Stone crunched beneath their boots as the high road curved along a ridge—low hills behind them, and the great slope of Velgarth ahead. Mist clung to the cliffs, thin and silver, curling between spires of dark metal and slate. And at the center of it all, rising in tiers from a jagged mountain base, was the city.
Cloudspeak.
It didn’t gleam.
It smoked.
Steam curled from tall chimneys built into the hillsides, rising from workshops, forges, and factories. Iron scaffolds clung to the lower walls of the city like exposed ribs. Rail lines twisted through tunnels along the cliff, vanishing into machinery and mist.
“Looks colder than I remember,” Isolde murmured.
Zafran adjusted the strap on his shoulder. “I doubt the welcome’s warmer.”
The road narrowed as they reached the outer checkpoint—one of many leading into the lower city. Uniformed guards stood in pairs near a levered gate, their gray coats damp from the mountain air. A line of travelers moved slowly forward—merchants with crates, a courier wagon, a farmer hauling sacks across his back.
A sign posted beside the road read:
NO UNLICENSED ARCANE PRACTICE
VIOLATION OF CITY ORDINANCE 87-5
PUNISHABLE BY DETAINMENT, FINE, OR EXECUTION
Zafran glanced at it but said nothing.
When their turn came, one of the guards stepped forward. Mid-thirties. Clean uniform. Brass badge catching the dim light. He looked them over once—sharp-eyed, bored, professional.
“Names?”
“Zafran,” he said.
“Isolde,” she added.
“Purpose of entry?”
“Friend visiting,” Isolde replied.
The guard glanced up from his paper.
“Husband and wife?”
“N—” Zafran started.
“Yes,” Isolde cut in.
The guard raised a brow, but didn’t press.
“Duration?”
“Not sure,” she said. “Maybe a week.”
He gave a grunt, made a mark on his sheet, and raised a hand to the next guard at a post—clipboard in hand, brass stamp ready.
Then he looked back at them.
“You understand that any use of magic within city bounds is prohibited,” he said flatly. “No enchantments, no elemental binding, no spiritual invocation, no planar interaction—intentional or otherwise. If you violate this, you will be detained without trial. Do you acknowledge this?”
Zafran gave a nod. “We do.”
Isolde’s voice came colder. “We do.”
The guard gave one last glance at their weapons—nothing unusual—and waved them through.
The gate creaked open with a hiss of pressurized steam.
And they stepped inside.
The lower city pressed in fast.
Narrow alleys wove between steel-framed buildings and soot-streaked walls. Pipes hissed overhead, dripping condensation. Gears clicked. Bells rang from tram rails deeper inside the district—sharp clangs followed by the roar of steam.
Smoke hung low in the air, tinged with iron and coal. The street signs were brass-plated and soot-dulled, names barely visible unless you looked from the right angle. People moved with purpose—heads down, eyes quick. No one lingered. No one smiled.
Velgarth wasn’t a city that invited you in. It let you pass, if you moved fast enough.
They kept walking.
After several blocks, Zafran spoke without looking at her. “Husband and wife?”
Isolde didn’t break stride. “Shorter questions that way.”
“You could’ve warned me.”
“You could’ve played along faster.”
Zafran exhaled. “Fine. Just don’t start introducing me as anything permanent.”
“No promises,” she said dryly.
They turned down a side street, narrower, the ground gritted with ash. Isolde stopped beneath a crooked awning, then reached inside her coat.
From an interior pocket, she pulled out a folded scrap of paper—creased, dirty, stained near one edge with old blood.
Zafran raised a brow.
She opened it slowly.
In smudged ink, barely legible:
Foothill. Ask for the Badger. Don’t drink the pale one.
(burn after reading – you won’t, I know.)
She folded the paper again and tucked it away.
Zafran gave a nod and gestured to the next street. “Foothill?”
Isolde glanced around, then pointed. “I think it’s that way. In the Western quarter, used to see a tavern with that name there.”
Steam hissed from a nearby vent as they moved on—into the fog and iron heart of the city.
The Foothill squatted beneath the rusted belly of the rail line—its sign chipped, barely legible, its frame stitched with patchwork metal and steam vents that huffed like tired lungs.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Inside, it was dim but warm. Oil lamps buzzed quietly on the walls, casting gold light over wooden booths and brass pipes that cut across the ceiling like roots. The air smelled of iron, spiced broth, and something vaguely sweet left too long on a burner.
A few patrons nursed mugs or bowls. No one looked up.
Zafran and Isolde crossed straight to the bar.
The bartender looked like someone who never hurried—mid-forties, sleeves rolled, a scar tucked just under his left eye. He polished a glass without looking up.
“We’re here for the Badger,” Isolde said.
His hand paused—for just a blink.
Then resumed.
“No badgers here,” he said flatly. “But the stew’s not bad.”
Without lifting his eyes, he reached beneath the bar—slow, smooth—and set two mugs in front of them. As he placed Isolde’s, his hand brushed hers, leaving behind a folded scrap of paper.
She didn’t react. Just nodded once.
Zafran slid onto the stool beside her. “Friendly place.”
“Depends who’s asking,” the bartender muttered, turning away.
They waited. The air thick with pipe hiss and clinking glass.
When no one was watching, Isolde unfolded the paper beneath the edge of the counter.
Wait.
Zafran leaned in slightly. “Well?”
She didn’t look up. “We wait. Like he said.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing to do anyway,” she added, folding the note again and tucking it into her sleeve.
They sat in silence, the steam overhead breathing like a slow, invisible tide.
The bartender returned a few minutes later with a third mug—darker, faintly glowing. He set it between them without a word, then leaned in just enough to say:
“Want something real? Cloudspeak’s known for that.”
Isolde nodded once.
He winked.
And walked off—still polishing the same glass.
The night settled.
One by one, the last patrons trickled out. The clatter of bowls. The groan of a hinge. The cold hiss of wind when the door opened and shut again. Then silence.
The bartender flipped the sign to CLOSED, slid the bolt with a quiet clunk, and moved back behind the counter.
Without a word, he knelt and pulled open a small, well-hidden hatch beneath the bar. A breath of dry, musty air escaped. He knocked once on the wood, then again—sharper, like a code.
“Thalos,” he called, not too loud. “They’re here.”
A pause.
Then: the sound of boots on wood. Deliberate. Slow. A soft thud of a cane on each step.
“About time,” came a voice from below—rough, amused. “I was halfway through a nap I didn’t start.”
The bartender smirked faintly. “You’ll live.”
“Optimistic of you,” Thalos replied, and then emerged from the dark.
He wore a faded coat buttoned to the throat, its collar scorched at one side. His hair was a shag of gray and black, uneven and unbothered. His eyes were sharp, and he moved with the casual certainty of someone who had already checked every exit in the room.
He crossed the floor like he owned it—then casually grabbed an apple off the bar.
Took a bite. Loud.
“…Lady Isolde,” he said around the mouthful. “Didn’t think I’d see that face again.”
Isolde blinked. “You knew me?”
“Why not? Last time I saw you, you were six. Threw a candlestick at a state official.”
She frowned slightly. “…That sounds right.”
“You worked with my father.”
“Mm. Worked, argued, got shot at together. The usual.”
Zafran shifted slightly. The man’s gaze cut to him—quick, appraising.
“And this brooding fellow?”
“You think he’s brooding?” Isolde smirked.
“I meant lovely. Brooding comes with the cheekbones.”
Zafran cleared his throat. “Zafran.”
Thalos raised an eyebrow. “Zafran who?”
Zafran sighed. “It’s complicated. But I was sent by Princess Seren.”
That made Thalos pause mid-chew.
“Well, well. Two of my favorite headaches in the same room? I should charge extra.” He tossed the half-eaten apple into the bin behind the bar—without looking. It landed with a clean thunk.
“You paid full price for that,” the bartender muttered.
“I paid with my charm.”
“You still owe me,” the bartender said.
Thalos winked. “Put it on my tab. I’ll forget to pay it later.”
Isolde crossed her arms. “So? Why did you want us all the way up here?”
Zafran cut in, eyes steady. “You’re really Seren’s informant?”
Thalos tilted his head. “Depends. Who’s asking?”
“Me.”
“Then yes.”
He set his cane against the bar, clapped his hands once.
“All right. You came all this way. Time to stop whispering in doorways. Sit down.”
His grin faded just a hair.
Isolde didn’t move. “We’re already sitting. You need to sit.”
He sighed, overly dramatic, and slid onto a nearby stool with a flourish.
“All right. Bedtime story it is.”
Thalos didn’t speak at first.
He just stared at the bar, fingers drumming once, then stilling.
“You think the Crimson Hand is the problem,” he said finally. “Think the revolution is about tearing down the royal house and letting the noble bloodlines take over?”
He glanced up, eyes sharp.
“But the Crimson Hand—it has a leader. Not the loud one, not the ones throwing fire in alleys. The real one.”
“Someone from a noble house?” Isolde asked.
Thalos smirked. “You think so? You’re going to love this.”
He leaned back slightly.
“The real face behind the curtain is Lucian. Crown prince of Fyonar.”
Isolde blinked. “Lucian?”
Zafran’s breath caught, but he said nothing.
Thalos nodded. “The puppet is the puppeteer. He orchestrated it all.”
His voice dropped lower. “And what he’s been building—what all of this is for—isn’t power. It’s a weapon.”
Isolde frowned. “The planar machine?”
Thalos reached into his coat and pulled out a folded diagram—creased, burned along the edge. He flattened it on the bar. A crude body, mechanical. Tubes, channels, joints. At the center, a stylized arcane mark—flame at the core.
“This,” he said, tapping the center, “is a containment shell. A vessel. Fyonar’s engineers spent years trying to build something that could hold a planar—not bind it, not control it. House it.”
He hesitated. “I was one of the lead engineers. Your father was the other.”
He didn’t sound proud. Just tired.
“We started with the dying. Mages who had minutes left. We pulled the planar out—pushed it into the shell. But every time…”
He tapped the core again.
“No person came back. Just motion. Just power. No thought. No voice.”
“And then they moved on to the living,” Isolde said quietly.
Thalos’s jaw twitched. “That’s when your father broke ranks. That’s when the project cracked open.”
He leaned against the bar, eyes distant.
“They would’ve kept going. But an Ocean Tide royal knight got involved—he was escorting Princess Seren. She was the next target.”
Thalos squinted slightly, searching memory.
“What was his name again…?”
“Balin,” Zafran said, voice steady. “My father.”
Thalos froze.
His eyes flicked up.
“…Of course it was.”
Thalos let out a breath—half a laugh, half a sigh.
“Small world,” he muttered. “Too small sometimes.”
His eyes dropped to the diagram again.
“One day, a new test subject was chosen—Princess Seren herself.”
Zafran stiffened.
“I told Balin about the plan—quietly, the night before they were going to move on Seren. I don’t even think he believed me at first. But when the time came, he acted.”
Thalos’s voice lowered.
“He stopped the abduction. Fought them off in the middle of the night. While the nobles scrambled, he gave me the window I needed. I went straight to the lab and burned everything—schematics, prototypes, years of work. What we couldn’t carry, I turned to ash.”
He looked up again, slower this time.
“I thought I’d see him again. But… we know how that ended.”
He exhaled, then gave a dry chuckle.
He exhaled, then gave a dry chuckle.
“And somehow, I kept hiding. Ten years, right under their noses. Can you believe it?”
He reached for his mug but didn’t drink.
His voice lowered.
“After I ran, I worked alone. No contacts, at least in the beginning—just one question: who was behind the shift? Who turned the Crimson Hand into something cold and weaponized?”
He looked up again, eyes sharper now.
“And eventually, I found out. Lucian,” Thalos said, tapping the bar. “Imagine the brilliance—he put strings on the nobles just to have them crown him. Controlled the hand that crowned him the puppet.”
He leaned back again, slower now.
“And he’s not trying to house a mage anymore.”
He paused.
“He want to house Aftree,” Thalos said.
Isolde inhaled sharply. “The dead god?”
“The Firstborn god of Fire,” Thalos said. “They found Aftree’s Flame Ash—what believed to be his remnant, a powerful relic, though not enough to revive him, but enough to burn down a kingdom. And Lucian?”
He paused.
“He doesn’t want to summon a god. He wants to wear one.”
The words sat heavy in the room.
“But the vessel alone isn’t enough. The Flame Ash is unstable. Wild. Too much even for the shell. Every test failed.”
Isolde’s voice sharpened. “Test?”
“Flame-touched mages,” Thalos said. “Ten of them, maybe more. All chosen for their affinity. Every one of them burned out. Couldn’t hold the Ash.”
Zafran didn’t move. But the knot in his chest pulled tighter.
“Lucian has everything,” Thalos continued. “The machine, the ritual, the ash of a god. But he doesn’t have a soul strong enough to contain it.”
Zafran’s jaw locked. His breath caught.
He remembered the scream. The fire. The way the ground warped under her. The way even Varzen had backed away.
Isolde spoke first—quiet, shaken. “She could hold it.”
Zafran said nothing.
Thalos frowned, watching them.
“Who?”
Isolde didn’t answer.
Neither did Zafran.
But the name was already there. Unspoken. Burning.
Karin.