The rain in the city of Veridia didn't fall; it seeped. It was a greasy, perpetual drizzle that wormed its way through cloak seams and into the soul, smelling of wet stone, rust, and the slow decay of forgotten secrets. For Elara, it was the smell of home.
She moved through the cobbled arteries of the Gutterwards like a shadow, her patched cloak blending perfectly with the gloom. Around her, the city groaned and muttered. The glow of cold-phosphor lamps bled from upper-floor windows, their greenish hue doing little to illuminate the dangers of the streets below, only painting them in the colours of sickness and envy. Her destination was The Leaking Bucket, a tavern where the ale was thin but the information was thick. Her client, a man with the nervous demeanour of a cornered mouse and fingers stained with expensive ink, would be waiting.
Elara was a Tarnished Seer. It was a title she'd given herself, far more poetic than the truth: a finder of lost things, a reader of residual echoes. Where the official City-Seeers in their gleaming Spire used polished obsidian mirrors to scry grand events for the nobility—political alliances, troop movements, trade routes—Elara used whatever she could get her hands on. A dropped coin. A broken lock. A child's discarded toy.
Every object held a memory, a shimmering echo of its past imprinted by strong emotion or significant event. Most people saw only the physical form. Elara saw the ghost-light. Joy felt like warm, buttery gold. Fear was a crackling, cold silver static. Rage a hot, bloody copper that stung her senses. Her gift was to touch an object and see.
It was also her curse. The echoes were never clean. They were fractured, overwhelming, and often painful. To read an object was to invite a headache that could hammer behind her eyes for hours. Hence, "Tarnished." A nice way of saying broken, unreliable, and for hire by those who couldn't afford the pristine visions of the Spire.
The Leaking Bucket was exactly as it sounded. Murky, damp, and smelling of stale beer and quiet despair. Her client was in a corner booth, jumping at the sound of a tankard clattering to the floor. He looked like a lost songbird in a den of rats, his fine wool coat a splash of desperate colour in the monochrome tavern.
"You're late," he hissed as she slid onto the bench opposite him.
"The rain is impatient. It slows everyone down," Elara replied, her voice a low murmur designed to calm. She kept her hands hidden beneath the table, her fingers already aching in anticipation. "You have the payment?"
A leather purse hit the table with a soft, promising thud. The coin inside felt heavy. Good. More than good. It was a month's rent.
"And the object?"
The man, whose name was Alban, slid a small, cloth-wrapped parcel across the sticky wood. His fear—a sharp, tinny scent that grated on her nerves—radiated from him. "It's all I have. They took everything else. My wife's locket. It was a wedding gift, simple silver with a pearl. She was wearing it when… when they came. I need to know… I need to know who did this. The City Watch asks questions but finds no answers."
Elara nodded, her professional mask firmly in place. She didn't promise answers. She only promised to look. Hope was a dangerous currency in Veridia; she dealt in facts. Carefully, she unfolded the cloth. Nestled inside was a simple, elegant silver locket, its chain snapped cleanly. It was cold against her skin.
"Wait here," she instructed.
She didn't need to. Clients always wanted to watch, but they fidgeted, they breathed too loudly, they broke her concentration. And a broken concentration for a Tarnished Seer could mean a vision so violent it could knock her unconscious.
Turning away from his anxious gaze, she curled her fingers around the locket, closed her eyes, and let her walls down.
The world fell away.
The first sensation was not an image, but a feeling. A warm, golden hum of contentment. A man's voice, deep and loving, whispering, "For you, my only." The soft click of the locket fastening around a neck. The gentle weight of it against a collarbone. This was the foundational echo, strong and sweet.
Then, the world fractured. The gold was swamped by a tidal wave of cold, jagged silver—FEAR. Sharp, piercing, and overwhelming. A scream, muffled. The sound of splintering wood. Heavy boots on floorboards. Rough laughter that sounded like grinding stones. The locket was torn away, the chain snapping with a painful, metallic ping. A flash of a symbol: a circle, but not perfect, broken by a single, sharp line like a bolt of lightning or a fractured bone. It was etched on a ring, stamped on a boot heel, sewn onto a cloak—repeating, pervasive, menacing.
The emotion attached to the symbol was a void. Not hot rage, not cold fear, but a chilling, absolute nothingness. A hollow copper, the colour of a dead star. It was the most terrifying thing she had ever felt.
Elara gasped, wrenching her hand back as if the metal had burned her. The tavern crashed back into focus—the murmur of voices, the reek of ale, the panicked face of Alban. A sharp pain lanced through her temple.
"What did you see?" he begged, leaning forward. "Did you see them?"
She took a shuddering breath, placing the locket carefully back on the cloth. Her hand trembled slightly. The hollow copper feeling lingered in her mind, a stain on her thoughts.
"I saw a symbol," she said, her voice hoarse. She grabbed a napkin and a piece of charcoal from her pouch, her movements quick and jerky. She sketched the broken circle with the lightning fissure. "Do you know this mark?"
Alban peered at it, his face pale. He shook his head, despair deepening. "No. Never. It means nothing to me. Are you sure? Did you see their faces?"
"The echoes don't work like that," Elara said, pushing the napkin toward him. "They are feelings, impressions, fragments. This symbol was all over them. It's their mark. Take this to the Watch. It's more than they have now."
But even as she said it, she knew the Watch would be useless. This wasn't a common robbery. The hollow feeling, the professional efficiency, the specific symbol—it spoke of an organization. A guild. Something far more dangerous than a random break-in.
Alban looked crushed, his hope evaporating. He took the napkin with a numb hand, threw a final, lost look at the locket, and stumbled out of the tavern into the relentless rain.
Elara sat for a long moment, the weight of the coin purse in her hand feeling suddenly heavier, tainted. She had given him a clue, but it felt like she had handed him a death sentence. And she had taken his money.
Shaking off the feeling, she stood to leave. As she turned, her cloak brushed against a tall man entering the tavern. He was dressed in a long, grey coat, remarkably clean for the district. He murmured an apology, his voice smooth as oiled glass.
But as he stepped aside, his gloved hand briefly caught the edge of her cloak to steady himself.
In that incidental touch, through the layers of wool and grime, a searing echo flashed into her mind.
Hollow copper. Absolute void. The same chilling nothingness.
And the symbol. The broken circle.
Her blood ran cold. She froze, her heart hammering against her ribs. He didn't look at her. He just moved to the bar, his movements efficient and unnaturally quiet.
He was one of them. And he was here.
Elara didn't dare look back. She pulled her hood low and plunged out into the Veridian rain, the coin in her purse feeling not like a reward, but like a target nailed to her back. She had looked into the void, and now, somehow, the void had looked back.