Chapter 2: A Lord's Proposition

Chapter 2: A Lord's Proposition

The silence that stretched between them was heavier than any shout in the market. It was a weighted silence, thick with unspoken power and threat. Elara’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage of bone. She kept her chin up, a familiar act of defiance learned from a lifetime of being looked down upon.

“If you’re looking to purchase a memory, my lord,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady, “you’ll find my wares are likely too poor for your tastes. They reek of common sorrows.”

The nobleman’s lips thinned into a line that was not quite a sneer, not quite a smile. It was an expression of pure, dismissive control. “I am not here to buy your trinkets,” he stated, his voice a low, cultured baritone that cut through the market’s remaining din like sharpened steel. “I am here to buy you.”

Elara’s hand instinctively tightened around the griffon paperweight hidden beneath her table. “I’m not for sale.”

“Don’t be tiresome,” he said, stepping closer. The faint, expensive scent of sandalwood and clean leather rolled off him, a stark contrast to the grime of the Shadow-Quarter. “I know what you are. An Echo-Reader. You touch things, and they tell you their secrets.”

Ice flooded her veins. Her gift was a closely guarded secret, whispered only to potential clients who were already half-believers or desperate enough not to care. For a man like this, a hawk from the gilded spires of the Sunstone District, to know her title was unheard of. It was dangerous. People with abilities like hers were often seen as abominations, tools to be used and discarded, or witches to be burned.

“You’re mistaken,” she lied, her face a carefully blank mask.

He let out a short, humourless breath. “I am Lord Kaelen Vance. I do not make mistakes.”

The name struck her like a physical blow. House Vance. Their sigil, a golden hawk on a field of black, was stamped on the city’s coins, carved into the stone of its most important buildings. They were one of the ancient, ruling families of Aethelburg—practically royalty. And its current head, the formidable and ruthless Lord Kaelen Vance, was standing before her rickety table, looking at her as if she were a curious insect.

“Then what does the great Lord Vance want with a street peddler?” she challenged, her fear warring with a hot spike of anger.

“The man who was harassing you,” Kaelen said, ignoring her question, his cold blue eyes boring into hers. “Griz. A low-level enforcer for the Gutter Rats. Do you think it was a coincidence I appeared just as he laid his filthy hands on you?”

The implication settled heavily in the pit of her stomach. “You were watching.”

“I was assessing,” he corrected. “And I decided that my potential asset needed to be… unburdened.” His gaze was chilling. “He will not bother you again. Unless, of course, you prove to be a waste of my time. The Shadow-Quarter has a way of swallowing uncooperative girls whole. I’m sure Griz would be happy to find you again, without me to interrupt.”

The rescue was no rescue at all. It was a move on a game board, clearing away a lesser piece to isolate a more important one. He had cornered her just as surely as the thug had, but his cage was made of threats and power, not grimy flesh. The gnawing hunger in her belly felt sharper than ever.

“What do you want?” she finally asked, the fight draining out of her. She was a mouse arguing with the hawk that held her in its talons.

“A week ago, my brother, Lyren, was murdered,” Kaelen stated, his voice losing its iron control for a fraction of a second, dipping into a raw, grief-stricken tone before hardening once more. “The City Guard are useless, politically motivated fools. I am conducting my own investigation, and I require a tool they do not possess. I require your unique senses.”

The central conflict was laid bare. A noble’s murder. The kind of secret that got commoners like her killed just for overhearing it. “No,” she said immediately, shaking her head. “Absolutely not. I read baubles for coppers, not murder weapons for lords. Find someone else.”

“There is no one else like you,” he countered flatly. “I have searched. Your price is five hundred gold crowns.”

Elara choked. Five hundred gold crowns. The number was so astronomically large it seemed unreal. It was more money than her entire alley had likely seen in a decade. It was enough to leave the Shadow-Quarter forever, to buy a small cottage, to never feel the bite of hunger again. It was the answer to every desperate prayer she had ever uttered into the uncaring night. It was a fantasy.

And it was bait.

“Why should I believe you?” she whispered, her resolve crumbling under the sheer weight of the offer.

“Because I need the truth more than I value my gold,” he bit out, a flicker of genuine anguish crossing his severe features. “But I will not pay for parlor tricks. You will give me a demonstration. A test.”

Without another word, he reached inside his immaculate velvet coat. He produced a long, thin object wrapped in oilcloth. He placed it on her table with a soft, definitive thud. The sound seemed to echo in the sudden quiet. All of Elara’s senses screamed at her to back away. The object radiated a coldness that had nothing to do with the night air—it was a deep, soul-level chill, the residue of profound violence.

With slow, deliberate movements, Kaelen unwrapped it.

Lying on the rough-hewn wood of her table was a dagger. It was a work of art, with a hilt of polished obsidian and a crossguard shaped like intertwining silver serpents. But its beauty was grotesquely marred. The exquisite blade was stained with a dark, flaking residue that could only be dried blood. A single, dark red drop clung stubbornly to the tip, a ruby of death.

The echo emanating from it was a silent, psychic scream. It pulsed against her senses, a nauseating wave of terror, pain, and white-hot rage. It was stronger than anything she had ever felt, a hurricane of emotion where she was used to faint breezes. Touching it would be like diving into a frozen, black ocean. It might break her.

“My brother’s blood is on that blade,” Kaelen said, his voice a low growl, raw with hate. “It was found in his study, but it is not the weapon that killed him. Tell me what you see. Tell me its story.”

He pushed the dagger a few inches closer. It seemed to suck the very light from the lanterns, a vortex of shadow and memory.

Elara stared at it, her breath catching in her throat. This was the proposition. Her freedom, her survival, a life she couldn't even dare to imagine, was balanced on the razor’s edge of this bloodstained blade. All she had to do was reach out. All she had to do was touch death itself and pray it didn’t consume her.

Her fingers trembled, pale and thin in the gloom. The coppers in her pouch felt like stones, dragging her down. The memory of Griz’s greasy touch and the certainty of his return were chains around her ankles. And the impossible promise of five hundred gold crowns was a distant, blinding sun.

Slowly, fighting every instinct for self-preservation that screamed at her to run, she extended her hand toward the dagger.