The rain never slowed Nia down.
She darted through the crooked arteries of Ketu Port as though the downpour had been planned just for her, leaping over puddles, ducking under drying laundry, slipping past the glow of cooking fires and the curses of stall-keepers. The narrow streets twisted and bent like intestines, but she knew them by heart. A courier had to.
"Mind yourself, girl!" a fishmonger shouted as she cut too close to his stall, knocking over a basket of prawns. Nia didn't look back. Couriers never looked back. A delivery was a straight line, and hesitation was death.
Tonight, the message was sealed with crimson wax. The governor's seal. That made it heavier in her hands than the leather tube should have been. The governor's messages never went through couriers like her — gutter girls with quick legs and quicker lies. Too risky, too dirty. And yet, here she was, cradling it to her chest as if the rain itself might melt it.
The wax shimmered faintly beneath the lanterns. She told herself it was just the water. She told herself a lot of things she didn't believe.
Her path bent toward the market square, the quickest route to the bridge. But she stopped cold.
Three guards. Halberds out. Armor slick with rain.
Her throat tightened. Soldiers almost never patrolled this quarter — not unless they were hunting.
The one in the middle gestured with his blade. "Courier. What's in your hands?"
Nia tightened her grip on the tube. "Letters. What else?"
"Show us."
Her stomach knotted. If she unstrapped it, they would see the wax. And once they saw the governor's seal, she'd be finished.
The tube pulsed against her chest. Not a trick of the rain. Not the hammer of her heartbeat. A pulse of its own, steady and warm.Her breath hitched.
The wax was glowing.
Nia pressed the tube tighter against her ribs, hoping the downpour disguised the faint light. But the guard's eyes narrowed.
"That's no letter," he said. "That's contraband."
Contraband. The word was a death sentence.
Her mind scrambled for options. Run? The bridge was blocked. Fight? They'd cut her down before she drew breath. Beg? They'd laugh.
And then, like a snake uncoiling from dry grass, she heard it.
Open me.
Nia blinked water from her lashes. The whisper had slithered so close it felt like it came from inside her own ear. She shook her head. Rain. Stress. Fear.
But the tube throbbed again. Hotter now. Insistent.
The guard stepped forward, halberd gleaming. "Hand it over."
The whisper curved through her mind like smoke.
Or hand them death.