The price of silence

The market hadn’t changed shape, but it felt smaller. Stalls pressed against each other beneath patched awnings, their colours dulled in the grey light. Meat sweated on hooks, fish stared with glassy eyes, grain sacks slumped against cracked boards. Last time the place had been noise and shove, merchants shouting until their voices broke. Now the voices were lower, words cut short when strangers came near.

They moved through like shadows pressed into a crowd. Ren kept the gauntlet covered under his cloak, sword at his hip but hidden. Hibiki carried the morning star openly; people looked once and then away. Miyako walked light, eyes quick, hand brushing her knives whenever footsteps came too close. Darius hunched deeper into his coat, his one good eye sweeping every corner as though he expected the walls themselves to shift. They bought bread hard enough to chip teeth, salted fish packed in grease, dried roots from a woman who wouldn’t meet their eyes. Every trade was done fast—coin slid, goods snatched, no talk. The air smelled of smoke, old sweat, and the thin metallic tang of rain waiting overhead.

A group of Concordium soldiers stood at the far edge of the square. They weren’t shopping. They weren’t moving. They just watched, armour dulled beneath their cloaks. Ren felt their gaze even when he turned his back. They circled the stalls again for cloth and oil. That was when the words reached them—two merchants whispering, leaning close over a stack of wilted vegetables. “White robes,” one said, voice nearly lost in the clatter. “Collectors, they call them. Villages south gone quiet. Taken at night, whole families. Not bandits. Not sickness. Collected.”

Hibiki’s grip tightened on the chain. Ren caught the twitch of his arm, the hunger to slam through the crowd, demand more. Miyako shifted to block him, a step as casual as reaching for her purse. He stilled, but the tension hummed like his weapon.They didn’t ask the merchants. No one would have answered. Instead they moved on, followed the current of the square until a beggar caught their glance. Rags clung to him, skin like old parchment, eyes sharp despite the ruin of his body. He had been watching them the way crows watched from the orchard walls—silent, patient.

When Darius slowed, the beggar’s hand came up, not to beg for coin but to beckon. They gave him a few pieces of silver and bent close. His voice rasped like wet cloth torn apart. “Not bandits,” he said. “Not sickness. White robes. They take from villages on the edge, those the city doesn’t guard. Lead them under. The hollowed Quarter swallows the rest.” He spat black into the mud, wiped his mouth, and curled back against the wall as though he hadn’t spoken at all. They left before the square could turn colder. Rain had started by then, light enough to bead on cloaks, heavy enough to blur the stones underfoot. The streets narrowed on the way back, doors slamming when their boots echoed too loud.

At the house, they laid out the food and cloth in silence. The bread cracked, the fish stank, but it was enough. The room smelled of wet coats and smoke. Darius poured wine into chipped cups, let them sit until the rain softened outside. “They’re pulling from villages,” Ren said at last. “Outskirts. Easy targets.” Miyako unrolled the cloth she had bought, testing the strength of the weave with a tug. “Then we’re villagers.” Hibiki looked up sharply. “What?” “We dress the part. We walk the part. We wait where they’ll look for prey.”Darius sipped, eye half-open. “You’d make bait.”

“No,” Miyako said. “We make ourselves seen. They think they’re taking strays, they’ll come to us. And when they do, defend the village and get the information.”Ren set the gauntlet down on the table. The metal gleamed dull in the lamplight, wet from rain. “It’s a plan. Better than waiting for scraps of rumor.”The storm thickened outside, rain drumming the shutters. No one argued.