Ashes of the Veiled Market part 3

I slipped away before the guards arrived, meeting Sophia at the prearranged spot — a crumbling warehouse on the upper pier, where rain dripped through broken beams. She was waiting, her cloak soaked through, eyes burning in the dim light.

I handed her the letter and the crystal shards.

She studied them in silence. When she spoke, her voice was soft but edged like a blade.

“The pious baron feeding the hungry — while selling their souls by the barrel.”

She looked up at me.

“Don’t look shocked. That’s Choury for you. In this Empire, even saints need sponsors.”

I shook my head. “What do we do with this?”

Sophia tucked the letter into her cloak. “We burn the evidence after the Inquisition sees it. Public truth changes nothing. Quiet execution changes everything.”

She paused, watching the flames from the docks flicker in the distance.

“You’ve done good work. But remember — when we strike, the Empire won’t thank you. The people won’t even notice. You’ll just be another shadow burned away.”

Her tone softened, just barely.

“Rest while you can. The Broker will smell blood soon. And when he does, our masks will burn with his.”

The Mask and the Flame
They say every thief wears two masks: one for the job, and one for survival.

By now, mine had begun to crack.

The Guild was restless. The docks had burned for three nights straight, and word spread that someone had tipped the Inquisition. The Broker had gone silent—his usual coded notes replaced by whispers, his lieutenants prowling the streets with their blades drawn and tempers shorter than candlewicks.

I should have been relieved. The Inquisition was preparing to strike, and my work as their infiltrator was nearly done. But Sophia’s warning still echoed in my mind:

“The Broker doesn’t trust easily—but when he does, he remembers faces. Make sure yours is worth remembering.”

It started with a summons. A black envelope slipped under my door at dawn. The wax seal bore the Guild’s sigil— a serpent coiled around a coin.

Tonight. The cellar beneath the Velvet Lantern. The Broker calls the Circle.

The Velvet Lantern was one of those places where gold bought silence. Perfume and fear hung in equal measure. The guild’s inner circle gathered there, cloaked figures seated around a table carved from a single slab of obsidian.

The Broker sat at the head.

I had never seen his face before—no one had—but the mask he wore that night was unmistakable: iron, featureless except for a thin line where the mouth should be. His voice came filtered through it, cold and even.

“Brothers. Sisters. One of our ships burns. One of our couriers vanishes. One of our noble sponsors grows… nervous.”

He paused. Every eye turned toward me.

“Someone has been feeding information to the Inquisition.”

A murmur spread, soft and dangerous.

My pulse quickened. I forced my breathing to slow, my expression to stay blank. The key to lying wasn’t silence—it was confidence.

“We will find them,” the Broker continued. “And when we do, I will show them mercy.”

He turned his mask toward me.

“The kind reserved for traitors.”

The meeting dissolved into arguments and accusations, but I slipped away before anyone noticed. Sophia met me in an alley two streets over, cloak drawn tight against the drizzle.

“You’re running out of time,” she said, voice sharp. “The Broker’s closing his net.”

“I can’t just vanish,” I hissed. “If I disappear now, I’m dead before sunset. I need something to hand him—something that makes me useful.”

She handed me a folded parchment. “Then give him this. False intel. It’ll lead his hunters into an Inquisition trap near the old aqueducts. If he bites, you’ll earn his trust again—and we’ll crush a third of his network overnight.”

I hesitated. “And if he doesn’t bite?”

Sophia’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Then you’re already dead.”

That night, I returned to the Velvet Lantern. The Broker was alone in the cellar, mask gleaming in candlelight.

I placed the parchment on the table. “I found something. The traitor’s meeting point.”

He didn’t move for a long time. The silence stretched so thin I could hear the drip of water from the ceiling. Then he leaned forward, gloved hand brushing the paper.

“You bring this to me… while the city burns. Why?”

“Because I want to live,” I said. “And because whoever’s feeding the Inquisition is making fools of us all.”

He stared at me through that blank mask, and for a moment I thought I saw a glimmer of something human behind it—tiredness, maybe, or sorrow. Then it was gone.

“Very well. You’ll come with me when we strike. If your information is good, you’ll rise in the Guild. If it’s false…”

He tapped the mask with a single finger.

“You’ll see what’s behind this.”

The ambush came two nights later at the aqueducts.

Fog rolled thick between the arches as Guild blades slithered through the dark. I walked among them, heart hammering. The Inquisition would be waiting—crossbows loaded, wards primed, ready to burn every last one of us.

The first bolt struck before the Broker gave the signal. Screams followed, mingled with fire and steel. The aqueduct became a killing ground.

I fought to survive, dodging bolts, parrying blows, the world around me a blur of red and smoke. At some point, I saw the Broker through the chaos—his mask half shattered, his cloak aflame, still fighting like a man possessed.

When the flames died, only a handful of us remained. The Broker was gone.

Sophia found me crawling from the ruins hours later, bloodied but breathing.

“You did it,” she said quietly. “The Guild’s command is broken. The Inquisition will sweep the rest.”

I looked back at the burning arches. “And the Broker?”

She shook her head. “No body.”

That night, as I burned my Guild cloak in the river, a whisper came with the wind:

“Every thief wears two masks. You burned one tonight. But which?”

The Veil’s Heart
By the time Sophia and I reached the slums, the city above had forgotten the fires at the aqueducts. Merchants hawked spices and trinkets beside the blackened remains of Guild warehouses; children played with broken crossbow bolts as if they were toys. The smell of smoke had already mingled with incense and rot.

“Funny,” Sophia murmured beside me, pulling her hood low. “You burn half the underworld to ash, and the other half just starts selling shovels.”

We wore the leathers of smugglers now — salt-stained, scarred, and reeking of sea brine. My divine aura was long buried beneath the Veilstone Sigil. I couldn’t remember the sound of my own real name anymore.

The slum’s cobblestones gave way to a crooked stair that wound down beneath a derelict tannery. A single lantern burned beside the entrance, its flame tinted a faint crimson — a silent sign to those who knew: Trade permitted. Questions not.

The Vault of Veins was not what I expected.

It wasn’t a lair of shadows and chains, but a marketplace. Beneath the city’s skin, the Guild had built its own imitation of life: stalls draped with silks, merchants in masks whispering prices, and ledgers inked in blood.

But instead of gold, the currency was memory. A woman traded her laughter for a vial of healing dust. A man pressed his wedding ring into a clerk’s hand and watched his own reflection fade from a mirror. Every exchange bled something from its owner.

“This is the Market Rite,” Sophia whispered. Her voice was steady, but her fingers twitched near the hilt of her blade. “They trade what can’t be stolen — what makes them human.”

We moved through the crowd, pretending to browse. My eyes caught symbols carved into the pillars: runes of subservience, hunger, and pact. Ancient sigils — not of thieves, but of demons.

At the hall’s center stood a raised platform draped in crimson cloth. A figure in a hooded gray robe stepped forward, voice carrying through the chamber like a blade slicing silence.

“Brothers and sisters of the Veil! Tonight, we honor the Sovereign’s decree. For every relic we claim, a promise must be paid. For every coin of protection, a soul must be weighed.”

A merchant knelt, presenting a coffer filled with something black and pulsing — Black Ember. The smell was sulfur and burnt copper.

The crowd murmured in reverence.

Then the hooded figure raised a crystal vial, and from it poured smoke that shimmered with eyes. It coiled above the altar, whispering in a voice that wasn’t human.

“The pact endures. The Broker Demon hears.”

I felt my skin crawl. The demonic presence wasn’t merely symbolic — it was summoned. Bound, perhaps, but alive.

Sophia leaned close, her breath cold against my ear. “We have proof. That’s a binding ritual, not a trade. They’re feeding the demons human essence through commerce.”

“Let’s grab what we need and get out,” I murmured. “Before someone starts asking for our memories.”

We drifted toward the back of the hall, pretending to haggle while I tucked a handful of parchments from a scribe’s desk into my sleeve — contracts written in infernal shorthand. Names, dates, and symbols of payment.

Then I saw it.

A mural behind the altar, half-shrouded by banners: a crowned figure of gray stone, hands raised in command over both humans and demons. Beneath it, an inscription carved deep into the wall:

The Gray Sovereign shall summon the Broker to balance the scales of mortal greed.

Sophia’s eyes widened. “He’s not just trading with demons. He’s trying to formalize it — turn damnation into diplomacy.”

The floor beneath us began to tremble. The summoning pit flared with blue fire, and the smoke grew teeth.

Someone had noticed us.

“Go!” Sophia hissed, shoving me toward the exit. I grabbed her arm, dragging her through the maze of stalls as the crowd screamed. Candles toppled, gold scattered, and the black smoke lashed like whips across the air.

We burst into the tunnels, hearts pounding, chased by echoing roars. The Vault’s entrance sealed behind us with a crash, leaving only the flicker of our lantern and the stench of brimstone.

We didn’t speak until we reached the surface. The night was still; the stars faint behind the city’s haze.

Sophia finally broke the silence. “So, it’s true. The Sovereign’s planning to summon a Broker Demon.”

I nodded, still catching my breath. “To protect the Guild from us. From everyone.”

She looked at me, expression unreadable. “Then the next step is clear. We don’t expose him. We stop him. Before he seals the deal.”

Cut the Tongue
Killing is supposed to get easier with practice. It doesn’t. It only gets quieter.

The orders came sealed in black wax, stamped with the sigil of the Holy Inquisition — a sun pierced by a dagger. Inside, three names written in crimson ink. Not their Guild codenames, not aliases, but their real names. A Dockmaster. A Relic Appraiser. A Soul Merchant.

All three lieutenants of the Veiled Market. All three with bloodied hands in the demon trade.

Sophia read the parchment in silence, her expression somewhere between disgust and resignation. “Three tongues,” she said finally. “Cut them, and the Sovereign’s ritual loses its voice.”

I tried to sound steady. “And if we fail?”

Her gaze flicked to the parchment again. “Then the Broker Demon gets a contract written in all our names.”

The Dockmaster was first.

He ran the Sable Docks like a kingdom, his throne a crate and his crown a ledger. Ships came and went under his eye — carrying fish by day, relics by night.

I watched him from the shadows of a warehouse roof, the tide whispering below. He was shouting orders, waving a lantern toward a crew unloading barrels of “dried goods.” The glow lit up his face, revealing a man who looked too tired to be evil — and too greedy to be anything else.

A loose rope. A heavy crate. Gravity did the rest.

The sound of the fall was almost drowned by the crash of the sea. Almost.

When his men found him, his head was gone, buried under splintered oak and grain. I left a broken dagger marked with the emblem of a rival gang. The perfect crime, the perfect accident.

One down.