As the afternoon settled into evening and the sun softened in the sky, Heshtat strolled down towards the outskirts of Idib with the smug gait of a satisfied man.

  He wasn’t entirely happy with his lot in life, but he also knew how to appreciate what he had, and there were few views that could warm the heart quite like the cityscape of his home. Idib was a beautiful city, as were most in Amansi, but the tinge of the familiar allowed him to appreciate the finer details.

  Where a stranger might focus on the glory of the burning sun against the palatial pyramid, or the gold encrusted complexes of the temple district, Heshtat found himself watching the light reflect off the white-daubed houses, shops, foundries, and forges in the outskirts instead. The subtle play of orange and red mingling above tiny rooftop gardens contrasting beautifully with the white and blue of blossom and lotus.

  The clanging of hammer on magical metals, the high-pitched shrieks of children scampering in play, and the jovial shouting of traders from their market stalls as they hawked natural treasures and magical elixirs lent a sense of depth to the beautiful vista that sprawled out below him, and Heshtat allowed himself an easy walk where the worries of the world were a distant memory.

  For a time, at least. He swept his gaze over the city, cataloguing the changes and doing his best to ignore the palace district where his past still dwelt. Nothing good could come from dwelling on bitter memories of happier times. He skirted his attention around the scaffold-clad pyramid in the centre of the palatial gardens with practised ease, but when he observed the river beyond the city, his mood soured.

  It should have been a beautiful sight; the great Nikea, serpentine in its constant flow and reflecting the evening sun off its surface, so very like the scales of a dragon as it rushed past the banks on which the city crouched. But it was the ships on its surface that upset Heshtat, despite his best efforts to ignore them.

  There were many small fishing skiffs and the occasional trading barge, but predominant among those smaller vessels were a dozen great triremes. True ships, not boats, able to brave the Bleeding Sea beyond the reach of the river and hailing from the distant shores of The Aquiline Empire. All twelve of the massive vessels were heading downriver, sails furled but oars extended and cutting into the body of the Nikea with vicious efficiency.

  That brief glimpse had been enough though to remind him of all he had lost. He wanted to hate Idib’s queen, curse her weakness and blame her for the occupation… But in his heart he knew she’d had no choice. Indeed, it was his own failure that had led to this sorry state of affairs, and no amount of misplaced anger could absolve him of that sin.

  He mulled on the bitter thoughts as he moved through the city, wondering where the ships were bound, where that legion would make land and what they would do when they did. Probably pacify another city in another far-off land, and luck to them—he could only hope they’d do a better job there than they had done here. It was certainly hard to pretend that his home had flourished under their rule.

  Still, no matter how black his mood, there were some things that were guaranteed to bring a smile to his face.

  “Mama Ramose!” he called from across the street, crossing the paved cobblestones with a skip and a hop, mouth already watering at the heavenly scents wafting from her open shopfront. He stepped around a little cat, nose in the air and sniffing for all it was worth in the direction of the bakery, and he laughed.

  “Even Bestat’s blessed know of your baking prowess!” he exclaimed, and saw the old women turn with a smile at his entrance.

  “Heshtat, my love! Good to see you. What shall it be today, then?” she asked, her soft yellow robes brushing the hard-packed ground even as she grabbed a pair of tongs.

  “Hmm,” he mused, playing along with the little ritual they had developed over the last few years. “The sweet breads look nice…” She harumphed and gave him a look, and he laughed again. “Alright, alright. That one,” he said, pointing at a particularly large honey cake atop the counter.

  There was an art to picking the best one, Heshtat had learned, and it involved looking not just at size but also coloration, and the level of crystallisation around the edges. He was near the end of a hard day though, and quantity had a quality all of its own.

  He fished within his bandoleer, looking for the right coins, but Ramose waved him off. “A gift,” she said, a strained look appearing on her face.

  “Ah. One that comes with a favour, no doubt?”

  “Just so. You always were a quick one,” she joked, but he could feel her tension and quickly turned serious.

  “What is it, Ramose?” he asked, dropping the endearing title she had earned long ago. They were no longer old friends with shared history and a shared love of sweet treats. Instead, they would be talking of adult matters; a senior member of an artisanal guild and a criminal enforcer discussing business.

  “You remember little Pedu?” she asked, leaning forwards over the counter and dropping her voice to barely above a whisper. The shop was empty apart from Heshtat himself, but he leant towards her anyway. He’d found it a truism that unless one was incredibly wealthy or connected, nobody discussed black business out in the open with confidence.

  “He’s the one that feeds the cats on the corner of market street, right? Pedubastis? Manages the little garden. A bit… slow?” he asked carefully.

  “You’ve always had a knack for remembering people,” she said with a slight smile, though it dropped again quickly with her next words. “He’s in a bad way. Some of the men that work for—” at this she looked over his shoulder to ensure nobody was listening in before actually whispering. “Your boss, came by and beat him bloody.”

  He frowned, eyes flicking sideways as he tried to understand the situation. “Why though? What has—”

  “He took in a young girl, helped look after her while her mama worked the evenings in the Rose Bank…”

  “…and one of Senusret’s men took a liking to her,” he finished for her. “I see. Where is he now?”

  She wrung her hands together. “Resting at home from what I hear, but he’ll be out in that garden again in a few days, you know how he is. I’m worried that if they see him again…”

  “And the girl?” he asked, voice still low and quiet.

  “With her mama. Little Pedu isn’t so little when he gets in a rage, and from what I understand he bought enough time for her to make a run for it.”

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  “Brave man,” Heshtat commented with approval.

  “No, you oaf,” Ramose said, slapping him on the shoulder with the tongs. “He’s got the mind of a child. No bravery there, and no real thinking. That’s the problem!”

  “Still, I’m glad he was there,” Heshtat said, holding her gaze firmly. “The men who work for Senusret aren’t worth playing with—they’re nasty bastards, one and all.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” she said, giving him a significant look.

  Heshtat sighed heavily, leaning back. He’d help, as she knew he would, but it would cost him. He had some leverage with the man who ran most of the criminal activity in this particular district of Idib, but Senusret was prickly and prideful. He’d need to be careful with how he approached this.

  He looked back at the old woman who stood nervously behind her little counter. “You’d best give me that one too, then,” he said, pointing at another honey cake, only marginally smaller than the first.

  She smiled with relief and handed it over, taking care to give his arm a squeeze. “Thank you, Heshtat. He’s got nobody left to look out for him now that his parents have passed, and I’d never forgive myself if he went the same way as…”

  She didn’t need to finish the thought. Far too many had died in this city at the hands of cruel thugs. The Aquiline Empire had brought a measure of stability when they arrived nearly a decade ago, but they left the city guard to enforce order, and their very presence weakened the influence and power of the province’s true ruler. She tried, he knew she did, but things had been in a bad way when she’d ascended to the throne, and things hadn’t been looking much better since.

  “I’ll talk with Senusret. Let little Pedu know his garden is safe territory. Keep that girl out of the district though, you hear?” he said, a little more harshly than he intended. Wasn’t her fault, after all. Mama Ramose had been around for a while though, and she understood, giving him a grateful nod.

  The cake tasted incredible—local oranges and honey shipped from Xiexic, the Honeycomb City itself—but he took no notice of the complex flavours bursting apart on his tongue. He chewed mechanically as he strode through the city, passing into the deeper, darker parts of the outer district.

  Washing hung across the narrow alleyways, obscuring the sun and lending the world a more dangerous mien. Men and women crowded outside seedy establishments, and the shrieks and raucous laughter were no longer those innocent expressions of children, but something altogether less noble.

  He finished his meal, pausing to clean his hands in the rough sand gathered at the base of a wall. He slipped a handful of it into his left pocket and straightened, walking onwards with a purpose. He caught nervous eyes following him as he moved out of the residential part and into an area where the whole pretence of civilisation seemed stripped away.

  Hard-eyed men glowered from rooftops, weapons strapped to their waists, and the washing lines were now hung with red and black coloured sheets; banners to mark territory more than anything else.

  He stopped at an unassuming door guarded by a big man with a mean face and a scar from forehead to neck on one side. He grunted a greeting and banged a meaty fist on the door as Heshtat arrived, giving him a nod a moment later and opening the wooden door for him to enter. It closed behind him with a heavy thunk when he stepped through.

  Scantily clad servants sashayed through the smoke-filled room, handing out drinks from trays to the men and women sitting on plush divans and benches. He moved through them without stopping, aiming for a red door at the back, again guarded by two more thugs.

  There was a ritual to the criminal underworld of Idib, and most of it involved ensuring you gave everyone enough face that they left each interaction thinking they had the upper hand over you, without considering you too weak to exploit. It was a delicate balance, but Heshtat had always been a fast learner, and a decade of experience let him navigate the room with ease. Not to mention that most there knew of him, at least by reputation.

  He was soon ushered into a smaller room with three men and a woman seated within. Senusret held prime position in a high-backed chair, pouring over a table with a map of the city and various lines and circles scribbled across it in coloured ink.

  The woman and one of the men sat on either side of the table, looking up as Heshtat entered, but taking their lead from Senusret and dismissing him a moment later. The final man looked of a different sort though. Well-muscled, tall, and with a scowl that seemed fixed to his face beneath his short-cropped black hair. He had a khopesh sheathed on his waist, a mirror to Heshtat’s own, and he stood as the door opened, clearly unhappy with what he had learned before the intrusion.

  The problem was, Senusret wasn’t someone you could take your frustrations out on. Neither were his two aides. Heshtat’s entrance altered the dynamic though, and he felt the glower from the tall man burn at his face, the desire to look over almost a physical sensation, like itching across his entire head.

  He knew the feeling; here was a man that had awakened the Personality—or the Ba, as it was known in the god’s tongue—and his presence had an unsettling intensity to Heshtat, like coarse sand between the toes. He knew better than to engage with an awakened cultivator though, and instead looked directly at Senusret.

  “I have returned with your prize,” he said, tossing the essence-filled crystal onto the table before the lean man.

  He received a grin in return, the orange light from the high window shining off the man’s smooth head. “As always,” Senusret whispered, his broken voice hissing out from between his white teeth like the dead wind that scythed through the Field of Reeds.

  There was an awkward pause where Heshtat tried valiantly to ignore the burning glare from the other man to one side, and Senusret eventually put him out of his misery. “Leave it off, Tentamun. He’s not the cause of your woes, and I’ll have no fighting between my men over nonsense, understood?”

  The taller man gave a reluctant shrug and sat once more, and Heshtat held in his sigh of relief. He seemed to be doing that a lot recently. “Anything else?” Senusret asked impatiently.

  “My payment,” Heshtat replied, equally impatient.

  The crime-lord grinned darkly for a few moments before nodding to the woman, who handed Heshtat a small purse. He didn’t bother to count it—they all worked together regularly, after all, and criminals tended to have a perverse sense of honour. When there were no courts and contracts to bind people, violence was swift when disagreements escalated, and breaking one’s word over a few coins was a quick way to end up dead.

  Heshtat bowed when he received it, a gesture of respect and deference that was no doubt part of the reason he’d historically had so few issues with others in an otherwise hostile work environment. Then he pissed all that accumulated goodwill away with his next request.

  “Some of your men were seen down near Market Street yesterday… I would like them to stop.”

  Senusret’s shadow twitched. It had been a polite request, but Heshtat saw the flash of anger in the crime-lord’s eyes as he leaned back. It was subtle, but the dark silhouette on the wall behind him stepped out of time with his lazy movement for just a moment.

  “I had heard that a few of my boys got into a spat with one of the locals. Roughed him up a little perhaps, but nothing worse. I don’t see how this concerns you at any rate, Heshtat?”

  It was a statement phrased as a question. An offer: a way of asking ‘are you sure you want to push this?’ without as many words. The problem for Heshtat was that he was tired. He had worked hard all week tracking down the damned treasure, and then nearly died to obtain it. His one little moment of peace—his precious honey cake—had been ruined by the cruelty of men, and he just didn’t have the patience for it all any longer. Seeing the triremes rowing out of the harbour had probably not helped things either, and he found himself unable to summon his usual stoic mask of indifference.

  “They beat. Him. Bloody!” Heshtat hissed back through gritted teeth, enunciating each word. “He’s just a boy, Senusret. They try that again—to him or anyone else—and you won’t have to worry about controlling them any longer.”

  He let the threat hang in the air for a few moments, but quickly regretted it. Had he been the man he once was, that statement might have contained the full force of his soul behind it, essence channelled through the Heart aspect lending a physical edge to the words that all present would feel. As it was though, they were just words, and he saw them break over Senusret without visible effect.

  The man to his left though—the one who had been so glowering at him earlier—launched to his feet, hand going to the hilt of his weapon. “You threatening my men?” he asked in a dangerous tone.

  Heshtat sighed. He’d done it again.