Blake didn’t know what to expect from the inside of Mergewatch. There was a central thoroughfare made of gravel and dirt, which they travelled down, and buildings lined its edges. Most were some sort of restaurant or supply store, and as far as he could tell, they were exactly like what he was used to from back home.

  It was at the center of the city where the true Trade happened, though. There was a wide city plaza with a wooden statue at the center (which Iver informed him was a depiction of the Steerman), and normally, it would have been mostly empty, save for the standard shops around the edges.

  But during the seasonal Great Trade, market stalls filled the central plaza. Most were a simple square counter with a tarp overhead, but some were affiliated with sects. On the right hand side of the plaza, various booths from different Red Pine Hunters’ Sect pavilions had gathered. They sold pelts and other trinkets they found in the merge mists, including rusty weapons and arrowheads.

  On the left hand side of the plaza, the Green Bear sect had set up a long counter covered in trinkets and items. From what Blake could see, they were buying as many trinkets as they were selling, likely to bring back to the city themselves.

  “They used to only buy trinkets from us,” said Konuth. He spoke softly and whispered to Blake. “That was the deal we had. But the Steerman changed the terms and is trying to rival us. Now they’re trying to outperform us at our own job. Hunt, sell the loot, buy more loot, and sell it again.”

  “Can’t you just do better than them?” Blake asked. “I mean, you must be better than the Green Bears on your own turf. And you guys have at least a decade of experience.”

  “Not if they slowly chip away at our hunting territory and place restrictions on what we can and cannot sell, Junior Brother,” Iver provided.

  “And they’ve massively increased the trading fees on everyone but themselves,” Froskur added with a lisp, his tongue still slightly swollen.

  “On all the Red Pine pavilions in the region?” Blake asked.

  “All of them,” Konuth confirmed. “Green Bears are looking to take it all for themselves and displace the last meaningful rival.”

  They spent the rest of the evening staking out a spot in the central plaza—on the right side, they fit in between two other Red Pine pavilion booths. The higher level Hunters used storage rings to deploy their equipment. Blake had only seen storage rings in action a few times before, and it always amazed him when the cultivators simply made something shimmer into existence with what seemed like a burst of will.

  In truth, the ring was actually what was manipulating space, but it looked impressive.

  Once they set up a counter and a tarp, a Mergewatch administrator—a cultivator in a Green Bear gambeson—approached and informed them that their booking in the Mergewatch inn was successful. Ulfreld declared that they would set out their goods tomorrow, and that instead, they would take their rooms in the inn before they were given away to someone else. But for good measure, they left a few guards behind to ensure no one messed with the tarps.

  Ulfreld told Blake, “You’ll be taking watch early tomorrow morning and helping Sclera set out the goods. Understand, Junior Brother?”

  “Understood,” Blake said.

  The inn was at the very opposite side of the plaza, and it was the Earth-style office tower Blake had identified on the way in. According to some of the hunters, it had ended up here during the chaos of the Integration, foundations intact, and Mergewatch had been built around it. Originally, it had been used as an administrative building, but when the regional government moved to the city, it was abandoned and later turned into the Mergewatch Grand Inn.

  As he was walking at the end of the column of Hunters toward the inn, they wove through a thick crowd. Blake tried to keep his head down, but he didn’t exactly fit in, and he felt hundreds of eyes boring into him.

  Worse, just as he was stepping through the inn’s doors, he caught a glimpse out the corner of his eye of Svarikson’s two thugs—Cag and Ley.

  “They’re here…” he whispered.

  “Who is?” Froskur asked.

  “Svarikson,” Blake replied. “He’s probably looking for me. And I’m sure they saw me.”

  “Svarikson?” Iver asked. “The most successful land-master in the city?”

  “Yeah, him,” Blake replied. “I kinda made him mad. I told you guys that story, didn’t I?”

  “You never told us who the land-master was,” Iver said.

  “I’d have thought you would’ve been more angry at me for disobeying my landlord,” Blake said to Iver. “Considering tradition and stuff.”

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  “The Sagas say nothing about respecting land-masters, Blake. They are stories and accounts of history.”

  “Riiight. But like, there were some cautionary tales and stuff in there.”

  “Are you only pretending to read them?” Froskur asked.

  “Do I get credit for trying?”

  “No,” Iver insisted. “The point remains: I hold no ill will against you.”

  “I don’t think the regional government agrees with me.”

  By now, they had navigated up to the third floor of the inn, and Ulfreld was handing out keys. The rooms themselves were small, but that could have simply been the suites that Ulfreld had booked. Most hunters were sleeping four to a room—which included resting on the folding couches and doubling up in a bed.

  Blake took a folding couch in his room, and since he was allowed to share the room with Froskur, Iver, and Konuth, they took the beds, still being his Seniors.

  The inside of the room was plain, with freshly wallpapered walls and candle sconces with fresh rushlights inside them. There were a few abstract paintings on the walls, flanking a balcony that overlooked Mergewatch. An old air conditioning unit clung to the wall, which Blake learned was intentional. Apparently, when powerful cultivators visited, Mergewatch was a common location to visit, and they wanted to see the artifacts from before the Integration.

  Blake and the others split their rations for dinner and ate inside their room, then slept barely a half hour later. In the morning, Blake woke with the sun, which put him perfectly on time for his shift. He snuck out of the room, trying not to wake the others.

  For a moment, he almost left his backpack and staff behind in the room, but he thought better of it, and hauled them along with him.

  He met Sclera at their booth and dismissed the other guards, then sent a few mortal peddlers scrambling away with a glare. After shooing away a Blended pigeon with bat wings, Blake helped unload the storage rings. According to Sclera, all you had to do was feed them a whisper of mana and they would activate. You could empty it with a forceful tug of mana, removing everything from within them.

  The problem was, Blake didn’t have mana, and he didn’t have Ethbin around to tell him how to get the ring open.

  When Sclera wasn’t watching, he tried feeding the ring Honour. It did nothing. The runes filled with misty black energy, but they didn’t activate. He cursed softly, then turned the ring over. He was about to give up and ask Sclera for help when he remembered what his mana was. Antithetical to mana.

  He pressed his finger onto the wrong end of the runic chain and activated it. The runes filled, activating. A regular cultivator probably would’ve sensed what was in the ring, but Blake couldn’t. That didn’t really matter. He tugged his Honour out of the runes forcefully, pulling it back toward himself.

  A heap of pelts, claws, shroomclaw cores, and a giant curled fiend horn all fell out, materializing out of the air. He organized the pelts on a rack, then arranged the claws on the counter at the front of the stall. Already, people were filing into the plaza, but they always gravitated toward the Green Bears first. They offered the best prices and best trades.

  As the sun rose and the sky lightened, an uneasy feeling soaked into his bones. Blake tried to ignore it as he worked and tried to match Sclera’s pace. It wasn’t hard to catch up with her once he got the hang of it, and he soon overtook her—until he realized that she wasn’t actually trying at all, and she was letting him do more of the work, hoping he wouldn’t notice. He was about to call her out on it, but he quickly shut his mouth again and kept working. She was his senior, after all.

  He told himself that must’ve been where the uneasy feeling originated from.

  But then, when he brought an armful of pelts to the rack at the front of the stall, a hand clamped over his mouth.

  Something dragged him back over the counter, scattering the horns and claws he’d just laid out. A hook snagged the back of his backpack, and before he could even register what was happening, a horse whinnied, and a cart began dragging him off behind it.

  His back scraped against the ground and the gravel and mud tore at his shirt. He tried to roll over and reach up to free himself, but he couldn’t get leverage. His feet scrambled, trying to find purchase, but the ground was too slippery.

  The wagon turned a corner, racing down a side street. Wherever they were taking Blake, it couldn’t be good.

  But he had more than just his physical strength. He reached up then triggered a Black Palm, aiming at the rope. Black lightning surged up from the ground and snapped the rope in a single burst.

  He tumbled to a stop and jumped up to his feet, then pulled his staff out of his backpack and whirled it around into a fighting position.

  The wagon rolled to a stop, and its two drivers jumped out. Cag and Ley.

  They glanced at him, took a look at his rank seal, then gulped. Both of them were still at Tempering one—the same as him.

  “Surprised?” Blake asked.

  “You advanced quickly,” Ley, the female thug, muttered.

  “Care to come to Svarikson with us?” Cag asked. “He just wants to talk.”

  “You already tried that,” Ley snapped. “It didn’t work last time.”

  “We don’t know if he even heard!” Cag shook his head. “It was worth a try…”

  “I’m not coming with you,” Blake said. He glanced around. There were no other cultivators on the side street, and all the mortal shopkeepers and civilians retreated inside with their goods, fearing the worst.

  “Then you’ll die,” Ley sneered. She drew a short, unornamented spatha sword from a sheath on her back, and Cag withdrew a hammer from his belt.

  “If you were going to kill me anyway, why not slit my throat back there in the plaza?” Blake asked, holding up his staff. He didn’t really want to fight people right now. If he could reason them out of it…or figure out why they’d delayed, then maybe he could buy himself some time.

  “Less witnesses out here,” Cag snarled. “And less interference.”

  “You’re not going back to your sect alive,” Ley added.

  Blake sighed. “I guess there’s no reasoning, then—”

  Before he could finish, both of the cultivators sprang forward, weapons raised.