenger into the city’s gut. The grand, lamp-lit streets were a facade, a painted mask on a rotting skull.

The real Lenspear was here.

In the labyrinth of narrow, dark alleys that smelled of poverty, damp rot, and stale despair. Here, the grand ambitions of the city festered and died. I saw hollow-eyed stares from shadowed doorways. I saw a child, no older than Mu, with dirt-caked hands and ancient eyes, begging for a coin that would never be enough.

The symbols of the Knights and the Order were scrawled everywhere, a childish war of graffiti fought by men who believed their symbols meant something.

A familiar sight, Einar’s voice noted, cold and precise. The inevitable rot that grows in the heart of any city.

Look at their faces, Nora whispered, his voice a fragile ache. They’re so… tired. Like Bane was.

I took it all in with a familiar weariness. This organized suffering was somehow more grotesque than the honest chaos of the Raven invasion. At least there, the pretense had been stripped away. Here, they pretended this was civilization.

The messenger led us to a dusty, unassuming archive shop. Inside, we were guided past shelves of decaying scrolls into a soundproofed cellar.

A few humming magical lanterns cast a sickly, sterile light on a large table covered in maps. A figure stood waiting, hunched over the table.

As they looked up, I was struck not by any aura of power, but by a profound, soul-deep exhaustion. This was the Spymaster of Lenspear. Their face was a roadmap of sleepless nights and impossible choices, their eyes intelligent but utterly devoid of light.

They were a mirror, reflecting a weariness I knew intimately.

The Spymaster did not waste time on pleasantries. His voice was a dry rasp, the sound of paper scraping on stone.

“Asverta. Thank you for coming.”

“Your message sounded urgent, Kael,” she replied, her own voice stripped of its usual playful cadence.

The Spymaster—Kael—gestured to the table. “Urgent is an understatement. An event has transpired. A necessary one. One that threatens to unravel the delicate, rotten peace we've maintained.”

He looked directly at Asverta, his gaze heavy.

“General Vorlag of the Royal Knights is dead.”

He paused, letting the words sink in.

“I killed him three hours ago.”

The confession hung in the air, cold and absolute. A fact laid bare on the table like a dagger.

Now this is a party, V chuckled, a manic sound that echoed only in my skull. The first domino falls. Let's watch it all burn.

Kael’s tired eyes flickered towards me, noting my impassive face, before returning to Asverta. “Vorlag was a public hero. A symbol of the Knights’ manufactured honor. He was also a traitor, poised to sell this city’s defense schematics to the Tenebrian Empire for a pittance of personal glory. His death was not justice. It was a necessity.”

He leaned forward, the dim lantern light carving canyons into his face. “But if his body is found, this city will burn. His followers will make him a martyr. It will be a meaningless bonfire of human stupidity.”

The moment arrived. The true purpose of this meeting.

“I have killed one man to save tens of thousands,” the Spymaster whispered, his voice cracking with exhaustion. “Now, I need your help, Asverta. I need a mage of your skill to erase the magical signature of my work. To help me make a celebrated general vanish from the face of the earth.”

He held her gaze, a silent plea from one monster to another.

“Will you help me prevent a war… by becoming my accomplice?”