Kyros Valen's Arc

Chapter 3 of 8

Kyros climbed back up the cellar steps and stood in the mill yard. The dragon sat warm in his coat again, quiet as a stone. He had hours before dawn, and the woman in the green shawl had a mouth and a route home. If she reached her door, she would talk. By morning, half the town would know an offworlder kept a live thing in his rooms and smiled at it like a father. He walked back toward town by the tavern road. He kept to the ditch grass. He thought about what silence cost. A knife would silence her tonight and hang him by the next market day. A threat had already failed once. He needed a third thing, and he did not have one. Halfway down the road he saw a lantern swinging low, coming out from a hedge gap. The bearer was small. Silver hair under a pale hood. He knew her by sight from the palace gate: the captain's witch, the one who set glyphs on doors while the kitchen staff crossed themselves behind her back. He had sneered at her twice in the square and she had not blinked either time. "Off the road," Luna said. She did not slow. "You first." "A woman in a green shawl is telling the baker you keep a monster." She stopped and lifted the lantern to his chest. "I was sent to look at you. I looked. Go home." His hand went to his coat before he could stop it. Her eyes tracked the movement and stayed there. "I don't care what's under the wool," Luna said. "I care what walks through the palace gate. Does yours?" "No." "Then we have business." He made himself breathe. "The woman." "I can quiet a rumor for one night. Not two." She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a small folded paper, sealed with wax the color of milk. "Press this to her doorpost before she reaches it. She'll sleep. She'll wake thinking she dreamed you." "Why." "Because next week I'll want something. And you'll remember." He took the paper. It was warm. "Her house?" "Second lane past the well. Blue shutter." Luna was already walking. "Run." He ran. He cut behind the tavern, crossed the well square, and found the blue shutter with the lantern still dark inside. He pressed the seal to the doorpost. The wax melted into the wood without a mark. Down the lane, a shawl the color of moss came around the corner, quick steps, breath loud. He slid into the shadow of the eaves. She reached her door, fumbled the latch, went in. A moment later, the thump of a body against a table. Then nothing. Kyros walked back toward the mill with the dragon against his ribs. The rumor was buried for one night. He owed a witch a favor he could not name, and she knew where his sanctuary began.