THE GENERAL'S DISGRACED HEIR

The Black Antler wasn't the kind of place you found by accident. It found you.

It was the kind of tavern that clung to the bones of the city like a parasite, hidden in a winding alley that reeked of mildew, blood, and betrayal. A place where lamps flickered with eldritch gas, and the haze in the air wasn't just smoke, it was memory. Heavy. Lingering. Forgotten things slept here, tucked in corners where candlelight dared not crawl.

Kars stepped through the warped wooden door with the silence of someone who'd entered a hundred such places and left them in ash. His boots tapped once, twice. He paused, the wolf-head cane tapping a third time. Silver teeth gleamed in the half-light.

A few patrons lifted their heads, eyeing the man with a silver-threaded cloak and the unmistakable scar slashed clean through his right eyebrow. Recognition flickered behind one drunkard's eye, then quickly vanished, buried under fear.

Kars limped forward, surveying the room like a hawk might scan a field for prey. The cloak hung heavy. His cane made him seem frail, but nothing about him moved like a cripple. There was calculation in every step.

He reached the bar.

"Something strong," he said to the barkeep without looking up. His voice was low, almost casual. But it cut through the tavern's din like a blade. "It's a shame to lose good pawns... even to myself."

The bartender slid a mug toward him with practiced ease. No questions. No name.

Kars took it in one hand. The scent of the ale struck first, dark wheat, rusted iron, a hint of lemon balm. He drank. Bitterness bloomed in his mouth like betrayal.

He sighed and let the warmth settle.

"Everything falls eventually," he muttered. "Networks fracture. Loyalties rot. The Creed always warned us. Information is fragile."

He tapped the cane against the bar. One, two.

"Still. Rebuilding isn't impossible."

He trailed off.

The sound had died.

No clink of mugs. No scrape of chairs. Even the buzzing lamp above him had gone silent.

Kars blinked. Turned his head slowly.

Empty.

The tavern, a moment ago breathing with smoke and murmurs, was dead silent. Deserted.

He set the mug down slowly.

"Oh."

He stood up. Cautiously. His hand slipped into his cloak, withdrawing a silver Terran coin. He examined it, the serpent swallowing its tail, the faded inscription: Quis audit custodiet? He placed it gently on the bar.

"Time to vanish."

Outside, the air felt different.

The alley behind The Black Antler was too still. Fog curled unnaturally around the cobbles, never rising above his knees. Gaslamps flickered irregularly. No voices. No city noise. Even the gutters had stopped flowing.

He tapped his cane once.

A rune briefly shimmered on its silver surface, a detection ward. Passive. Silent. A gentle whisper into his mind: You're being watched.

Of course he was.

He moved cautiously, each step deliberate. Kars had lost too many agents in the past weeks, their disappearances leaving behind only silence and blood. Vultures circled the Creed, but the worst hunters lurked in the shadows, unseen and unmarked. Someone was closing in, watching, waiting. And they weren't flying any banners.

At the end of the alley, a shape shifted.

A woman stood where shadows should have been. Cloaked in draping silk-black veils, each layer moved as if caught in some invisible current. Her eyes glowed faint violet, and her presence pressed on his senses like cold breath on bare skin.

"We finally found you, Kars."

He didn't startle.

"Charming." His voice was wry now. "And who do I have the misfortune of addressing?"

She stepped forward, footfalls silent. Fog curled away from her like it feared her.

"I am Death."

He tilted his head.

"Bit on the nose."

"It's a statement. I would love... an introduction to the Creed."

He smiled. Tapped his cane twice.

A surge of smoke burst outward, veiling the street.

"Fuck off."

He vanished into the haze.

"Tsk, tsk," Seraphina muttered, brushing soot from her veil. "Devil, darling. Your turn."

A red blur sliced the fog in half.

Vivian.

She dropped from the rooftop like a falling star, clad in a black, form-fitting suit woven from living shadows. Her obsidian greatsword gleamed in both hands, its edge thirsting for ruin. As she landed, her crimson coat billowed behind her, and the ground shattered beneath the force of her descent.

She smirked.

"And here I thought he'd be more of a challenge."

But the body at her feet shimmered. An illusion.

Across the alley, Kars exhaled sharply and gripped his cane tighter.

He moved. Fast. Dove behind a row of crates. The street behind him twisted, for a moment it was day, then night again. One lamp stuttered in reverse. He blinked hard.

What the hell was that?

His senses prickled. The world around him seemed... slippery. Colours bled slightly at the edges. The fog rolled backwards, like time was hesitating.

He didn't have time to dwell.

Vivian crashed through the crates with wild abandon.

"Found you."

Kars turned and stabbed his cane into the ground. Runes bloomed. A trap sigil. Vivian stepped directly into its radius.

He grinned.

"Too close."

A dozen violet spheres spiraled into the air around her and launched.

They vanished before impact.

A ring of silver sigils pulsed beneath her boots. Ouroboros. Magic disruption field.

No reaction.

No feedback from his casting.

That's not possible.

Magic always left a trace.

He narrowed his eyes. Looked around. The fog had grown thicker again, unnaturally so. He squinted upward, the sky flickered, stars pulsing in an erratic rhythm.

He didn't know it yet, but the signs were there. Cracks in reality. Illusions woven so tightly, they mimicked truth.

He whispered, more to the fog than himself:

"Something's wrong."

Death stepped into view, arms crossed, her presence cutting through the haze like a blade.

"Cooperate, or die."

Kars smiled, blood dripping from his lip.

"In this industry... I never worked alone."

He vanished in a puff of smoke.

Seraphina didn't chase. She turned slowly.

"David."

From a deeper shadow, he emerged.

Young. Sharp-eyed. Calm. In his arms, he carried Vespera, unconscious but smiling faintly. A princess hold, as if she were some prize.

"Lovely performance," David said. "Seraphina, elegant as ever. Vivian, feral and flawless."

He looked down at Vespera and kissed her forehead.

"But Vespera... you're the true artisan. Entrapping a man like Kars in a seamless dreamweave? Brilliant."

He laid her gently down on a conjured seat of shadow.

"Now he knows where the Inverted Cup is. And he'll run straight back to it."

Seraphina raised a brow.

"You think he'll realize he's been played?"

David grinned.

"He might suspect. But suspicion isn't certainty. And the Creed prides itself on knowing everything. So when they doubt, they dig."

He looked to the rooftops.

"And when they dig... we follow."

The wind picked up. A silver thread shimmered in the distance.

And far below, Kars ran through empty streets, breath ragged, unaware that the path he followed had already been laid long before he woke up.