Steam poured from the undercarriages in curling waves, while above them, white bulbs buzzed in long rows—unblinking, unnatural light casting a sterile glow over the crowd. It was loud, but not alive. Every sound felt dulled, controlled. Every person moved like they had somewhere specific to be—and no intention of speaking to strangers.
Karin was the first to stand. She stretched, rolled her shoulders, and glanced toward the window.
“East Fyonar,” she said. “Still humming.”
Elsha followed her with a glance.
“It’s busier than I expected.”
“It’s the central switch for half the continent,” Karin said, stepping into the aisle. “All roads cross here—even the quiet ones.”
Ysar blinked at the crowd outside.
“I thought this place was supposed to be strict. Looks more like a market.”
“It is strict,” Karin said. “It just lets you line up before it tells you to shut up.”
They stepped off the train into a wave of motion—boots tapping, wheels rolling, porters shouting over steam. People weaved past them, brushing shoulders without ever making eye contact. The air was sharp with iron and oil, thick with movement but thin on welcome.
Just past the platform, a sign hung overhead in polished brass:
EAST FYONAR STATION — CENTRAL CONTINENTAL GATEWAY
Beneath it, two men in gray uniforms waved travelers toward a side desk: station officers. A row of small signs beneath their booth read:
“Present Ticket Stub.”
“State Purpose of Visit.”
“No Spell Casting Within City Limits.”
The line moved fast. No questions, no delays—just a stamp, a glance, and a wave through.
Zafran handed his stub over first.
“Purpose?” the officer asked without looking up.
“Research,” Zafran said.
Stamp. “Next.”
Karin: “Study assistant.”
Stamp.
Ysar stepped forward with his usual grin.
“Guard work. Mostly informal. Light guarding.”
The officer paused. Looked up.
Ysar smiled wider.
“Very safe guarding.”
Stamp. “Next.”
Elsha passed hers over.
“Same as him. Minus the drama.”
Stamp.
The officer didn’t bother with goodbyes.
They walked on.
“I forgot how warm this place isn’t,” Karin muttered.
Ysar glanced back at the booth.
“No magic, no welcome, no questions asked. I think I miss Ocean Tide already.”
“Keep your mouth downwind,” Elsha murmured. “They banned Azure Wind the last time you spoke.”
Ysar shook his head. “It was unintentional! Accident!”
Elsha nodded.
“Someone wanted to see if they could race the train. Bust the rail. Delay half a continent.”
“They didn’t derail anything—” Ysar began.
“They panicked and dragged a vegetable cart onto the track,” Elsha said flatly.
“They were startled.”
“They were guilty.”
“This is going to be my favorite story,” Karin added.
They approached the final booth, where luggage was being returned by name. An attendant with a clipboard called them forward.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Weapons for a group of four—Ocean Tide departure, Azure Wind signature?”
Zafran stepped up.
“That’s us.”
The man raised a brow but said nothing, unlocking a chest behind him. Wrapped weapons—bundled in safety cloth and sealed with wax tags—were placed on the counter one by one.
Zafran took his sword with a silent nod. Elsha checked hers with precision. Ysar gave his blade a casual twirl—until Elsha slapped his shoulder.
They exited into the open street beyond the station.
Electric bulbs hung from metal posts, stretched like a web across the city’s skeleton. The buildings were even—pale stone and slate, their windows narrow and reinforced. Carts clattered down clean roads—drawn by horses or slow, belt-driven gears powered by compressed valves and clumsy crankshafts. The entire town ticked like a watch. No dust. No music. No color outside of the flags hung from the tallest towers—Fyonar’s crest in dark violet and silver, waving like a warning.
They stood there a moment.
“This place still feels like it was built to impress someone,” Ysar muttered.
Zafran looked down the street.
“I think we find a cart to the capital.”
And so they started walking—past the humming lamps and silent streets, toward the place where the real work would begin.
The cart creaked as it rolled along the main road, drawn by a pair of sturdy horses and driven by a man who hadn’t spoken a word since departure. The bench seats groaned under the shifting weight of the four passengers, and the wind filtered through the open sides, brushing against cloaks and hair.
They had left the station far behind. The chaos of East Fyonar faded quickly into the distance—replaced now by a different kind of silence.
Fields lined the road, quiet and familiar at first—stone fences, red-tiled rooftops, olive trees in neat rows. But then the scenery began to change.
Thin black cables ran along the roadside, strung from tall wooden posts, their ends bound in iron loops. They dipped and swayed between pylons like strands of webbing—constant, unbroken. Some vanished into the ground. Others stretched toward buildings where metal rods jutted out from brick walls like skeletal limbs.
Elsha frowned. “Are those… wires?”
“Yeah,” Karin said, almost offhandedly. “Power lines.”
Ysar squinted at one as they passed under it. “Never seen so many wires like this.”
They passed a town—not large, but recently built. Its rooftops were lower, simpler, its walls newly mortared. Yet every house had one thing in common: a single bulb fixture above the door, housed in iron lattice. Even in the daylight, some of them glowed faintly, as if they’d forgotten how to turn off.
“Feels like someone’s trying to tame lightning,” Elsha said.
“Someone already did,” Karin replied. “Now they’re just spreading it.”
Ysar leaned out of the cart, eyes scanning the endless skein of wires that grew thicker the farther they went. “I thought only the capital had this stuff.”
“Not anymore,” Karin said.
The road grew smoother as they climbed. Paved stone gave way to cleaner brickwork—interlocked patterns that stretched straight toward the hills ahead. Far off, perched along the horizon, stood the capital.
Fyonar.
It rose from the valley floor like a crown of stone and metal. The outer walls were still the old kingdom—tall, timeworn, lined with defensive towers. But within them, new spires rose: buildings of reinforced brick, crossed with girders, rooftops wired like webs. Cranes stood frozen above half-built frameworks. A network of pylons circled the city perimeter, feeding strands of cable inward like veins.
Above all, the light. Even in daylight, bulbs glimmered from rooftops and road signs, blinking slowly—pale fire born not from flame, but something else entirely.
The others stared. No one spoke.
“It’s like watching stone grow iron,” Elsha said, voice low.
And none of them could quite tell whether the city looked alive—or wired into something that only pretended to be.
The cart continued forward. Not too long before they’d reach Fyonar,
and already, the air felt heavier.
The capital greeted them not with fanfare, but with order.
Stone towers loomed over clean roads, their old bones wrapped in newer layers of iron. Lamps hung from arching steel posts, blinking with artificial rhythm. The outer wall had been high and worn—guarded, but passable with Seren’s writ. Inside, the city felt tighter, sharper, as if it had learned to move without excess.
The cart had left them near the central square, and from there, they walked.
Fyonar’s streets were wide where they needed to be, but walled in by symmetry. The storefronts were modest—old stone patched with newer construction, metal reinforcements, latticework bulbs above doorframes, and copper gutters gleaming under sunwashed tile. The city had grown by layering over itself, and not everything beneath had agreed with the change.
Ysar walked at the edge of the group, glancing up at the cables strung overhead. “Feels like the wires are watching.”
“They don’t blink, at least,” Karin said, hands tucked in her coat. “That’s how you know it’s still a city.”
Elsha moved quietly, eyes tracking the symbols above the buildings—noble crests, city banners, and increasingly, guild logos shaped like gears, scales, and bolts of light.
Zafran slowed at a three-way split, unfolding a parchment—Seren’s map, smudged with travel, annotated in her neat hand.
“This way.”
They turned off the main street.
Here, the lamps thinned. The buildings leaned closer. Shutters were drawn, and balconies sagged on rusted supports. The alley sloped gently downward between walls of aging brick.
Karin recognized the style—pre-uprising Fyonar, before the nobles rewrote the zoning.
They stopped in front of a narrow staircase beside a shuttered bookbindery. No signage. A single, unlit bulb hung over the frame.
“This is it?” Ysar asked, raising an eyebrow.
Zafran nodded once. “According to the map.”
He stepped up first, the others following close. The door wasn’t locked. It creaked open into a narrow room that smelled faintly of paper, ink, and dust.
The flat was small—slanted ceiling, narrow walls, a desk, a shelf, one wooden chair. One window. A cup still sat on the table, stained from a drink long dried. No signs of struggle. But no signs of life, either.
Karin moved in slowly, brushing her fingers across the desk. “Someone cleared it. But not thoroughly. There wasn’t time.”
Elsha knelt near the shelf, checking behind it, beneath it, around it. “No ledgers. No files. Not even a name.”
Zafran eased the window open. “Not forced.”
“They left willingly,” Elsha said.
“Or were told to.”
Ysar tapped one of the floorboards with his boot. “They really didn’t leave us much.”
Zafran’s eyes narrowed. “Someone’s coming.”
Elsha was already near the door. “Steps. Light. Trained.”
Two shadows passed the stair window.
Then the door opened.
Two masked figures stepped in—light-footed, lightly armored, moving like they expected the room to be empty.
They froze.
Not at the sight of Zafran exactly—just the fact that anyone was here at all.
A beat. Then hands went to hilts.
Too slow.
Elsha was already in motion.
She stepped forward and caught the nearest one just as his fingers found the hilt. With a sharp twist, she forced his arm upward, broke the draw, and pivoted—drove her elbow into his ribs, then swept his leg from beneath him. He collapsed without a sound.
The second man turned toward her, but Ysar met him head-on.
No flourish—just a clean step inside his guard, a strike across the neck, and a leg sweep that slammed him to the floor.
Silence.
No one else had moved.
Zafran remained still—watching, weighing.
Karin raised an eyebrow. “Well then.”
Zafran gave a quiet nod. “Seems we’re not in this alone.”
He stepped forward and crouched beside one of the unconscious bodies. “Fyonar blackline assassins.”
“Comforting,” Ysar muttered.
The room felt colder now. The dust on the shelves had no story to tell. No ledgers. No names. Just silence—and two bodies on the floor who knew as little as they did.