Ivika's retreat from the Eastern District was a silent, seething march. The jeers of the crowd and the triumphant silence of the Storm Brigade were a physical weight on his shoulders. He had not merely lost a confrontation; he had been publicly neutered, led by the nose like a prize bull through the streets of his own city. The image of Common's smug face, flanked by the silver-haired Rogare woman and that traitor Helier, was burned behind his eyes.
Back in the oppressive silence of his manse, the dam of his composure broke. A vase of Myrish glass shattered against the far wall. A heavy ledger followed, its pages exploding in a storm of parchment. "He made a fool of me!" The roar was raw, tearing from his throat. "In front of the entire city! That upstart merchant and his overgrown lizard!"
His household staff stood frozen, eyes averted. They had seen his temper before, but never this potent blend of fury and palpable fear. The foundations of his power, once thought to be bedrock, were now shifting sand.
Meanwhile, in Common's estate, the atmosphere was one of grim satisfaction. Helier, cradling a glass of Common's golden wine, could barely contain his admiration. "To lead a man by the nose, you must first get him to lower his head. And you, my friend, made him bow. Publicly."
Common swirled the wine in his own glass, his gaze distant. "It was a necessary move, not a victorious one. Ivika is a cornered animal now. Cornered animals are predictable in their desperation, but they are also at their most dangerous."
"He will lash out," Helier agreed, nodding. "An assassination attempt, perhaps. Or an economic sanction through the guilds."
"Let him try," Common said, a faint smile touching his lips. "The former will fail. The latter… well, it will only prove my point to the merchants about his ineptitude. The key now is to press the advantage, not to celebrate it." He finished his wine. "The people saw him back down. We must ensure that story is the only one that survives the night."
The following days saw a subtle but decisive shift in the city's psyche. The tale of the standoff was told and retold in every tavern, marketplace, and ship's galley. With each telling, Common grew more heroic and Ivika more feeble. The Governor's attempt to use the City Watch to arrest rumor-mongers only gave the stories more credence. Why silence the truth if it wasn't true?
Ivika, stewing in his manse, found his every command met with hesitation. Merchants he had dominated for years suddenly found "complications" in their dealings. The City Watch captains, men like Marco, became masters of bureaucratic delay, their previously swift enforcement now mired in "jurisdictional concerns" and "need for clearer directives."
He was being strangled, not by a blade, but by whispers and wilful incompetence. The leash Common had attached to his nose was pulling tight, guiding him toward irrelevance. His power, built on a web of fear and favor, was unraveling because the city was no longer afraid of him. They were afraid for him, a far more damning sentiment.
The final, bitter draught came from an unexpected quarter. A formal missive arrived from the Conclave of the Guildmasters, a body he had long controlled. The language was florid and full of respect, but the core message was a brutal dismissal. It stated that given the "current instability" and the "paramount need for civic unity," the guilds had voted to temporarily suspend their special trade agreements with the Governor's office until "a more stable administration could be established."
They were cutting him off. His coffers, already strained by his lavish lifestyle and the need to pay loyalists, would soon run dry. He stared at the parchment, the elegant script blurring before his eyes. This was Helier's work, of course. The merchant had flipped the guilds with the promise of access to Common's new ventures—the golden wine and the miraculous salt powder.
He was isolated, financially weakened, and becoming a laughingstock. The dragon, that damned beast, was not just a weapon; it was a symbol around which the opposition had coalesced. To strike at Common directly was impossible. The Storm Brigade was too strong, the estate too well-guarded, and the dragon itself a deterrent.
But as he stared into the dying embers of his fireplace, a new, colder plan began to form in his mind. If he could not break the master, he would break his tools. If he could not kill the dragon, he could perhaps steal it. Or, a more vicious thought occurred, he could target what the dragon—and Common—needed to grow: the source of their strange and rapid power. The whispers spoke of Common's unnatural vitality, of the dragon's shocking growth. There was a secret there, and secrets could be uncovered, or poisoned at their root.
He rang a small silver bell. A shadowy figure detached itself from the corner of the room. "The old man," Ivika said, his voice devoid of its earlier heat, now cold and sharp as a Valyrian steel dagger. "Malawan, Common's castellan. He is the key. Find his price. Or find his pressure point. I want to know everything about that estate, everything Common does, everything that beast eats. Everything."
The figure bowed silently and melted back into the shadows. Ivika turned back to the window, looking toward the Eastern District. He had been led by the nose. Now, he would bite the hand that held the leash.