The Veiled Concord part 3

Masks in the Cathedral
The city was draped in gold that evening, though the heavens were gray. Every tower of Eltareth’s upper quarter shimmered with lanternlight, every balcony bloomed with silk banners bearing the twin eagle of the Empire. But beneath that glittering façade, the air reeked faintly of wax and wine—symbols of celebration masking the scent of dread.

The Emperor’s envoy had arrived for the Feast of Renewal, held once every decade within the Grand Cathedral of Saint Dhalis. Nobles and priests would gather beneath its jeweled dome to reaffirm the “Divine Balance”—the Empire’s sanctified order of life and death. It was a holy spectacle, meant to remind the people that harmony reigned in Eltareth.

But harmony is rarely born without the silencing of discord.

And so, the Veiled Concord had work to do.

The Masked Directive
Mara Seyne’s summons came by candlelight, slipped beneath my door on parchment as thin as onion skin. No name, no seal—just a single line:

“Attend the Feast. Bear the silver mask. Speak no vows.”

When I arrived at the guild’s hidden hall, she stood before a table draped in black velvet. Upon it lay a mask of hammered silver shaped in the likeness of a serene face—genderless, emotionless. Its interior smelled faintly of iron and myrrh.

“This is your admission,” she said, fastening her gloves. “Tonight, the nobles renew their oaths to the Balance. One among them has betrayed it. You will ensure the vow is kept.”

I waited for a name. None came.

Mara continued, voice quiet and sharp as a pin: “You’ll know your mark when he refuses to bow at the third benediction.”

“The Cathedral will be full,” I said. “How do I approach unseen?”

Her lips curved faintly. “You won’t need to. The Empire’s loyalists will see only another mask.”

And with that, she handed me a small vial of blackened oil and a folded fan—an assassin’s tools dressed as courtly trinkets.

“Tonight,” she said, “the Empire’s saints wear smiles. So must you.”

The Feast of Renewal
The Grand Cathedral was a monument of light. Crystal chandeliers reflected a thousand flames; pillars of alabaster rose like the bones of gods. Nobles glided through the hall in masks of ivory, gold, and glass, their laughter echoing like delicate bells.

I moved among them as one of their own, my silver mask catching the firelight, reflecting nothing of the face beneath. Servants offered chalices of wine so dark it looked like blood.

High above, the murals of Saint Dhalis depicted the saint’s descent into the necropolis, lantern in hand, leading the faithful through death’s gate.

The third benediction approached.

The High Speaker lifted his hands, his jeweled voice resounding across the hall:

“By the Balance eternal, we bow to the light and shadow alike.”

Dozens of nobles inclined their heads in practiced reverence.

One did not.

A tall figure in a peacock-blue doublet stood rigid near the dais, his mask of onyx glimmering faintly beneath the chandeliers. His eyes—visible through narrow slits—held the gleam of defiance.

I knew then: he was the mark.

The Dance of Shadows
Music swelled—a slow waltz meant to carry the ceremony into revelry. The crowd moved like a tide of silk and laughter, their masks turning faces into anonymous fragments of grace.

I drifted closer to the onyx-masked noble. He stood apart, speaking quietly to a woman in scarlet. I caught fragments of his words over the music: “…the pact must be broken… before they wake again…”

Demons. The word hung unspoken, yet it was there, between the notes.

The vial of black oil weighed heavy in my sleeve—a poison designed not for the throat, but for the soul. A single drop upon skin, and the body would falter as if seized by divine judgment. The Concord’s alchemists called it Mercy’s Breath.

The moment came during the dance.

I brushed past him, feigning the stumble of a drunken courtier. My hand grazed his wrist—bare beneath his cuff. A whisper of oil, invisible.

He turned sharply, eyes meeting mine through the veil of masks. For an instant, I saw something there—fear, or recognition.

Then the orchestra reached its crescendo. He swayed.

The woman in scarlet screamed as the noble collapsed, clutching his chest.

The music faltered, candles flickering in their sconces as priests rushed forward. “The Balance takes what it is owed!” the High Speaker cried, turning tragedy into sermon.

The crowd murmured prayers. The onyx-masked man lay still.

The Cathedral Aftermath
When I returned to the streets, the bells of Saint Dhalis tolled once more, marking the end of the Feast. My mask felt heavy now, the silver face cold against my skin.

A courier waited in the shadow of the archway—hooded, silent. He handed me a sealed parchment; its wax stamped with half a veil.

“Balance restored. Payment received.”

No name. No signature. Only the faint trace of perfume I recognized—Mara’s.

But beneath the familiar scent was something else. A metallic tang, faint yet unmistakable: blood.

The Second Meeting
Mara awaited me in the hall of the Concord, a single candle between us.

“The city whispers tonight,” she said softly. “They say a noble fell during the benediction. A tragedy, of course.”

Her smile did not reach her eyes.

“The Empire thanks you for your discretion.”

I hesitated. “He spoke of a pact. Of demons.”

Mara’s gloved fingers paused above the candle flame. The light wavered.

“Many speak foolishly when they fear death,” she said finally. “Do not mistake panic for prophecy.”

She pushed a small silver ring across the table—stamped with the veiled sigil of the Concord.

“Wear it,” she said. “It marks you as one of us now. No longer courier. Now, executor.”

Ash Between Crowns
The fog in Eltareth carried a strange stillness that morning, as if the city itself were holding its breath. Somewhere beyond the church quarter, bells tolled the morning prayer—but their sound was muffled, drowned beneath the heavy quiet of autumn ash drifting from the temple braziers.

War was not yet declared, but its whispers had already taken root.

The Duke of Merrowvale—a proud, loud man of gilded armor and easy speeches—had begun to stir the lords of the south, preaching of “demonic infiltration” and the need for a holy crusade. But those who listened closely heard another meaning: he meant to carve his own kingdom from the Empire’s lands, under the guise of divine duty.

And so, the Emperor, in his infinite silence, sent a shadow to correct him.

The Merchant’s Request
Ser Alon met me by the riverside markets, among stalls of drying herbs and roasted chestnuts. To all appearances, he was a merchant of trinkets—broad-shouldered, sun-worn, with ink-stained fingers. Yet his eyes were too sharp, too trained to belong to any trader.

He offered no pleasantries.

“The Duke is poison dressed in prayer,” he said. “He gathers zealots beneath the banner of purity. If his sermon reaches the Cathedral Gardens, the people will march.”

His hand brushed across a crate of wine bottles—one of them marked subtly with a crescent seal.

“The Emperor cannot speak against him. You will.”

I nodded, and he leaned closer, his voice a low thread.

“End his voice. End it cleanly. But if you prefer discretion, the courts have long memories for treason.”

When he straightened, he smiled faintly, returning to his role as a jovial merchant.

“And should you find something… unusual—bring it to me. The Palace is not the only nest where demons perch.”

The Duke’s Sermon
The Cathedral Gardens had been transformed into a theater of devotion. Lanterns burned pale blue, the color of mourning and purity. The Duke stood upon a marble dais surrounded by priests, his voice rising above the murmuring crowd like a sermon of fire.

“Eltareth sleeps while corruption breeds in its bones!” he cried. “We honor the Balance—but the Balance has been defiled!”

The crowd cheered.

I moved among them as a scribe, ink-stained and forgettable, a rolled parchment tucked beneath my cloak. In truth, it contained no ink—only a thin sliver of venom concealed within the quill’s hollow shaft.

A sermon could end with a word. So could a life.

From my vantage beneath a willow, I studied the dais. The Duke’s guards formed a tight ring around him, watching the crowd for assassins who might have already been closer than they imagined.

I had two paths.

If I tipped the quill into his wine before the sermon’s close, his collapse would be divine retribution.

Or I could slip forged letters—bearing the seal of a rival kingdom—into his quarters and let the courts bleed him slowly.

The Veiled Concord taught that mercy and cruelty were but methods. Both served Balance.

The Black Charm
I had almost decided on poison when a flicker caught my eye—something glinting beneath the Duke’s amulet as he gestured to the crowd.

A small, polished stone, black as midnight. When his robe shifted, it seemed to pulse faintly, like the heartbeat of something sleeping within it.

Later, when the sermon ended and the nobles began their feasting, I slipped through the servants’ corridor into the Duke’s study. The walls smelled of oil and incense, his desk strewn with proclamations sealed in crimson wax.

The charm lay there beside an unfinished letter to the Emperor, half-written and trembling at the edges, as though he’d hesitated to finish.

I picked it up.

It vibrated faintly against my palm. The warmth of my blood made it hum—softly, rhythmically. The closer I brought it to my skin, the more intense the pulse became.

Then a whisper—so faint I thought it memory—brushed against my thoughts:

Truth does not die with the tongue that speaks it.

I pocketed the charm.

Moments later, I left a forged letter in its place. By morning, the courts would declare the Duke guilty of conspiracy.

He would die behind marble bars, not beneath my blade.

The Aftermath
That night, Ser Alon found me again at the riverside. The air smelled of wet stone and drifting ash.

“So, the Duke chokes on his own lies instead of yours,” he said with quiet amusement. “A patient strike. The Emperor appreciates patience.”

I offered him the charm.

He examined it briefly, his expression turning colder. “Obsidian,” he murmured. “But not natural. This was carved in the style of the old wards. It reacts to blood… and truth.”

“Truth?” I asked.

He pocketed it. “An old superstition. They say these stones can sense corruption. But corruption, in Eltareth, wears too many faces.”

I hesitated. “What would the Empire do with such a thing?”

Ser Alon smiled faintly, like a man who had already decided not to answer.

“What the Empire always does,” he said. “Hide it until the next war.”

He turned to leave, then paused.

“Mara speaks highly of you,” he added. “Not often she does. Keep your head low and your heart steady, Operator.”

When he vanished into the mist, I found the charm still in my pocket. He had left it there, deliberately.

And now, when I held it, it pulsed again—stronger than before.

The Ledger of the Dead
The Undercity breathes differently than the world above. It is a place where air moves in sighs, not gusts; where every candle flicker feels like a whispered confession. Water drips through cracked stone vaults older than memory itself, each drop echoing like the ticking of a hidden clock counting down the life of the city above.

Old Norn waited for me there — in the accountant’s vaults below the Veiled Concord’s Hall. He was stooped over a desk of green glass and bone, his ink-stained fingers trembling as if they had memorized too many numbers to ever be steady again.

“They’ve stolen the ledgers,” he rasped, not looking up. “Every record of coin and contract since the Year of Smoke. If those pages reach the wrong hands, the people will know us — not as rumor, but as ledger lines and names.”

His eyes were the color of worn silver coins.

I took the assignment without a word. In Eltareth, silence was its own kind of vow.

The Smuggler’s Trail
The Undercity sprawls beneath the marble of the Upper City like rot beneath a painted mask. There, guild coin moves faster than law, and loyalties weigh less than ash.

I followed the trail of missing records through whisper-markets and tunnel bars where smugglers traded relics for silence. A few remembered a bookish man with ink on his cuffs — an accountant who had offered them “contracts older than their grandfathers.”

In the end, I found a body.

He lay slumped before a cracked statue of Saint Dhalis — the same saint whose temple I once walked through in another life, another contract. His throat was cut cleanly. No struggle. No theft — except for the ledger.

But beside him, beneath a pool of blood reflecting candlelight, was a parchment stamped with the Concord’s own sigil.

Only... the seal was wrong. The ink shimmered faintly. A forgery.

The Shrine of False Paper
The trail led deeper, into an old smuggler’s den that had been turned into a counterfeit scriptorium. Tables of half-finished scrolls lined the walls, all bearing the Concord’s insignia.

The smugglers — five of them — were too slow to hide their crime. Their leader, a gaunt woman with eyes like burnt glass, sneered when she saw my blade.

“We sold your contracts to the Watch, little ghost. The nobles will hang each other before your guild even blinks.”

A lie meant to stall. But among the papers, I found something worse than betrayal — a forged contract ordering the assassination of a noblewoman “possessed by infernal influence.”

At first glance, it was a hoax. Another attempt to slander the guild. Until I saw the name.

Lady Esmertine. A courtier rumored dead of fever two months ago — the same night the Cathedral gardens burned black.

And the wax seal bore traces of blood.