The inn quietened as midnight settled.
Lanterns dimmed to soft embers, and the creaking of old beams mixed with the distant breathing of guards outside.
Even the dust in the air seemed unwilling to move.
Talan sat across from Ralveck at a rough wooden table.
Daro stood beside him with his arms folded, the weight of the day and the long road still clinging to his shoulders.
Talan spoke first, voice steady but pressed low.
"You said the girl is special. Tell us why.
Ralveck's smile stretched slowly, as if he was peeling back something he had waited a long time to show.
A soft chuckle slipped from his throat, amused and ugly.
"Merchants," he said, "do you remember the Marak family?"
Talan nodded.
"The clan that ruled this territory eight years ago. Their ancestor was said to carry the blood of an immortal being. One day the whole family vanished."
Ralveck laughed under his breath.
"Vanished is such a gentle word. They were erased. An old enemy returned after many years and came here for one purpose. To drown the last traces of that blood."
His eyes shone with an enjoyment that did not fit the story.
Daro frowned.
"And how would you know that?"
Ralveck's voice lowered, the edges softening as if he was sharing a secret meant to stay in the dark.
"Because I caught one of the last surviving heirs of that blood."
Silence followed his words.
The lantern flame moved once, then steadied again.
"She carries a fragment of ancient strength," he went on.
"Even if it is faint, it is still there. Enough to make nobles scheme. Enough to make sects hungry. Enough to make a demon sect pay in blood and coin for a single drop of what runs in her veins."
The room seemed to cool around them.
Talan narrowed his eyes.
"And what of the enemy who destroyed her clan If he still lives, carrying her makes us a target. We are merchants, not heroes."
Ralveck shrugged with lazy ease, as if they were discussing the price of grain.
"Fortune always demands a price. You can choose to take ordinary trades and earn ordinary coins. Or you can reach for something greater and accept that the knife may cut deeper."
Talan and Daro exchanged a long look.
Greed, fear, calculation, all passed silently between them.
At last Talan stood.
"We wake Grell. This is not for two of us to decide."
They crossed the corridor and entered the next room.
Grell lay half twisted in his blanket, snoring with his mouth open.
Talan shook his shoulder.
Grell jolted awake and cursed.
"What in the blazes are you doing waking me now"
Talan did not bother with an apology.
He explained everything. The Marak name. The slaughter. The survivor. The blood. The danger. The profit.
By the time he finished, Grell's annoyance was gone.
In its place sat a cold, sharpened interest.
"A living bloodline," Grell murmured.
He rubbed his chin slowly.
"Do you understand what a rumour like that could fetch. Forget the truth. Even suspicion alone has value. But if she is real… people will battle over her. Scholars, nobles, sect agents, things from the dark corners of the city. A demon sect might strip a mountain bare to pay for her."
Daro shifted uneasily.
"I know all that," he said, "but remember the suit we bought from the barbarian village. That alone pushes this trip into profit. If we take the girl, we have to turn back early. No more villages. No more rounding the route."
Grell waved a hand.
"The villages ahead are dry. No coin. No stock worth the trouble. That suit was a good catch, but this girl is different. The suit will make a noble curious. She will make them desperate."
Silence stretched for a moment.
Then Talan exhaled.
"We will inspect her. If you are both satisfied, we will decide."
They returned to Ralveck's room.
"We want to see the girl," Talan said. "We do not pay for illusions."
Ralveck's smile did not reach his eyes, but it stayed fixed and confident.
"Then come," he said.
"She is at my base. You will see her with your own eyes. You may also look through my other stock while you are there. You might find more to your taste."
The merchants did not travel alone.
They chose three guards, men who knew how to draw a blade without asking questions, and left the others to watch the caravan, the slaves, and the precious suit locked away with the goods.
They rode through the sleeping streets in a closed carriage.
As they went deeper into the city, the air changed.
Stone grew damp. Smells of sweat, smoke and stale drink clung to the walls.
Shadows watched from doorways, measuring the horses, the wheels, the men.
They arrived at the Shadow Quarters, a place where sunlight felt like a visitor rather than a resident.
Buildings leaned in on either side, as if they wanted to swallow the street.
Ralveck's base stood behind a heavy door.
A thick armed guard with a mace stood beside it, his eyes dull but alert, like an animal trained to move only when commanded.
Inside, the corridors breathed with low sounds.
Muffled voices. Soft crying. Laughter that held no joy.
The air tasted of wine that had lost its strength and lives that had lost their light.
Ralveck led them into a small room with mismatched chairs.
"Wait here," he said. "We do not parade this one around."
The door closed.
Time stretched.
Not long in numbers, but long enough for doubt and greed to circle each other inside the merchants' thoughts.
Then the door opened.
Ralveck entered, and a girl walked beside him.
She was small and thin, wrapped in chains.
Metal bound her wrists and ankles, a collar linked it all together, each step marked by the quiet clink of iron.
Her hair was a matted brown curtain over her face.
When she lifted her head for a moment, her eyes were revealed.
Red.
Not bright, not burning, but like embers hiding under grey ash, refusing to fully die out.
Talan stepped closer, careful not to move too fast.
"How do we confirm your claim" he asked.
Ralveck's lips curved.
"Watch."
He reached for the collar and loosened it.
At first, nothing seemed to change.
Then a faint ripple passed through the air.
The merchants could not see it.
They felt it.
A soft pressure pressed against their chests.
A weight settled behind the eyes.
The room did not move, yet something old and heavy seemed to stir just out of sight, as if the world itself had taken one slow breath.
The girl's fingers twitched.
Her shoulders tensed.
Ralveck tightened the collar again before it rose further.
"That is enough," he said.
"I lost men capturing her. I will not risk losing the rest of my walls."
Silence fell once more.
Daro swallowed.
"This is real," he said quietly.
"This is not a trick."
Talan looked at the girl for a long moment.
At the chains that held her.
At the eyes that refused to be completely dull.
"A bloodline left for dead," he said, "and yet still alive."
The decision had already formed.
"We will take her."
Ralveck's smile widened into something openly satisfied.
"Excellent."
They bargained under the fading night, voices low, numbers traded and cut.
In the end they settled at eighty four percent of the first price Ralveck named.
Enough for him to feel he had won.
Enough for them to tell themselves they had not overpaid for danger.
They left with the girl wrapped and hooded, chains hidden under cloth.
Back at the inn, they locked her in a separate room with two guards outside the door and one inside, then tried to rest.
No one truly slept.
Morning came.
The caravan moved out, wheels crunching over the road as if nothing had changed.
From the outside, they were just another line of carts, beasts and tired faces heading toward the city.
Rae walked among the slaves, repeating the local words he had forced into his mind over the last weeks.
His accent was rough, his grammar broken, but his effort was obvious.
Some of the slaves smiled at his attempts.
Not wide smiles, not free ones, but small cracks in faces that had forgotten how to soften.
As the day went on, Rae noticed the road changing.
The wild bumps and twisted paths slowly gave way to flatter ground.
Marks of more travellers appeared. Old wagon ruts. Hoof prints. A dropped strap.
He asked one of the older slaves in his clumsy version of the language where they were going.
"To be sold," the man answered. There was no anger in his tone. No fight. Just tired fact.
A heavy feeling settled in Rae's chest.
He looked at the road ahead, then at the forest that sometimes appeared in the distance, dark and deep.
He drew a slow breath.
If I get a chance to run, he thought, even if it is into the forest, I will take it. Whatever waits there cannot be worse than what waits at the end of this road.
So he stayed quiet.
He listened.
He watched.
He kept learning words, even as fear grew behind his ribs.
He did not know about the girl they had bought in the night.
He did not know that she carried a past filled with blood and hatred.
He did not know that the moment they brought her into the caravan, his path had already shifted.
Unseen by him, in the closed carriage at the centre of the caravan, a girl with red eyes lay in chains, hidden from the world.
Neither of them knew it yet, but their paths were already moving toward each other.
The wheels rolled on….