The sky over Port Mire had turned the color of a fresh bruise. Thick, dark clouds rolled in from the sea, carrying the smell of rain and a deeper, colder brine. A distant peal of thunder rattled the windows of the market stalls, a sound that sent a ripple of urgency through the crowd. The curfew bell began to toll, its heavy, clanging notes a command to find shelter or face the city guard's rough justice. Finn quickened his pace, his meager satchel clutched tight in one hand.
He reached a designated storm shelter, a squat stone building wedged between a tannery and a warehouse, just as the first fat drops of rain began to fall. The keeper, a man with a face like sour milk, stood in the doorway, his hand outstretched. "Storm rate," he grunted, his voice flat. "Extra copper."
"Coin is coin, regardless of the weather," Finn countered, his own voice low and even.
The keeper just shrugged, a gesture that said the rain and the guard's cudgels were not his problem. Finn felt a familiar, bitter calculus click into place in his mind. He could argue and risk being locked out, or he could pay and be dry. He dropped the extra coin into the man's palm with a sigh of resignation and stepped into the dim, damp room.
The air inside was thick with the smell of wet wool and unwashed bodies. A dozen or so people were already settled on rough-hewn benches: a few dockhands, two women in travel cloaks, and, hunched in the far corner, a solitary figure. Finn found an empty space along the wall, his eyes methodically scanning the room, cataloging the faces and the quiet tensions between them.
The figure in the corner drew his attention. The man's sleeve was torn, the fabric stained with a dark, dried patch of what could only be blood. His boots, scuffed and worn, were not of a local make. He was a stranger, and in Port Mire, strangers were either opportunities or threats. As the storm broke outside, lashing the city with wind and rain, the man began to mutter in a fitful, feverish sleep.
At first, the words were a jumbled mess, but then a few phrases cut through the noise of the storm. "…coin that bleeds… the Serpent's teeth…"
Finn's posture didn't change, but a cold stillness settled over him. He'd seen the symbol on the wall, a piece of idle graffiti. But to hear it spoken as a threat, whispered from the lips of a wounded man far from home—that was different. He stored the words away, another piece of a puzzle he didn't understand, another debt on a ledger he couldn't yet read. As thunder cracked directly overhead, he glanced toward the barred door, suddenly feeling that the storm inside this room might be far more dangerous than the one outside.