The sun had not yet risen, but light was already present—pale, spilled like milk from a broken jug. In the courtyard of Kar-Mahran’s northern gate, the air trembled with a chill that would soon retreat. Malik stood on a stone ledge and watched the guards cinch harnesses onto the camels. Steel chimed softly against leather, and people’s breath steamed in that brief hour between night and day.

  Below, Samir checked straps and arrows one last time. Straight as a spear, he didn’t need to raise his voice for his orders to carry. Talim, his books wrapped in cloth, spoke in a half-whisper with a young priest of Tynos. The boy rolled a cord with three knots between his fingers—three virtues, three breaths before a word. Three strikes rang out against a shield, echoing across the yard. Thirty cloaks moved like a single wave.

  Malik swallowed. An hour earlier he had knelt beside his father in the throne hall, and Harzad had laid a hand on his head, as he had on the rest of his children. “I will bless my sons before they depart.”

  He had blessed Malik too, even though he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You’ll see,” Samal said softly, stepping up beside him. “They’ll return with nothing, and you’ll have a ready answer. Father will stop seeing a child when he looks at you.”

  Malik didn’t reply. He slid his fingers along the edge of the parapet, feeling grit beneath his nails. Below, Samir nodded to the young priest, and the column moved through the gate. Talim glanced up one last time. Malik remained where he was. Samir gave a brief twitch of his head and vanished with the wave of cloaks into the milky morning.

  A wind from the city carried mint and sandalwood from the prayer halls, a hint of fish brine from the southern bazaar, and what always hung over Kar-Mahran: the weight of silence.

  “They always come back with something,” Malik murmured, mostly to himself. “A feather, a wound, a song. Or a corpse.”

  Samal snorted so quietly it was almost a sigh. “A song, sure. Songs don’t feed people. Certainty feeds people.” He leaned a fraction closer. “And you can give certainty.”

  “Speak,” Malik said, still watching the light beyond the gate. “You have a plan. I know that look.”

  “I only listen to my lord and friend,” Samal said, his voice soft. “They said in the palace today that three caravans from Dalar vanished. No signs of battle. Tents burned from the inside out, sand black as night. People dream of fire. I can show you earthly traces—things your father understands better than anyone.”

  “What traces?”

  “First: an object.” Samal spoke evenly, as if counting in his head. “Yesterday, in the merchants’ hall by the north gate, someone tried to sell a signet from Eshen. Not a forgery. The guild mark they use to seal waybills. That signet disappeared with one of the caravans. The merchants whisper, but no one wants to go to the Guard.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “You heard this?”

  “I saw it,” he answered without pause. “I can point you to the man who’s keeping it under his counter. He doesn’t know what he holds.”

  Malik’s heartbeat quickened. A guild signet—something to place on his father’s table.

  “Second: goods,” Samal went on. “At the inn by the north gate, someone was selling surgical knives and herb packets at night, stamped with the seal of the oldest apothecary in Eshen. Dirt cheap, as if they burned the hands that held them. If the gods were devouring caravans, why are the herbs in our city?”

  “Who?”

  “‘Who’ doesn’t matter yet. What matters is that it exists. I know a man who bought a packet. He’ll hand it over for protection—or two coins.”

  Malik gripped the stone. The word certainty beat in his ears like a drum.

  “Third: testimony.” Samal’s eyes slid along the walls. “A guard on the north watch saw men hauling something heavy into the old salt warehouse two nights ago. No winch—ropes, and in silence. At dawn the warehouse was empty, and the wheels were scorched from the inside, like after a fire that never truly burned. He’s afraid to give a formal statement.” A courteous, too-ready smile touched his mouth. “He’ll speak if you stand beside him.”

  It began to fit. Object, goods, testimony. Signet, herbs, wheels. All earthly. All shaped by human hands.

  “And if it’s only fear and rumor?” Malik wasn’t sure whether he asked Samal or himself.

  “Then we’ll bring what isn’t rumor,” Samal replied at once. “An Eshen guild signet isn’t rumor. Seals on apothecary packets aren’t rumor. A wheel ‘burned from within’ that still has resin baked into the hub isn’t rumor. Bring the right people to say it in the hall—and lay these things before your father.” He paused. “And if we want it louder, the merchant will say he keeps seeing a black cloak at the Blue Gate. Everyone is already talking. Let the cloak be a man, not a phantom.”

  “The black cloak… of grass,” Malik muttered. “They’ll say ‘Gray Rift.’”

  “Let them.” Samal’s tone remained mild. “Your father dislikes the word miracle. He prefers culprit. You will point him to a man, a thing, a place. The rest will write itself.”

  Malik stood in silence, listening as a single bell note drifted up from deeper in the city. Once. A request for attention.

  He remembered his father’s hand upon his head. The words spoken in the hall: It must be the work of men.

  He remembered his mother’s gaze when she spoke of the ruins of Harem-Tesh, of libraries swallowed by forest. Samir had ridden out with Talim and the priest. Malik had been left behind.

  “Show me,” he said. “Today. The signet. The herb packet. The guard. And that warehouse.”

  “I’ll show you,” Samal replied. A short breath flickered and was gone. A thin, fresh line scored his cheek like a thread—one that hadn’t been there yesterday.

  “I snagged myself on a wire by the wall,” he added before Malik could ask. “Nothing.”

  Malik nodded, but some part of him filed it away. A wire by the northern wall? He had thought there were only ropes. He dropped from the ledge.

  “We go now,” he said. “Before the city wakes and starts talking. I want to speak first.”

  They moved along the wall. As they passed beneath an arcade, a puff of wind jostled a bell, and it gave a short, solitary note. The streets smelled of coffee, dust, and resin. The merchants’ hall was still half empty: crates, scales, tables under canvas, dark stains from yesterday’s trade. Samal flicked his elbow toward a plain stall stacked with tools.

  “There,” he whispered. “Ask to see the signet. He’ll understand.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Then set down two coins,” Samal said with that courteous, too-ready smile. “And look the way your father looks when he’s done listening to songs.”