Five cultivators surrounded Tunde, each carrying an Ethra affinity as distinct as any he had encountered, their leader the man in the reed hat with his mud affinity anchoring the charge.

  Dressed in the emergency robes he had been given aboard the vessel, Tunde swept his gaze across the area.

  The crowd of Tyrant's Haven residents was already growing at the edges of the street, drawn out to watch.

  The cultivators produced serrated weapons ranging from knives to rust-edged blades. Tunde breathed in, cycling his Ethra calmly through his body as the relic shivered.

  It released rift Ethra into his system, fusing with his midnight-colored Ethra, which began to flow in constricting spirals around his limbs as he primed resonance.

  On second thought, he dispelled the technique. He wasn't here to kill them. But the bloodlust seeping from them was real, and he prepared to show them the difference between his ceiling and theirs.

  Then they unleashed their auras, harsh billowing power that crashed against him like rabid creatures, distorting his perception.

  Barely.

  His Ethra sight mapped their movements as they shot in. The first, with dust Ethra coalescing around him, brought his blade down in a swipe aimed to tear through Tunde's shoulder.

  Tunde grabbed his wrist, rift Ethra coating his palm. The cultivator grunted in shock as his own Ethra was dispelled on contact.

  A snap of the wrist, and before the man could even scream, Tunde had the blade in hand and drove it through the cultivator's shoulder with imbued force behind it, the power blowing clean through the back of the joint, taking the limb with it.

  The second threw blades at him. Tunde read their trajectories and danced between them, catching two midair before a dropkick to the skull of a third wielding a large meat cleaver, this one carrying sand Ethra, sent the man crashing into the ground.

  Two knives, each imbued with Tunde's Ethra, punched through the man's reinforced shoulders and pinned him to the earth, dispersing his imbuement entirely.

  His instincts screamed low. He dropped flat, landing on the blades still embedded in the sand user as the cleaver swept overhead. He was back on his feet in the same motion, turning to face the three who remained standing.

  The first was already crawling for the edge of the street. Tunde produced his skinning knife, channeled rift Ethra through the blade, its edge glowing midnight and elongating further.

  The mud user spread both hands outward, his affinity pouring from him in a wide circle as he attempted to cocoon Tunde in hardened mud.

  Resonance gathered in one leg.

  He stamped through the mud wall and it evaporated to fine dust on contact, Tunde pushing through and swinging the blade in a clean arc that sheared through the weapons of the two cultivators remaining before they had a proper chance to cycle their affinities.

  A punch to the chest of one and a knee-shattering kick to the other put them both down. Only the mud user was left standing.

  "This is where I ask you to stand down," Tunde said.

  "Not unless the lady wills it," the mud user replied.

  The mud splattered across the ground around them began to bubble, rising and taking humanoid shapes, each mud clone armed with serrated edges.

  They came at him all at once again. Each clone carried the strength of an early-tiered disciple. Tunde willed resonance into both arms and roared, both fists tearing outward.

  The resonance blew the clones apart in a single explosion, reducing them to dust that filled the air in a fine cloud.

  He pressed through it without breaking stride, dodging the mud user's follow-up attacks and burning through each one with bare fists as he closed the distance.

  The mud user's meat cleaver came up. Tunde sliced through it with the skinning knife, which shattered immediately after, both of them now weaponless.

  It didn't matter. He dropped a punch to the man's chest, the force blowing it wide open. The mud user staggered backward, genuinely stunned.

  Tunde was already coming down on him like a falling weight when another aura struck him with sharp, deliberate precision.

  He flipped backward, absorbed the impact, and turned his gaze toward the source. A large building at the far end of the narrow district.

  "She has deemed you worthy," the mud user rasped.

  His reed hat had come off, revealing scarred pale features beneath.

  Tunde glanced at the other cultivators who had managed to drag themselves toward the walls.

  "Apologies for the damage to your companions," he said.

  The mud user shrugged.

  "They'll live. Just a reminder why none of us are in the rankings," he replied.

  Tunde paused, half-wanting to ask the man his name, then thought better of it and moved deeper into the district toward the building.

  The inky aura had receded, leaving him on a darkened road that led straight to a set of wooden doors.

  Two young women stood on either side, dressed in black flowing robes, their hair oiled and styled upward, faces made up with quiet precision. They bowed as he approached and opened the doors.

  He stepped through into a wide room bathed in dim golden light, sweet-smelling smoke drifting from pipes that floated unattended in the air.

  He stopped just inside, eyes adjusting and sweeping the residents seated around the room, the dim light drawing their features into shadow. He deactivated his Ethra sight and raised his gaze to the stairs.

  A female form stood at the top, looking down at him.

  "Everyone," her voice said, filtering down through the haze.

  "We have quite the guest tonight."

  Aware of the appraising silence the room had settled into, Tunde drew himself to full height. He might not know yet how to properly wield his aura, but he could still leave the taste of lethality behind him, if for no other reason than to discourage anyone with ideas.

  "Are you the Lady of Tyrant's Haven?" he asked, his voice carrying clearly in the now-quiet room.

  "One of my names, yes," she replied from above.

  The darkness of the upper floor kept her features hidden, but he could hear the amusement in her voice.

  "Then I have come to see you," he said, moving toward the stairs.

  "Members of Tyrant's Haven, cherished guests of the Inky Lodge," she announced,

  "I present to you Disciple Tunde, student of Venerable Adept Joran, wastelander, and killer of Corespawns."

  Tunde felt the weight of it then. The room's occupants weren't just watching. They were evaluating, the way hungry beasts sized up something that had wandered into their territory.

  He did the only thing he had ever learned to do in situations like this. He let his Ethra loose, his Ethra sight blazing its midnight color, starry bands coiling around both arms as resonance primed itself in his hands.

  "First to come at me dies," he said quietly.

  "No mercy."

  Her laughter descended from above.

  Tunde looked up and saw it, the same inky blackness that blanketed the entire district flowing from her, slow as a sluggish stream, seeping into reality around her and blurring her precise location.

  "So that's where the name came from," he thought.

  Ink affinity. The Ethra moved like it was absorbing the space around her rather than occupying it.

  "No one here would be foolish enough to attack a disciple," she said.

  "Much less the student of Elder Joran."

  "Is that the only reason?" Tunde asked, releasing resonance.

  A knife tipped with poison came at him at peak initiate speed. Tunde caught it by the hilt without looking, then returned it, firmly lodged in the throat of the initiate who had decided to test him.

  The man staggered, eyes wide, dropped to his knees, and fell forward convulsing, blood foaming at his lips.

  "Unfortunate," her voice said, carrying a note of mild disapproval.

  "Someone clean that up. It's bad for business."

  Tunde bent his knees slightly and launched himself to the upper floor in a single bound, landing lightly as the light up there finally found her face.

  He stared.

  "You," he said, his voice coming out hoarse.

  "Like what you see?" she asked.

  It was like standing back on Crystalreach, staring into the face of one of his own people.

  "My name is Miria," she said.

  "And it is nice to meet someone from the true home."

  ****

  Chocolate-dark skin, grey-tinged hair that spoke of distinct lineage rather than age, grey eyes, and a figure carved with a precision that seemed almost deliberate. Tunde stood frozen, the disbelief plain on his face.

  Lady Miria raised an eyebrow, a soft smile in place.

  "One would think you had seen a ghost," she said.

  "Did you not expect to meet someone who looked like you?"

  "How? Everyone was—" Tunde stopped.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  He swallowed and steadied himself.

  Miria snapped her fingers. A statue-still maid stepped from the darkened corner with a pitcher of something sweetly fragrant, poured two glasses, and retreated without a word. Miria took one and offered the other to Tunde, who collected it without speaking.

  "Before you start with the questions," she said, "understand that I was born and raised here in Bloodfire. As was my father, and his father before him. So no, I am not from Crystalreach."

  That gave him pause. He studied her again before nodding reluctantly.

  "I apologize. You caught me off guard," he said.

  "I tend to have that effect," she replied.

  "Though I'll admit it is a pleasure, meeting someone of shared origin. It does not happen often."

  "Back home, I—" Tunde began, then stopped and shook his head.

  "I apologize if I brought something unwanted to mind," Miria said.

  "No. Just something I don't speak about," he said, closing his eyes and breathing slowly.

  It had been significant. He had watched his entire settlement worked to death. Perhaps there were others, other settlements far from his own that had been spared the cruelty.

  But what were the odds of that? He opened his eyes and looked into her grey ones.

  "I was sent by Elder Joran, regarding my aura training," he said.

  Miria tilted her head slightly, her oiled grey hair shifting with the movement. Tunde noticed the moving shapes on her skin, images drawn in art that shifted and breathed quietly, something he might have missed entirely without his Ethra sight. He realized it was still active and switched it off.

  "I was wondering what your eyes looked like normally," she commented.

  "Only like that when I intend to break something," he replied. She chuckled.

  "Well, whatever the elder told you about aura training, it is not something I do," she said.

  Tunde frowned.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Aura training. That's what he told you I'd help with?" she asked.

  Tunde nodded.

  Miria turned, settled herself into a soft-looking chair, and crossed her legs.

  "I don't do that. And frankly, why you'd think a disciple could teach you what an adept of Joran's reputation apparently could not is baffling," she replied.

  Tunde turned it over in silence. He tried to see what angle the elder had been working. Had he simply wanted him to meet another person of his descent?

  He doubted the elder had time for such indulgences. There was something here he was missing.

  "Then what is it you can offer me?" he asked.

  She smiled and set down her glass.

  "A look inside your aura," she said.

  She saw the blank look on his face and sighed lightly.

  "As you've no doubt noticed, my affinity is all around you. Ink," she began.

  "Certain cultivators, usually rankers who want to climb the ranks but struggle to visualize their auras, come to me privately to address that particular difficulty."

  "I see," Tunde said.

  She gave a soft smile.

  "You don't," she said.

  "I don't," he agreed. "But you're about to explain."

  Miria rose from her chair, chuckling.

  "Come along," she said, heading toward a room on the upper floor.

  Tunde glanced down at the spot where the dead initiate had lain, noting with detached interest that the body was already gone, stripped bare by large, expressionless men who were in the process of dragging it away.

  He turned and followed Miria. She led him into a room lit by small golden bulbs, each one containing a flickering flame, the walls painted red and lined with ash-rendered portraits.

  Sweet-smelling incense hung in the air, and the moment he breathed it in he felt the edges of his alertness soften.

  He immediately cycled his Ethra and brought himself back to sharpness. Miria turned and took in his guarded posture.

  "That's Serenith root. It helps calm the nerves and allows for a smoother process. Though in your case," she said with a touch of dry amusement, "it seems to be having the opposite effect."

  "I might be more relaxed if I hadn't just watched a man get stripped of everything he owned and hauled off like livestock," Tunde replied.

  "Resources are scarce in Tyrant's Haven. The weak exist to feed the strong here," she replied, turning to a small table where she began cleaning what looked like metal needle-tipped pens.

  "And yet you're a single district away from the merchant quarter of Jade Peak," he said.

  She pointed one of the instruments at him, a soft frown crossing her face.

  "Only a month in Jade Peak and you already speak like them," she said.

  "Like who?" he asked.

  "Do you know why Elder Joran said nothing about this place as he led you here?" she asked. "Why, officially, he was never here?"

  Tunde shook his head.

  "Because Tyrant's Haven is a necessary stain on the perfect image of Jade Peak and Clan Verdan," she replied.

  "You need killers. Thieves. People who will do the work the noble families, with their manufactured sense of superiority, cannot afford to be seen doing. That, and formal duels take considerable time to arrange, as in your case," she finished.

  "What are you, then?" he asked.

  She set the instrument down and folded her hands in her lap.

  "I am what keeps them in line," she replied.

  "The denizens of Tyrant's Haven."

  The words carried a weight that went beyond volume. Her eyes were like still water over something bottomless, and Tunde held her gaze without flinching.

  He saw the feral cunning in her every movement, in the way she carried herself, in the way she measured him. It was a reminder that strength was not the only currency that mattered.

  "People like you and me," she said, "are not accepted here. We don't fit."

  "Because I'm supposedly a wastelander?" he asked.

  "No. Because no one in Bloodfire has ever particularly liked those from Crystalreach. Some long-buried history of invasions, or so they say. I stopped caring about the reason long ago," she replied.

  "But also, because we are good at what we do."

  Tunde frowned.

  "I'm simply a ranker," he said.

  "Yes. And in one month you have not only climbed to mid-tier disciple but cemented your name among the clan's top-ranking disciples, liberated the clan's mines from a full incursion, and earned yourself the patronage of an elder adept," she listed.

  "Don't be modest about it."

  He couldn't argue with the list.

  "My father and I came to Jade Peak when I was fifteen," she began, and something in her tone settled into something quieter, more deliberate.

  "Humble artists. We were hoping to make a living on the fringes of the empire after escaping the capital's grinding demands. It was good at first. We helped young initiates visualize what forms their auras might take. Business was steady, until certain families decided we were bad for theirs."

  "The higher families dismissed us first," she continued. "Said our art was crude and misleading. They were content letting us serve the no-named initiates with no house backing. But then they noticed those same initiates were developing sharper instincts for aura use than the ranked members of their own families. So they brought charges against my father."

  She gestured toward the bed. Tunde sat, too absorbed in the story to protest.

  "They gave him a choice," she said.

  "Work exclusively for the noble houses, or face exile from Jade Peak. My father refused. He would not sell his art, or himself, to those families. So they did what every wealthy, entitled house does when refused. They slowly destroyed him. Business stopped entirely. The district emptied around us, every neighboring shop relocating to put distance between themselves and the families' wrath."

  "The clan," Tunde said softly.

  "What did they do?"

  Miria snorted.

  "Nothing. These areas are left to the noble families. So long as taxes are paid to Clan Verdan, they are free to do as they like."

  Something small and hot ignited in his chest. He said nothing.

  "I inherited a dead trade and a festering district. The families had cordoned off the entire area, content to use its vagabonds for their dirty work while wanting nothing visible to do with them. A haven for tyrants," she said, and the smile that followed was sharp.

  "Elder Joran helped bring some order here in the early days. That, and I joined a house as an early-tier disciple. Selling my father's possessions raised enough lumens to push me to the second stage, and I refused to let his shop or his home burn."

  She paused.

  "I was a member of the now-defunct House Red Pearl," she said.

  Tunde's eyes widened.

  "Red Pearl?" he said.

  The house destroyed in a rift.

  "Lady Ryka said she was the only survivor," he added carefully.

  "Lady Ryka and I parted on terms that were less than amicable," Miria said evenly.

  "I wanted to go after those who betrayed us. She wanted peace. Words were said that couldn't be unsaid, and I imagine she considers me better off somewhere she doesn't have to think about."

  Tunde said nothing to that.

  She turned to him, and the sharpness in her eyes softened just slightly.

  "Though I will say, House Dark Fist. Not bad," she said.

  "Join us," he said.

  She was strong. He had no proof beyond what he'd seen and heard, but his instincts had rarely failed him about people.

  "I'm better suited to a support role," she said.

  "Subtlety, coordination, the work that doesn't show up in a ranking. If you want raw power on the front line, I'm not that person."

  "Besides," she added, "I'm satisfied here."

  "You look like someone who wants more than to manage a district full of misfits," he replied.

  She smiled. "Lay down," she said.

  "The process is going to be rough at first."

  Tunde scrunched his face.

  "What pro—" he started, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he went out.

  ****

  Lady Miria studied the large, still form of Tunde on the bed. The Serenith root had taken twice as long as usual to reach him, and even then she'd had to use distraction as a secondary measure.

  That they shared descent wasn't in question. It was the raw, continuous presence leaking off him that kept her attention sharp.

  He was like an unknowing predator with no awareness that its leash had already come loose. She suspected he had no idea his aura had been seeping from him since he'd walked through her doors.

  She selected one of the needle pens, sat beside him, and closed her eyes. Her tattoos began to shift and drift across her skin as she channeled her Ethra, drawing on the second power she carried, the one she had sworn a soul-oath never to speak of.

  It was the deeper reason her father had refused the noble houses their demands, a secret whose very proximity to the surface made her tongue heavy and her thoughts slow, the oath pressing down the moment it was neared.

  The tattoos swirled. A single drop of ink touched his skin and began to spread, tracing its way toward his chest. One precise flick of her wrist sliced his robe cleanly from waist to shoulder, opening it without disturbing him.

  The ink settled directly over his right breast. She set the instrument down, placed one hand on his shoulder, and got to work, feeling the scalding intensity of his aura and Ethra as they fused with a heat that made even her breath catch.

  ****

  Tunde woke with a heavy head, eyes blurry. He snapped back to himself in an instant and was off the bed before the grogginess could catch up with him. Miria sat in a corner, apparently unbothered by his presence.

  She spoke without turning.

  "Sleep well?" she said.

  "What did you do to me?" he asked.

  "Put you under," she replied, rising and brushing a strand of grey hair from her face.

  "It was the only way to safely draw out your aura and see what you carry within."

  "And what do I carry?" he asked.

  "See for yourself," she said, holding out a mirror.

  He felt the faint tingling on his left breast before he saw anything. He took the mirror cautiously and looked.

  "What is that?" he asked, genuinely confused.

  "Seems fairly self-explanatory," she said with a faint sigh.

  "I know what it looks like. I'm asking if you're saying my aura looks like that," he said.

  "You decide what it looks like," she replied.

  "Not me. Not anyone else." She tilted her head.

  "That is simply your subconscious revealing your inner self to you. How you see yourself, at the deepest level."

  "There is absolutely no way I see myself as some animal," he said, one eyebrow raised.

  "You doubt my work," she said plainly.

  "Elder Joran wouldn't send me here if you weren't good at what you do," he replied.

  "And still you doubt my work," she said.

  Tunde looked down again at the intricate design of swirling ink standing out against the dark tone of his skin, then back up at her. Miria sighed.

  "I don't have time for prolonged contemplation. Show the elder. If he approves, you owe me an apology," she said.

  "I decide what is good for me and what isn't," Tunde said quietly, a trace of frustration working its way into his voice.

  Miria tapped her fingers on her knee, turning the response over.

  "What were you expecting?" she asked.

  "I had no idea that—"

  "And now you've seen how I work," she cut in.

  "What were you expecting, Tunde?" she asked again.

  "Something different. Stronger, maybe," he said hesitantly.

  Miria shook her head. She stood and came closer, her scent of spice and soft perfume filling the space between them, and used one black-painted nail to touch the mark on his chest.

  "That is simply a frame," she said softly.

  "A starting shape for how to work your aura."

  Staring into her grey eyes was unsteadying. The depth of knowledge behind them, and the quiet cunning beneath that, pressed against him in a way that had nothing to do with rank. He grounded himself and held her gaze. She continued.

  "You are right that you decide how your aura manifests. But what I revealed is what your inner mind showed me. And I am never wrong."

  "Never?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

  "Never," she replied, drawing her nail away from his chest and returning to her seat.

  "Your bill is two thousand lumens," she said.

  "Two thousand?" he said.

  She turned to him, laughter quiet in her eyes.

  "Don't tell me the champion of House Dark Fist cannot manage such a modest sum," she said.

  "I'm not in the habit of spending carelessly," he replied.

  "Obvious," she said, looking him over once.

  Tunde wasn't sure if it was an appraisal or an insult, but he folded his arms, sighed, and produced two thousand lumens from his void ring.

  "I jest," she said.

  "It is on the house."

  Tunde paused and looked at the lumens, then at her.

  "I insist," he replied.

  "Well, who am I to refuse free funds?" she said lightly, and her void ring took them.

  He quietly registered that he had just been persuaded into willingly paying for a service he was not entirely satisfied with. He kept his face neutral and stood straight.

  "I will take my leave now, Lady Miria," he said.

  "Just Miria," she replied.

  "It isn't often that high-ranking people speak with each other on level terms."

  "I haven't been formally ranked yet," Tunde said.

  Miria gave him a look.

  "Your humility is as entertaining as your presence. You can drop the act," she said.

  He shrugged lightly and picked up the robe she gestured toward before pausing at the door.

  "Thalas," he said.

  "What about him?" Miria asked.

  "What kind of ranker is he?" he asked.

  "Oh? Are you asking me for hints?" she replied with interest.

  "Yes," Tunde said, without any framing around it.

  "I really shouldn't be sharing anything, seeing as we'll be competing for resources before long. But Thalas is one of my least favorite people, so," she said, settling back.

  "Methodical. Calculating. Solid. Those are the three."

  "Trying to anger him is useless. Trying to outmaneuver him with cunning is useless. Throwing pure brute strength at him long enough will eventually prove useless as well," she listed.

  "So what works?" Tunde asked.

  Miria shrugged.

  "You'll have to find that yourself. There's a reason the top five rankings have held the same names for so long, until the metal user arrived," she said, and a quiet smile followed.

  "Elyria," Tunde thought.

  He bowed at the waist.

  "Thank you for your time, Miria," he said.

  He turned and left. Behind him, the Lady of Ink watched him go.