WALDERIN THE SPY
Two months of silence had passed in the hidden chamber. Each day stretched long with fear and love, softened by Kiaria's laughter, tightened by the threat above. Yet silence does not endure forever.
The child remained strange. He did not cry. His quiet hung heavier than iron chains. Around him, small wonders unfolded: leaves lifted toward his presence, scratches vanished within hours, and Kiasin's long scars – wounds carved deep from decades of war – began to fade. What should have been permanent history melted from his skin.
Sometimes, in the stillness, faint lights shimmered near Kiaria. Tiny, white, sparkling motes drifted around him, almost invisible unless the eye lingered. Gentle as dawn's sunbeams catching dust, they appeared and vanished without sound. Yet they healed, they hid, they bent perception away.
This was the secret beneath the mansion. A secret that could not last.
One morning the stillness was broken. The courtyard gate banged open with a clash of iron and thunder of hooves. Servants froze in doorways, papers dropped from hurried hands. A palace envoy in crimson robes descended the path and stopped at the center of the yard, the scroll in his hand catching sunlight like an accusation.
He unrolled the decree with the slow precision of official theater and read in a voice that could have been carved from bronze:
"By command of His Majesty, Emperor Dharam, the presence of Commander Kiasin is required at the next court assembly. Matters of grave importance shall be addressed, and loyalty will be measured by obedience. Failure to appear shall be judged as defiance."
Silence followed the envoy like a shadow. The servants bowed their heads so low their brows touched stone. Asaira's fingers tightened on the balustrade. She did not shriek or faint; a strategist does not show the tremor in her marrow to strangers. She catalogued instead: the seal, the phrasing, the haste in the envoy's gait. This was a summons heavy with intent.
Kiasin's voice when he answered her was flat with steel. "It is not a routine call."
"No," she said. "Not routine."
That night he prepared as if for a campaign: armor polished to a mirror, the edge of his sword honed, robes laid in order. But armor does not protect a man from suspicion rooted in the throne. The next morning he walked into the palace hall with the decree ringing in his ears.
The throne room swallowed Kiasin's step. Dharam sat as a mountain of gold and will, light catching the ridges of his crown. Ministers clustered like obedient birds; the marble itself seemed to listen.
Dharam spoke, and the words were a chiselled order:
"His child is missing… Find who took him away from my shadow. Kill him and, if necessary… the whole family. Anyway, the child should be here before the next gathering. Remember, this is a confidential task. You know what I mean, right?"
The stanza of the sentence did not echo in the hall — it hammered. Kiasin's breath snagged; his body responded before his mind could shape a defense. The commander who had once led men across broken ground stood now with his chin bowed, lips tight. The witness-soul watched the small betrayals: the way his shoulders hunched, the dry clack of his tongue against his teeth, the whiteness at his knuckles as his hands flexed and unflexed.
He answered only when the moment forced the sound from him. "By… your command," Kiasin said, the words brittle with forced control. They were obedience, not conviction.
Dharam's gaze did not slide away. He had once watched this man stagger from a battlefield; he remembered the map of scars across Kiasin's skin. Today those scars showed less boldly. Where deep slashes and pitted lines should have been, skin was smoother, the map blurring as if someone had been erasing edges. The Emperor's brow tightened; suspicion is a slow, cold thing that grows teeth.
"Must I rise myself?" Dharam rasped then, voice a blade. "Honor is given – and taken. Begone!"
Kiasin bowed and left the hall. He carried his orders like a stone in his chest.
When Dahram's hand rose in a small, private arc, Walderin – court sorcerer and the Emperor's right hand – stepped forward from the gloom. He was slight and pale, the sort whose appetite lived on secrets. He read the thinness in Kiasin's reply like a map, and where a map pointed, he followed.
From a distance, Walderin began. His fingers etched spells in the air, clearly meant to pry into secrets. He loosed them toward Kiasin like invisible nets. Yet each time Kiasin stepped within his mansion, the spells dissolved.
White sparks shimmered at the edges of his vision – motes of light, delicate and unyielding. They flickered, swallowed his sorcery whole, and vanished.
His reports faltered. Failure. But each failure only deepened the Emperor's suspicion.
So Walderin came himself.
Bent like an old beggar, his bald head hidden beneath a torn bluish-green hat, muddy robes clinging to him, he approached the mansion. In his hand gleamed a yellow-ranked staff, polished and inscribed with runes to silence superior powers.
His steps were slow, unthreatening. Servants whispered at the gate, unsure, until Asaira came herself.
Asaira came to the gate to meet him herself. She measured everything in the man's posture – the weight he set on a cane, the steadiness of his step, the cadence of his speech. A strategist yields to courtesy but tests the edges of courtesy. She kept the questions tight.
"Master," she said coolly, "we welcome travelers with roof and bread. But this staff… it is not ordinary. Which sect do you belongs to?"
Before he replies she tuned it more accurate. "If precisely asking, from which sect do you say it comes?"
The old man gave a faint smile. "I belong to no sect and neither knows whom it belongs to. I am a philanthropist."
"Philanthropist…?" Her voice caught. The word stung her ears. Her gaze dropped to the staff – fourth-tier, reserved for the disciples of the Seven Great Sects. How could a beggar hold such a thing? Her heart whispered of danger.
The answer was too smooth, and yet perfectly plausible. Asaira could list the implausibilities: the fourth-tier mark, the polish of the staff, the way he spoke as if trained to assume trust. Still, she maintained a controlled courtesy rather than accusation.
Walderin pleasingly looked at her again and started his first move. "Young lady, isn't this Kiasin's mansion? I have heard much of him from the streets. I came to return this staff to him – perhaps its owner searches for it still. I'm old and tired of looking for its owner. Can you help me with this?"
The strategist weighed his words carefully. A lesser mind might have bristled, but Asaira's reply came steady, deliberate: "If such is the case, it will be seen to. Rest assured, the staff will be returned if its master claims it."
Her voice closed the matter with courtesy but offered no ground.
Walderin inclined his head, bowing lower this time. His voice softened further, humble as silk sliding over stone. "You honor me with patience. Might I beg one more kindness? This road has worn me thin. A place to rest… nothing more."
For a long moment, silence stretched. Then Asaira inclined her head, though her eyes did not leave him. "If you are weary, you may rest. A room near the outer courtyard will be prepared. My servants will attend you. Hospitality is given to the tired – but our inner halls are not shown to those whose paths remain unclear."
Her courtesy was sharp-edged: kindness wrapped around vigilance.
Walderin bowed, a slow, weary motion. "Your grace wounds me with kindness," he intoned, and the words were oil.
The servants moved to obey, unaware of the duel they had witnessed. The witness-soul recorded the stillness between them: two minds fencing in silence — a strategist who probed with courtesy, and a deceiver who planted seeds with every smile.
Walderin used spell words and made servants unconscious, then prowled the mansion. His fingers brushed walls, his gaze scanned shadows. He searched not as a weary man, but as a hunter.
Nothing.
Until, crossing a corridor toward the courtyard, a pang struck his chest – sharp, instinctive. His hand pressed against the stone. A notch shifted. A hidden passage sighed open.
For a moment, he froze. The witness-soul recorded the sharp intake of breath, the spark of triumph in his eyes. Excitement overcame caution.
He withdrew at once, carrying the secret to the Emperor.
When Dharam heard, his lips curved into a smile. But his eyes darkened like venom spreading through water. Joy twisted into vengeance, a curse upon Kiasin and Asaira.
That very day, the Emperor decreed:
"Capture the child. And his parents."
The words fell like a storm. And fate turned its gaze toward the hidden chamber.