Myhra's untouched plate sat as a silent rebuke to the lavish spread before them. Her fingers tapped a staccato rhythm against the polished mahogany - a soldier's countdown to battle. "We move fast," she said, her voice low enough that the shadows might miss it. "Register Yittann before the Council convenes. Before the anyone decides our petition needs... adjustments."
Across the table, Yittann pushed his gilded plate away with trembling fingers. The scent of spiced meats and honeyed fruits turned his stomach in ways the others couldn't understand. His hand drifted to the leather-wrapped bottle at his belt - the one Myhra had pressed into his hands at journey's start, its contents dark and thick beneath the wax seal.
Oda's knife scraped loudly as he sawed through a blood sausage. "Not hungry, princeling?" The jab lacked its usual bite - even Oda had noticed how the boy never ate, how Myhra always positioned herself between Yittann and any curious stares.
Carli's sharp eyes tracked the motion. She'd wondered about that bottle, about the careful way Myhra ensured it was always full, always within reach. The way Yittann's pallor improved after each discreet sip. A hundred questions died on her tongue as Myhra's warning glare swept the table.
The bottle's contents sloshed faintly as Yittann secured it back in his satchel. He didn't know where Myhra procured the blood - whether donated, purchased, or taken. Only that it was always fresh, always sweet, and that this small mercy kept him away from the horrors of starvation.
The streets of Atashbon were a waking beast, merchants and messengers weaving through the fog. The Silver Council's tower pierced the sky ahead, its gates guarded by men in mirrored masks.
Oda adjusted his sword belt. "Alright, princeling. Time to charm the wolves."
Yittann straightened his borrowed robes—too large, swallowing his thin frame. "What if they—"
"Don't." Myhra cut him off. "Fear smells like blood to them."
Myhra stepped forward, her rank's sigil clenched in her fist. "We're here to petition the Council. On behalf of Commandar Myhra of House Aithal."
The guards exchanged glances. One gestured inward. "Register at the Archivist's desk. But know this—the Council tolerates no monsters within these walls."
Myhra bared her teeth in something too sharp to be a smile. "Good thing we're all human, then."
As they crossed the threshold, the tower's shadow swallowed them whole.
The Council's bureaucracy had drained them. Endless forms, sealed petitions, veiled threats from functionaries who eyed Yittann like a specimen pinned to a board. By the time they stepped back into the night, the air had turned sharp with frost, their breath curling like ghosts before them.
The fog thickened as they approached the manor, curling around the iron gates like grasping fingers. The air carried the scent of damp earth and something older—something that had no business lingering above ground.
Then they saw them.
Another funeral march, but this one was different.
Where the Baroness's procession had been silent, this one moved with a dreadful, slithering grace. The figures wore no shrouds—instead, their flesh clung to their bones like wet parchment, their mouths sewn shut with black thread. Their bare feet left no prints in the frost.
At the center of the macabre parade was a casket—not lacquered and ornate like the Baroness's, but ancient, its wood splintered and warped, bound with rusted chains. The wraiths pulling it were not skeletal, but rotting, their forms shifting unnaturally, as if not fully tethered to this world.
The procession drifted toward the manor's side entrance, where the doors stood open, waiting.
Oda's usual bravado faltered. "Okay, what the horror is that?"
Myhra's grip on her sword didn't waver, but her voice was taut. "Not ours. Don't engage."
Carli's sharp eyes tracked the casket. "That's not the Baroness's style. Too messy. Too… old."
Yittann's breath hitched. "Then whose is it?"
The procession came to a slow, unnatural halt just beyond the torchlight's reach. The figures did not shuffle or adjust their stance, did not so much as breathe. They simply stood, waiting. Watching.
Myhra and her group remained still, instincts screaming against drawing attention.
Then—movement.
Not from the front of the parade but from the far side, shrouded in deeper shadow. Something—or someone—dropped down soundlessly from the other side of the casket, unseen behind the grotesque procession.
Oda tightened his grip on his dagger. "Tell me I'm not the only one who felt that."
"You're not," Carli murmured.
Myhra's fingers twitched to withdrew her blood sword hilt, but she didn't draw. Not yet. "Stay calm."
The figures in the funeral march did not react. Did not turn. Whatever had jumped down was not one of them.
.....
Inside the funeral cortege that advanced in hellish silence, drawn not by horses, but by four shackled wraiths, their hollow eyes weeping tendrils of smoke, their chains chiming softly with each step, like funeral bells heard from far away.
There was no corpse inside.
Instead, sprawled atop the casket as though it were a throne, lounged the forsaken young nobleman.
His fingers, pale as candle wax, curled around a goblet of wine so deep a red it might have been stolen from a dying man's veins. His face—carved with the cruel beauty of fallen angels—tilted slightly, listening to the distant clamor of Atashbon's gates.
Beside him, Bruno, his mortal handler, clutched a scroll of forged documents tight enough to crease the parchment.
They neared Atashbon, a wretched hamlet clinging to the edge.
"Stop." The young man's voice was a blade wrapped in silk.
The driver—a hired mortal from the last wretched city—yanked the reins so hard the shadowsteeds hissed. He scrambled out, knees trembling. He'd learned. One did not question the pale noble with eyes like frozen blood.
Young noble stepped onto the road, every light avoiding him, as if afraid to touch his skin. He surveyed the skeletal trees, the mist coiling around his boots like a loyal serpent. Bruno followed, standing exactly three paces behind—the distance of a respectful vassal.
"Is something amiss, my lord?" Bruno's voice was deferential, worn smooth by years of habit.
The younger man didn't turn.
"For the hundredth time, old man. Drop the title. Or must I remind you with teeth?" He
Sumer bowed deeper. "Apologies, my—Lo- Master!" He caught himself, exhaling. The name felt blasphemous on his tongue. The honorific died in his throat. His next exhale shook. "...Dear God."
The young man's smile was a razor-cut. "The locals believe I'm merely your apprentice. A human apprentice. If you kneel and whisper 'master or Lord' like a frightened priest, they'll start asking questions." His voice dipped into something more lethal. "And I detest questions."
He trusted Bruno's acting—the old fox had played the doting father for decades, even as he schemed in the shadows.
"It will not happen again, young-" He stiffened, realizing his mistake. The young man before him—no more than nineteen in appearance—radiated an authority that did not belong to mortals of that age. It clung to him like a second skin, woven into the very air he disturbed. A presence both ancient and inevitable.
Bruno's tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He could not defy either—the command woven into the young man's words or the unnatural order of his very untoucable existence.
The young man turned around, shaking his head his eyes glinting with ominious light, highly dipleased. "If you grovel like a beaten dog in front of them, they'll wonder why a scholar's student makes an old man tremble."
Somewhere, Bruno held his breath.
"Say. My. Name." Each word dripped with venom.
Bruno's throat worked. The word scraped out like a confession. "My Lord Dain-Dainthi!"
"There now," Dainthi murmured, his voice softening into something almost kind as he turned back toward the funeral cortege. The shift was seamless—the predatory glint in his eyes melting into boyish concern, his posture slumping into the weary hunch of a devoted apprentice. "Master? You look pale. Shall I fetch your medicine?" The words dripped with false sincerity, so perfect it was chilling.