Guidry's Arc

Chapter 12 of 14

Guidry stepped over the corpse and moved toward the ruins, the stranger's death confirming what he'd suspected for forty years—navigating the marsh wasn't about being skilled, it was about knowing when to turn back. The stone walls rose ahead, half-collapsed and draped in moss. Then he saw them through a gap in the collapsed wall—Stryker and Croaker standing beside the gem's chamber entrance, the Scaled Gem glowing faint green in Stryker's hand. Relief flooded through him, followed immediately by something sharper. A figure in a black cloak stepped from behind a cluster of four others dressed identically, all standing motionless near the waterline. The cloaked figure moved forward and pressed a scroll to Stryker's palm—the same elegant contract scroll Guidry had seen at the western dock. Stryker nodded once, and the figure withdrew into the group. Guidry's throat tightened. He'd guided Stryker here believing he was the only one with leverage over the route, the only one who knew when to stop. But whoever controlled those figures had been here first, waiting with a contract ready. His secret route hadn't bought him power—it had delivered Stryker straight to someone who'd already claimed it. Guidry stepped back into the shadows, his forty-year-old advantage dissolving like mist. Respect wouldn't come from what he knew. It would come from deciding what he did next.