Chapter 4

Chapter 4: a step unseen

He watched her run until the dark consumed her.

Only then did his hand drift, unhurried, to the inside of his coat. The map rested exactly where he had placed it, tucked flat against his ribs within the folds of loose fabric. He let his hand fall away without lingering.

The street was still. Windows shuttered against the night, their seams leaking thin lines of candlelight. The streetlamps burned low, their glow gathering in wavering pools along the road, the occasional moth circling lazily in the warmth.

He did not step into the light as he had watched Ophira do.

Instead, he moved only where the light failed. He slid along the edges of buildings, through the narrow seams between glow and shadow, adjusting the set of his shoulders as he went. The line of him softened, blurred, until there was nothing left to catch the eye—just someone to pass over, someone already forgotten.

The cut along his thigh pulled with his next step, a warm, wet drag beneath the fabric. He slowed, more from instinct than necessity, and slipped into the space between two buildings where the dark gathered thick and undisturbed.

There, he crouched.

His movements were quiet and practiced. He shifted the loose fabric of his gambeson aside and pulled a thick, clean bandage from within. He applied pressure with deft hands, nimble fingers unwinding and winding it over the wound with precision. The scent of iron rose faintly as he tightened the wrap, binding it firm and clean. The wound was shallow, manageable, and entirely worth the inconvenience.

He secured the bandage and rose again, settling back into himself with a subtle shift of weight.

A familiar presence rested at his back, light and balanced in its sheath. A whisper of steel at his wrist. A hidden dagger at his boot. Nothing essential had been lost.

He adjusted his attire, smoothing the fabric as though nothing had happened at all.

The docks would still be awake. They never truly slept. Lanterns rocked over dark water, ropes strained and creaked, and somewhere men still gambled in low voices, the sound carrying just far enough to remind him the night was not empty. And there was a merchant there who owed him a favor—one who dealt in golden threads no honest loomkeeper should ever touch.

Sairion stepped back toward the street, angling cleanly around the nearest pool of lamplight, and slipped into the dark beyond it as though it had opened just for him.