The line to enter the city was slow, the gates of blackened stone crawling with undead guards whose bones glowed faintly with etched runes. Merchants cursed under their breath as skeletal knights inspected each cart.

  Hassim, the wealthy merchant who had attached himself to Adonis and the twins, leaned close, his heavy gold rings glinting. His voice was low, practiced.

  “Welcome to Ashara, the jewel-port of the Black Meridian,” he said smoothly. “You should know this before we step inside: nothing moves here without the will of the TriCouncil of Liches. Three ancient ones sit in judgment, and their word binds all.”

  Adonis’s gaze flicked to the skeletal knights again, noting the broken, inefficient glyphs pulsing across their ribcages. “If this is their ‘judgment,’ I’m not impressed.”

  Kalen smirked faintly, but Selene pressed her lips together, her frost simmering just under her skin.

  Hassim chuckled. “Careful, my friends. In this kingdom, the Liches do not need to hear you to know what you think. Their spies are everywhere.” He tapped one of his rings — a plain black band on his left hand. A ripple of energy pulsed, and a small pouch appeared in his palm. “Supplies are scarce here. Subspace rings make survival easier.”

  Adonis’s eyes narrowed as he studied it. He could feel the layering of runes etched into the metal — crude, brute-forced magic woven into a hollow pocket of warped space. It worked, yes, but the design was sloppy, full of wasted energy and instability.

  > Vantage murmured in his mind: “Crude. Primitive anchoring methods. If you designed one with psionic glyph-logic, stability would increase by 200%. Capacity by more.”

  Adonis’s lips curved faintly. “I can do better.”

  Hassim raised a brow at the quiet comment but said nothing. Instead, he slipped the ring back on and smiled, all charm again. “Still — useful, yes? I can provide you with these. And with a safe roof to rest your heads. And perhaps… the information you so clearly seek.”

  Selene caught the edge in his tone. “And what’s the price?”

  Hassim spread his hands. “A task. Nothing in Ashara is free. Do this for me, and I will provide your supplies, shelter, and contacts within the city. Fail, and… well. You would not last here long without a friend like me.”

  Adonis studied him for a long moment, then folded his arms, dark skin catching the faint glow of the glyph-light on the gates. His voice was calm but sharp. “What’s the task?”

  Hassim’s smile widened, just enough to show teeth. “We’ll discuss it inside, away from ears that don’t belong to us. For now, walk with me. Keep your heads high, and remember: this is the TriCouncil’s kingdom. They don’t tolerate weakness. Nor do I.”

  The gates groaned open ahead. The line pressed forward. Ashara waited.

  ***

  Selene’s fingers twitched at her side, cold seeping into her knuckles. The frost wanted to rise — it always did when she thought of them. Vampires.

  The gate swallowed them into Ashara, and she forced herself to breathe evenly. On the surface, she kept her face still, but inside, her chest burned with the memory of her parents. Their screams. The fire. The scent of blood.

  She told herself she would not be reckless. Not yet. Adonis’s words lingered in her mind: We get stronger together. Patience is strength.

  But patience felt like ash when she saw the first bloodsucker.

  He lounged in a shaded alcove, pale-skinned, lips too red. His eyes glowed faintly as he laughed at something whispered by the slave at his feet — a human girl no older than Selene herself, a collar of bone and rune around her throat.

  Her frost surged so sharp her breath fogged. She wanted to raise her hand, to spear his heart in ice before he blinked.

  Kalen brushed her shoulder subtly. He didn’t speak, but his eyes — steady, sharp — reminded her: Not yet.

  She clenched her fists until her nails bit skin.

  ***

  Hassim’s voice cut through the haze of rage as they passed deeper into the market. His tone was smooth, practiced, as though he’d given this speech a hundred times to newcomers.

  “Ashara thrives where others rot. The TriCouncil exports what no other kingdom dares. Bone-dust from fallen beasts, venom distilled from corrupted creatures, relics scavenged from ancient ruins. Even cursed metals find their way to our forges.” He gestured broadly to stalls piled with gray powders, jars of black ichor, and blades that seemed to hum with faint malice.

  Selene noticed how the merchants never touched their own wares barehanded. Only slaves did. Humans — bound in chains of rune-etched iron, eyes blank, movements mechanical.

  Her stomach turned.

  Hassim went on, smiling as if he didn’t see it. “But our greatest export is obedience. The undead do not sleep. They do not question. They build and harvest ceaselessly. And where labor falters, the TriCouncil uses humans.”

  Selene’s jaw tightened. “Uses,” she repeated softly.

  Hassim glanced at her, reading the edge in her tone, but continued unfazed. “Collared humans harvest the desert’s poisoned fields, draw venom from scorpions, strip ruins of their secrets. In return, they are fed just enough to continue. A fair trade, yes?”

  Her frost bit her tongue before she could spit her answer. Fair trade? This was slavery.

  One stall they passed displayed cages — not beasts, but humans, thin and pale, their wrists wrapped in bone shackles that faintly glowed. Their eyes tracked her and Kalen, hopeless but pleading, as if they recognized something human still alive in them.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Selene slowed, but Adonis’s shadow moved ahead of her, steady, commanding, his presence pulling her forward like gravity. She swallowed her fury.

  Not yet.

  The market smelled of blood, rot, and burning incense. And beneath it all, Selene thought she could taste it — corruption, thick as smoke in the air.

  She exhaled, breath fogging faintly as frost tried to slip free again.

  One day soon, she promised herself, the vampires and liches of this kingdom would pay.

  But for now… she walked on.

  ***

  The Black Meridian’s streets narrowed as Hassim led them away from the crowded market, his white-and-gold turban bobbing above the crowd like a signal fire. He walked with the confidence of a man who knew his value — and his risks.

  Selene lingered close to her brother, her grey eyes darting warily at the chained slaves and skeletal guards they passed. Kalen stayed quiet, fingers brushing the hilt of his weapon, the faint shimmer of void around him barely suppressed. Their new armor gleamed faintly in the torchlight — dark plates reinforced with etched glyphs Adonis had carved himself. They looked nothing like villagers. Nothing like prey. To the people of the Black Meridian, they could have been mercenaries, or the entourage of a high-born family.

  > Observation: Subspace rings and slave collars both function on the same runic backbone, Vantage whispered in Adonis’s mind. Suppression, containment, displacement. Crude. Inelegant. Improvement is inevitable.

  Adonis smirked faintly. Then keep watching. We’ll need those designs before long.

  ***

  Hassim stopped at last before a warehouse of black stone bound in iron, its doors inlaid with bone. Two nervous guards snapped straighter as the merchant approached.

  “This is where you earn your coin,” Hassim said smoothly, adjusting his turban. “Inside are relics, venoms, ores — goods that will fetch more than a petty fortune at auction tomorrow. My competitors know this. They will make their move tonight. All I require is that you keep the doors shut until dawn.”

  Adonis tilted his head. “And if they break through?”

  “Then you kill them,” Hassim said, his teeth flashing in the torchlight.

  ***

  Inside, the air was thick with iron and musk. Stacked crates filled the room, each one sealed with bone wax and faint runes. Adonis glanced around once, then looked down at his own hands. The desert wasn’t here to back him. He would have to rely on raw strength, psionics — and steel.

  “Got weapons?” he asked casually.

  Hassim arched a brow. “Your armor doesn’t come with blades?”

  Adonis smirked. “I want something local. Something they’ll recognize before I split them open.”

  The merchant gestured. One guard stepped forward, offering a broad, slightly curved sword. The other handed over a long spear with a chipped head. Both weapons thrummed faintly, a whisper like nails scratching against the ear.

  Selene tensed immediately. “Cursed.”

  Kalen’s jaw tightened. “They’ll drain you dry.”

  Adonis only grinned, testing the sword’s balance with a flick of his wrist. The whisper rose as the curse pressed against him, tugging faintly at his stamina—then inverted. The pull became a push, a surge threading through his veins. His muscles steadied, his lungs filled easier. Energy, not weakness.

  > Confirmation: Psionic dissonance prevents siphoning. Result: inverse transfer. Stamina provided rather than drained.

  Adonis twirled the sword once, then snapped the spear into his grip with his other hand. His movements were sharp, fluid — not the clumsy heft of a village hunter, but the controlled precision of someone who had trained for war in a hundred simulations and survived in a cockpit where hesitation meant death. The blade spun and stopped with perfect alignment. The spear’s tip cut lazy arcs through the air like he’d been born to wield it.

  The twins stared. Selene whispered, almost awed, “That’s… mastery.”

  Adonis smirked, planting the spear’s haft against the floor with a dull thud. “When you’ve fought in a cage of steel, with death pressing from every side, weapons become an extension of breath. Doesn’t matter if it’s a glaive, a blade, or your bare hands.”

  He glanced at Hassim, who was watching more carefully than he let on beneath the folds of his turban. “These’ll do. Let them come.”

  Outside, the bells of the city tolled. Somewhere beyond the walls, footsteps gathered.

  The test had begun.

  ***

  The warehouse breathed with silence, broken only by the creak of boards and the faint hiss of lanterns burning low. Adonis sat with his back against a crate, the cursed sword across his lap, the spear close at hand. His psionic senses stretched outward, threads of awareness mapping the street outside.

  When the first vibrations hit, he knew.

  Thirteen. Heavy armor. A staff-bearer. And two signatures colder than stone.

  He opened his eyes. “Visitors.”

  Selene rose fluidly, her long white locs tumbling over her shoulder, pale-grey eyes narrowing. Frost feathered from her fingertips as she adjusted her stance. Kalen, lean and broad-shouldered, brushed the void along his blade. He no longer bothered with the bow strapped at his back — his arrows now came from the void itself, drawn with a gesture, loosed with thought.

  The doors cracked. Then burst.

  Mercenaries stormed in, weapons raised, their leader a Magi with crimson runes glowing on his arms. Behind them marched two armored skeletons, plated in black iron, runes seared into bone.

  Selene didn’t wait. Her frost surged, spears bursting from the floor to impale the first two mercenaries. She spun, her breath fogging the air as she cut another down with a blade of solid ice that grew sharp and bright in her hand.

  Kalen vanished. One heartbeat he stood at Selene’s side, the next he reappeared at a mercenary’s flank, his void arrow tearing through the man’s chest like a falling star. He blinked again, landing behind the Magi, blade sliding across his ribs before the man could finish an incantation.

  Adonis walked forward, cursed sword in hand, meeting the skeleton’s axe head-on. Sparks shrieked. The weight was monstrous, bone reinforced by twisted magic.

  The curse whispered as it pressed against him — but instead of draining, it surged. His grip steadied, his breath deepened. The blade pushed back.

  His spear punched through one skeleton’s ribs, snapping bone, but runes flared, stitching it together again. Not crude lines. Not even proper runes. They were glyphs — psionic words bent backward until they became mockeries.

  For a heartbeat, he froze.

  Khalmali.

  His younger brother. The one who lived among the dead when the rest of them roamed sky and sand. He had obsessed over a glyph — one meant to give souls a second chance by raising skeletons as vessels. It had never worked. Their parents laughed. The others ignored him. Adonis hated it, hated visiting him in that suffocating Underworld.

  But somehow… humans had found his failure. They had fueled it with magic. Warped it.

  Adonis’s jaw tightened.

  The skeleton roared soundlessly, its longsword glowing with inverted glyphs. He met it, psionics flooding his body, the cursed blade slicing through corrupted symbols. Bone shattered. Dust fell.

  But his chest burned with more than exertion. Little brother… what did they make of you?

  ***

  The battle raged around him. Selene’s frost painted the walls white, bodies impaled in ice spires. Her grey eyes were sharp, cold as steel, her tan skin flushed with exertion as she spun another weapon into being — a jagged ice glaive that tore through two men at once.

  Kalen was faster still, his white locs flashing as he blinked across the chamber, every arrow a perfect shot of void-light. His blade struck where his arrows didn’t, each cut humming with black edges that swallowed torchlight.

  The Magi tried to summon flame, but Selene’s frost smothered the spell, locking his hand in a block of ice. Kalen’s void blade finished him before the fire could spark.

  Silence followed. Crates splintered, frost melted, the corrupted glyphs on bone dimmed to ash.

  Selene lowered her weapon, her chest rising and falling, and muttered, “Thirteen.”

  Kalen flicked void from his fingers, no bow needed now, just raw will. He grinned faintly. “And not a single arrow was wasted.”

  Adonis stood in the middle of it all, sweat streaking his dark skin, cursed sword still glowing faintly. His gaze lingered on the broken runes, the twisted glyphs.

  “Khalmali…” he whispered.

  The twins glanced at him, puzzled, but he didn’t explain.

  Not yet