POV: Sullivan Prentiss Morteuxe (Age 10)
The Market of Whispers was a sensory overload—a direct assault on Sullivan's need for order.
It was not a neat grid of stalls, but a sprawling, anarchic tapestry woven from mismatched tents, repurposed sails, and temporary lean-tos. The air was thick with the conflicting smells of curing hides, burning incense, stale oil, and a powerful, cloying spice native to the distant, uncharted forests of the western range.
The noise was worse: a constant, low-grade roar of bargaining, shouting, nervous laughter, and the distant, unsettling clang of a metalsmith working on something monstrously large.
"Keep your hands visible, Sully," Evelyn murmured, walking a step ahead. Her casual stroll was a masterpiece of controlled tension. Her left hand rested naturally near the hilt of her rapier, her eyes scanning not just the crowd, but the rooftops and alley mouths—the escape routes and ambush points.
"They won't risk open confrontation with a Morteuxe," Sullivan replied, his voice calm, though he was already processing information at a frantic rate. He had swapped his fine silk tunic for a dark, unremarkable wool garment and worn boots.
Observation Set 1 (General Threat Assessment):
* Majority are petty merchants and local bandits.
* Pockets of high-tension aura—three individuals by the spice rack, likely smugglers carrying contraband. Avoid.
* The biggest threat is the environment: poor sightlines, too many places to hide, the perfect stage for impulsive violence.
"They won't risk direct confrontation," Evelyn corrected, not slowing her pace. "But a discreet theft, a bump-and-grab, or a quiet knife in a dark corner? They would sell their mother for the chance to humiliate one of the Great Houses."
Sullivan nodded, acknowledging the correction instantly. His arrogance was about perceived intelligence, not obstinance.
Father's target: the Ebon-Wood Dagger. Source: the Whisper-Trader.
"Where is the Whisper-Trader?" Sullivan asked.
Evelyn pointed subtly toward the center of the market—an area that was strangely quiet. "He operates out of the abandoned clock tower. He only deals in information, secrets, and artifacts sourced from beyond the Veil. He doesn't take coin. He takes value."
As they approached the tower, the crowd thinned, replaced by large, ominous figures with heavily cloaked faces. These were the guards—or rather, the tax collectors—of the Whisper-Trader. They radiated the cold, unfeeling confidence of true predators.
Sullivan felt a strange, thrilling spike of adrenaline. This was it. The true edge of his predictable world.
The Clock Tower
The Whisper-Trader's den was dark, lit only by a single brazier glowing with red-hot coals. The air here was cleaner, somehow, as if the trader's business was too serious to tolerate the market's filth.
The Whisper-Trader sat on a low, ornate chair, his face obscured by the high collar and deep shadow of his hood. He was an enigma. He didn't speak with a Basin accent, and his cloak bore no House insignia.
"Morteuxe," the Trader's voice was a dry, rasping whisper, like sand grinding against stone. "I smell the expensive soaps of the Basin on you. What does the Lord of Ledgers want from the Lord of Whispers?"
Evelyn stepped forward, offering a polite but firm nod. "My father, Lord Julian Morteuxe, seeks an Ebon-Wood Dagger. One of the set of three taken from the Lost Temple of Kaelen."
The Trader chuckled, a disturbing, soundless wheeze. "The daggers. Yes. They are a treasure. Used for ritual sacrifice, some say. Cut clean through bone and spirit. Why should I hand a Morteuxe a weapon?"
"We are here to trade," Sullivan interjected, stepping out from behind Evelyn. His movement was precise, his tone cool, cutting through the performative drama. "Not to beg. We understand you do not accept the Basin's currency. You accept leverage."
The Trader tilted his head, intrigued. "The cub speaks. And what leverage does a ten-year-old carry, little Morteuxe?"
Sullivan reached into his coat and produced a small, perfectly preserved Obsidian Chip. It wasn't impressive to look at—just a dark, curved fragment of stone.
"This is not just any obsidian," Sullivan stated, holding it up so the brazier light caught its ancient, reflective surface. "It is a shard from the Eternal Stele of House Velasco, the one they claim was lost in the Great Fire 300 years ago. Their claim to the eastern mines is entirely predicated on the legitimacy of that Stele."
He met the Trader's shadowy gaze without blinking.
"The value is not in the object," Sullivan continued, his voice steady, "but in the information and the timing. If this shard were to appear in the hands of their rivals, House Rymer, during the upcoming trade negotiations, Velasco would be crippled. You would be owed a lifetime of favors by Rymer. I am offering you the chance to permanently shift the political balance of the Cinder Basin."
Evelyn was watching her brother with open astonishment. She had known about the Stele—it was a deep family secret—but she never expected him to use it as a simple bargaining chip for a mere dagger. It was a move of shocking, confident arrogance.
The Whisper-Trader was silent for a long moment. Finally, he gave a slow, deliberate nod.
"A masterstroke of cynicism, Morteuxe," the Trader whispered, picking up the obsidian chip with long, skeletal fingers. "You trade a dynasty's ruin for a knife. A perfectly executed, cold-blooded transaction. You will go far, or you will fall spectacularly."
He reached into a carved wooden box and placed a dagger on the table. It was made of jet-black wood that looked like polished onyx, with a blade that seemed to absorb the light. It was deadly, beautiful, and profoundly unsettling.
"Take it," the Trader commanded. "Now leave my sight."
The Ambush
They left the quiet tower, the Ebon-Wood Dagger wrapped in heavy cloth and tucked safely into Evelyn's sash.
As soon as they re-entered the throng of the market, Sullivan's internal alarm bells—the finely tuned instincts of a born schemer—screamed.
Variables changed.
He felt eyes on them, but not the greedy, petty eyes of the market thugs. These were focused, professional, and radiating the cold aggression of soldiers.
"Evelyn," Sullivan's voice was barely audible, yet urgent. "The group of three by the spice rack. The smugglers. They weren't smugglers. They're waiting for us. House Velasco."
"How do you know?" Evelyn's hand was now firmly on her rapier hilt.
"They've moved too quickly, too cleanly, and one of them is wearing a signet ring that confirms my deduction. They followed us from the library this morning. They were already preparing to neutralize the evidence—the Obsidian Chip. They must have been watching the estate."
Failure to predict early surveillance: unacceptable.
The three men moved, converging on their path through the thick crowd, closing the distance in a practiced wedge formation. The crowd, sensing the imminent violence, melted away.
"We move, now," Evelyn commanded, pulling Sullivan toward a narrow, dark alleyway.
"No," Sullivan said, planting his feet firmly. "That alley is a funnel. They have superior strength. We need to create chaos."
He grabbed a heavy sack of cinnamon sticks from a nearby stall, spun, and hurled it with surprising force. The sack ripped open, showering the spice into the air directly in front of the advancing Velasco men.
One of the thugs roared in irritation, instinctively shielding his eyes from the blinding, irritating powder.
It was a distraction, an opening.
"The fountain!" Sullivan yelled, pointing to a dilapidated stone fountain just fifteen feet away. "If we reach the fountain, we can split their line of sight!"
They sprinted. Evelyn was fast, but Sullivan was calculatingly precise. He wasn't focused on speed, but on trajectory and timing. He knew exactly which overturned basket would trip the heavy-footed thug on the left, and exactly which gap in the crowd to exploit.
Just as they reached the fountain, the lead Velasco thug, his eyes red from the cinnamon dust, recovered and lunged, a thick iron truncheon swinging at Evelyn's head.
Evelyn reacted instantly, drawing her rapier with a metallic shing and parrying the blow with a sharp twist of her wrist. The sound was deafening.
But Sullivan saw the third thug—the quiet, smart one—move. He wasn't targeting Evelyn; he was targeting Sullivan.
The thug moved with silent, incredible speed, reaching out to grab the child's arm, intending to snap it or drag him away.
Sullivan didn't have time to run, to think, or to calculate. He reacted purely on a decade of repressed, arrogant certainty—the deep, quiet belief that he should not, could not be touched.
As the thug's hand wrapped around his forearm, something surged in Sullivan's mind. A wave of pure, cold panic, instantly channeled into white-hot focus.
He didn't know how, but the space around the thug's wrist felt suddenly heavy. The thug froze, his eyes widening in confusion. He felt a sharp, impossible pain, and suddenly, his grip slipped. It was not a physical shove, but a purely mental interference—a flash of overwhelming, paralyzing suggestion: You cannot hold me.
The thug stumbled back, staring at Sullivan as if the boy were a venomous snake.
Evelyn, finishing her own exchange, saw the stunned look on the thug's face and used the moment of confusion to drive the three Velasco agents back with a blinding series of feints.
"Run, Sully, now!" she shouted.
They didn't look back until they were clear of the Market of Whispers.
Back on the relative safety of the road, Sullivan was breathless, but his mind was crystal clear.
"You're hurt?" Evelyn asked, inspecting him frantically.
"No," Sullivan said, rubbing the spot where the thug's hand had briefly gripped him. He was shaken, but his mind was already analyzing the impossible event. "But the third thug... he flinched. He was going to grab me, and then he let go."
It was not a conscious movement. It was a reaction. I changed his Perception, somehow.
He looked back at the vast, distant Veil Mountains, the barrier that kept the wild, limitless world out—and him in.
He hadn't just predicted an ambush. He hadn't just manipulated a situation. For a fleeting, terrifying second, he had manipulated reality itself.
Chaos. I need to understand chaos.
He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that the world was no longer just a Ledger. It was a raw, powerful, dangerous force, and he needed a much better method of control.