Like Ghosts, they slipped into the brothel, two shadows swallowed by a greater darkness.

The place thrummed with life—a warm, sickly music of laughter, the slap of dice, the murmur of lovers and the soft clink of coin.

Lanterns swung on ropes, painting the rafters in moving gold; perfumed fumes wound through the air, sweet and cloying.

Servants and patrons filled the lower halls, but Aric and Serina took stairs that led upward, away from the common rooms and toward the nobles' section—the private suites where men who paid for discretion thought themselves safest.

The corridor to the guest rooms was lined with screens of lacquered wood, each one inlaid with motifs of coiled wyrms, petals, and flame.

Voices leaked through the thin seams—snatches of drunken boasting, whispered promises, a woman's giggle turned rough with wine.

Every footfall they made was measured, a contained rhythm.

Serina moved first, so swift and silent her steps never disturbed dust. She wore her mask low, leaving only the dark glint of her eyes exposed, and when she passed a servant, she bowed with the perfect courtesy of someone lost among strangers.

They reached the stair that led up to the noble quarter. Two guards lounged there, armor loosened, cups in their hands.

Aric and Serina paused in the shadow.

Serina's fingers trembled barely, closing into a fist, and the air around her teeth the instant like glass.

With a motion like water parting, she released it—an invisible thread of magic that slid across the corridor, a soft hiss only she could hear.

One guard inhaled sharply, then sagged forward, his eyes rolling as sleep took him like a tide.

He craned and toppled against the lacquered screen with a muffled thud.

Aric moved with a serpent's grace.

He stepped from the dark, dagger-slick fingers catching the lantern light in a cold line.

He closed the distance to the other guard in two measured strides, angling behind him.

The blade went in a whisper, a red petal blossoming as it nicked muscle and tendon rather than lungs.

The guard's breath hitched; his knees buckled. Aric's free hand pressed at the wound—blood welled, but he did not press to kill.

A twist, a precise ligament cut meant to incapacitate, and the man crumpled, a heap with his weapon clattering away.

They worked in concert: Serina's magic uncoiling like silk to dampen sounds and carve silence, Aric's steel drawing soft red marks that bled enough to stop a man but not to spill his last.

Each guard that answered them fell without a cry. No one died. Flesh was wounded; consciousness stolen; pride left bleeding on the floor.

It was surgical. It was as clean as such a bloody thing could be.

Upstairs the halls widened into a plush anteroom, plush cushions and trays of untouched wine.

Servants dozed on divans; a minstrel tuned an instrument with a single blind hand.

They approached the door marked with a gilded sigil—a stylized flame curling like a lover's whisper.

Laughter spilled beyond, raw and obscene.

The scent of cheap perfume was stronger here, along with the sharp tang of sweat and wine. For a moment, Aric's hand hovered on the latch, then he pushed.

The room opened like a theater.

Velvet and satin fell in beautiful ruin; candles guttered in crystal holders. Women—many of them laughing, many of them slack with sleep or wine—draped across cushions, their bare naked glistening.

In the center of the chaos lay Denari: a man whose bulk had once commanded lesser men, now softened by indulgence.

He sprawled as a king on a borrowed throne, hair unbound, robes loosened, and a wine cup clutched in one hand. Women clung to him like ribbons in the wind.

He did not startle. He did not slam a hand on his blade. He merely lifted his head and saw them—Aric and Serina standing in his doorway.

Aric stepped forward. The room seemed to inhale. He flicked his blade against a plank of wood, and drops of dark blood sprang and splattered like a petal, staining the polished floor.

The movement, small and disdainful, spoke enough.

The women at once broke their languor, eyes widening, the spell of wine or sleep evaporating as fear took their place.

Aric's voice rolled across the room, low and formal.

"Get out," he ordered, and the women flinched as if struck.

They obeyed without protest, scrambling to their feet and darting through the curtains, slippers slapping on marble as they fled.

The door closed behind them with a soft, final click.

Denari watched them go, his face a mask of insolent calm. The moonlight touched his skin, enchantments clinging like damp cloth.

He lifted the cup to his lips, sipped, and then set it down with the exaggerated patience of a man who believed time his ally.

"An assassination attempt on a dragon rider in the capital," he said at last, voice slurred with drink but low as a threat. "You must be quite foolish."

Aric's eyes were cold and blunt as could be.

"No one wants your worthless life," he said, voice flat and precise. "In fact, you can save us all some time. Chop your ringed hand and give it to us, and we will be on our way." The words were clinical, stripped of flourish; they landed like an edict.

A sound rose from Denari that had the shape of a laugh. It rolled through the room first as incredulity, then as something broader—deranged and garish.

He found his feet with a graceless lurch, robes tightening about him. The laughter broke open into something wilder, a hawk's cackle that ricocheted off the ceiling.

For a long heartbeat it was all bravado; then it thinned to a hiss.

"You'd have me butcher my own body for you?" he sneered, staggering forward with a slurred swagger. "You think i will willingly hand over my ring?" His hands flexed, and the sigil upon his ring glowed faintly—a smoldering ember against his intoxication. "How eager you must be to die"

Aric watched him like a hunter watches a wounded stag.

"I take it you are choosing the hard way," Aric said, his voice carrying a calm that betrayed the tension around them. "No worries. It's a preference of ours as well."

Denari's laugh broke like glass. He drew himself up, posture suddenly sharp, eyes hard as whetstone.

Aric moved to close the gap—fast, economy of motion as if cutting cloth—it was accompanied by a clang—a sound that snapped the room's tension.

Denari's hand met Aric's daggers with a bright, ringing collision. Steel rang against dragon scales that now covered Denari's skin.

"Tsk," Aric said, voice lilting with mockery. "Pointless resistance."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.