The Emerald Serpent reeked of perfume, incense, and barely concealed desperation.
Riven moved through the ground floor like smoke given form, his void-enhanced senses cataloging everything in the span of three heartbeats. Silk curtains divided the main hall into semi-private alcoves where merchants and minor nobles pretended their coin bought them more than flesh. Musicians played something that might have been music if the notes hadn't been drowned in wine and moaning. Serving girls in translucent gowns wove between tables, their practiced smiles never quite reaching their eyes.
Above, the pleasure rooms. That's where Davos would be.
Two guards flanked the staircase—professionals trying to look casual and Failing.Their hands rested too close to their weapons, their eyes tracked movement with the precision of men who knew what real violence looked like. Blood-rune tattoos crawled up their necks, faintly pulsing in the lamplight.
Combat-trained. Enhanced. Expensive.
Riven could kill them both in under four seconds. The void-blade at his hip whispered promises of arterial spray and choking sounds. But corpses drew attention, and attention meant witnesses, and witnesses meant complications.
Better to be a ghost.
He slipped past a curtained alcove where a fat wine merchant was negotiating with two girls young enough to make Riven's jaw tighten. The void corruption had stripped most emotions from him over the years—fear, joy, even anger had become distant things, like memories of memories. But disgust? That one lingered. Sharp and clean and useful.
A serving girl stumbled into his path, her tray of wine glasses tilting dangerously. Riven caught it with one hand, steadied it, met her eyes for half a second. She blinked—probably trying to understand why she couldn't quite remember what his face looked like even though she was staring right at it—and stammered an apology.
"Third floor," he said quietly. "Davos Crenn. Which room?"
Her pupils dilated. Fear? Recognition? It didn't matter. The void-touched always had this effect on people—a primal wrongness that made hindbrain instincts scream danger even when they couldn't articulate why.
"The... the Jade Suite. Eastern corner. But—"
He pressed a silver coin into her palm. More than she'd make in a week. "You didn't see me."
"I didn't see anyone," she whispered, already backing away.
Riven moved to the staircase. Waited for the guards' attention to drift—it always did, boredom was the enemy of vigilance—and then he wasn't there anymore. The shadows between heartbeats swallowed him whole, and he stepped through the veil of darkness like a man walking through a curtain.
Shadow-stepping. One of the first gifts the void had given him, back when he was still stupid enough to think gifts came without cost. It wasn't true teleportation—more like folding space through the spaces between spaces. Limited range. Disorienting if you pushed it too far. And every use left him a little more hollow, a little less something.
He materialized on the second-floor landing, tucked into an alcove behind a bronze statue of some forgotten goddess. No witnesses. No alarm. The guards below continued their vigil, unaware that their perimeter had been breached.
The brothel's upper floors were quieter. Thicker carpets, better soundproofing, clientele who paid for discretion along with their depravity. Riven moved through hallways painted in crimson and gold, past doors that leaked muffled sounds he didn't care to identify.
The Jade Suite's door was ironwood reinforced with silver inlay—proof against minor curses and scrying. Two more guards stood watch, these ones in full armor despite the heat. They weren't facing the hallway, though. They were facing the door.
Keeping people in, not out.
Interesting.
Riven pressed himself against the wall, let the shadows thicken around him until he was just another patch of darkness in the dim corridor. He needed to know what was in that room before he made his move. Charging in blind was how amateurs died.
From inside the Jade Suite came voices. Davos's—high and nasal, petulant in the way only the very rich could be. And another voice, deeper, carrying an accent Riven recognized from the Ashen Plains. Orcish.
"—don't care about your supply chain issues," the orc was saying. "The Pillar wants his shipment by the new moon or he starts taking payment in flesh."
"You tell Morghul that I'm doing everything I can!" Davos's voice cracked with fear. "The elven cartels have been raiding my caravans. Lost three wagons last month alone. The product is getting through, just... slower."
"Slower means less profit. Less profit makes the Pillar unhappy. Unhappy Pillars make examples of people."
A crash—probably Davos knocking something over in his agitation. "I've served The Covenant for fifteen years! My family has connections to four of the Ten Pillars! You can't just—"
"Connections mean shit when you can't deliver. The world's full of merchants who can move product. You're not special, Crenn. You're just useful. And when you stop being useful..."
The threat hung in the air like smoke.
Riven's mind worked through the implications. Morghul—that was one of the Ten Pillars. The Ashen Warlord, they called him. Controlled most of the slave trade and blood-sport arenas across the southern wastes. If Davos was directly answerable to one of the Ten, that made him more valuable than Riven had anticipated.
More valuable meant more dangerous to kill. But also meant more damaging to The Covenant's operations when he died.
The door to the Jade Suite opened. The orcish enforcer stepped out—seven feet of scarred green muscle wrapped in black leathers, twin axes strapped to his back. His tusks had been filed to points and etched with runes that glowed faintly red. Blood magic. Old and powerful.
Behind him came Davos, sweating despite the room's coolness, his silk robes stained with wine and fear. "Please, just give me two more weeks. I can make this right. I always make it right."
The orc looked down at him with something approaching pity. "Two weeks. But if you miss another deadline, Morghul won't send me. He'll send the Flayer."
Davos went pale. "I understand."
"Good." The orc gestured to the guards. "Get him home. And don't let him drink anymore tonight. Can't deliver if he's pickled."
The guards moved to flank Davos, who looked like he wanted to protest but was too terrified to speak. The orc strode past Riven's hiding spot without a glance, his heavy footfalls echoing down the corridor.
Riven weighed his options. The orc was a Pillar's enforcer—killing him would send a message, but it would also bring down heat Riven wasn't ready for. Not yet. His war was supposed to be surgical, calculated. Start too loud and they'd fortify before he could strike at the real targets.
No. The orc lived. For now.
But Davos? Davos was scheduled to die tonight, and Riven didn't break appointments.
He waited until the orc's footsteps faded down the staircase, counted to thirty, then stepped from the shadows.
The guards registered his presence half a second too late. The first one managed to get his hand on his sword hilt before Riven's void-blade took him through the throat. The second one got his weapon halfway drawn before the blade punched through the gap between his chest-plate and pauldron, straight into his heart.
Both kills were silent. Efficient. Professional.
The Northern Ember had taught him well.
Davos tried to run. Made it three steps before Riven's hand clamped over his mouth and dragged him backward into the Jade Suite. The merchant-lord thrashed, surprisingly strong for someone so soft, but Riven had wrestled void-twisted abominations in the Marches. Davos might as well have been a child.
He kicked the door shut, threw Davos onto the silk-sheeted bed, and pressed the void-blade to his throat.
"Scream and you die slow," Riven said quietly. "Cooperate and it'll be quick. Your choice."
Davos's eyes were wild, rolling like a panicked horse. Up close he reeked of wine and opium and expensive cologne failing to mask the stink of fear-sweat. His mouth worked soundlessly for several seconds before words came.
"Who... who are you? Did Morghul send you? I told him I'd make the deadline! I swear!"
"Morghul didn't send me." Riven's black eyes reflected nothing. "But I heard your conversation. Interesting work you do. Moving 'product' for the Pillars."
"I... I'm just a merchant. I don't ask questions. I just transport—"
"Children." The word came out flat. Dead. "You transport children to the blood-sport arenas. To the flesh markets. To places where screaming is background noise."
Davos's face went from pale to gray. "You don't understand. The Covenant... you can't just refuse them. They own everything. If I'd said no, they'd have killed my family. I didn't have a choice!"
"Everyone has a choice." Riven increased the pressure on the blade. A thin line of blood appeared on Davos's throat. "You chose profit over principles. Chose to sleep well at night while children screamed in cages. Tell me, do their faces haunt you? Or did you learn to stop seeing them as human?"
"Please..." Davos was crying now, tears cutting tracks through powder and cosmetics. "I'll give you anything. Gold. Connections. I know where the Pillars keep their operations. I have ledgers, shipping manifests, everything! Just let me live!"
For a moment, Riven almost considered it. Information was valuable. Davos could be a font of intelligence, a map to the inner workings of The Covenant's logistics network.
But then he heard it. Faint but unmistakable. A child's voice, barely a whisper across twenty years.
Riven... help...
His hand moved.
The void-blade opened Davos's throat in one clean motion. The merchant-lord gurgled, hands clawing at the wound, eyes wide with the terrible understanding that came too late. It took him longer to die than Lyra had. Forty-three seconds.
Riven counted every one.
When it was done, he cleaned his blade on Davos's silk sheets and stood. The room was a mess—blood splattered across expensive fabrics, a corpse cooling on the bed, two dead guards in the hallway. Not his cleanest work. The Northern Ember would have docked his pay.
But he wasn't Northern Ember anymore. He was Eclipse. And subtlety was a luxury he couldn't always afford.
He moved to Davos's discarded coat, rifled through the pockets. Found a ledger—small, leather-bound, filled with dates and locations written in cipher. Shipping routes. Pickup points. Names.
He pocketed it.
Then he noticed something else. A letter, sealed with black wax stamped with a coiled serpent. The mark of The Covenant.
Riven broke the seal, scanned the contents. His jaw tightened.
Merchant-Lord Crenn,
Your continued delays are unacceptable. The Pillar Morghul has been patient, but patience is not infinite. This serves as your final warning.
The shipment scheduled for the new moon MUST arrive on time. Failure will result in termination of contract—and contractor.
However, we understand the difficulties of operating in current conditions. As such, we are providing additional security for your next transport. Captain Vex Tallow of the Crimson Jackals has been assigned to your convoy. His record is impeccable. The elven raiders will not be an issue.
Do not disappoint us again.
—The Obsidian Hand
Riven read it twice. Vex Tallow. The name meant nothing to him, but "Crimson Jackals" did. Mercenary company, supposedly the best coin could buy. Brutal, professional, and utterly without loyalty beyond gold.
If The Covenant was assigning elite mercenaries to protect shipments, that meant the operation was important. Which meant disrupting it would hurt.
The new moon was in six days.
Riven folded the letter, pocketed it along with the ledger. His original plan had been to kill Davos and disappear. Simple. Clean. First domino in a very long chain.
But now he had an opportunity. A chance to strike at more than just one corrupt merchant. A chance to damage an entire operation, cost The Covenant gold and product and reputation.
A chance to make them bleed.
The void whispered agreement, eager and hungry.
Riven moved to the window. Three stories up, rain still falling in sheets. Below, the street was mostly empty—sensible people stayed indoors when the sky wept like this.
He opened the window, felt the cold rain on his corrupted skin, and smiled that wrong smile again.
Six days to find the convoy route. Six days to prepare.
The Covenant had made their first mistake: they thought Davos Crenn mattered.
They were about to learn that nothing mattered except the fall.
Riven stepped out into the rain and let the darkness take him.
Behind him, in the Jade Suite, blood pooled on silk and soaked into expensive carpets.
The first tributary had run dry.