Chapter 6: Shadows and Stitches

Back at the massive iron-framed posting boards, Zevryn scanned the vellum notices once more. Alongside the four violent and volatile contracts, a fresh, neatly inked parchment had just been pinned to the corner, detailing an offer from a wealthy shipping magnate with more coin than sense. He was looking to hire a swordsmaster to tutor his arrogant, spoiled sixteen-year-old son in the fundamentals of blade-work and self-defense, offering fifty heavy silver pieces a week for a trial period beginning next month. The catch was enduring one to two weekly sessions of mostly babysitting an ungrateful aristocrat who thought a sword was a fashion accessory.

Zev paused on the notice, his dark eyes lingering on the figures. Fifty silver a week. It was an interesting, low-risk sideline, a reliable trickle of coin for waving a practice foil at a privileged brat a couple of times a week. But sitting right above it was contract number two, The Beast of the Iron Spine Foothills, offering two hundred silver for a hunt, a mountain beast, and some bandit skull-cracking. Real blood-money.

Let the merchants coddle their whelps, Zev thought, his inner voice cold and pragmatic. Mountains and monsters pay in iron and true silver.

Without another hesitation, Zev tore the seal on contract number two, tucking the heavy vellum parchment securely into his ranger’s bag. The spoiled heir could wait; the northern foothills called louder.

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Yet, before heading out toward the rugged mountain frontier, Zev faced an immediate, irritating problem: the streets.

As he walked back through the bustling central district, he noticed the sudden, sharp shifts in foot traffic. Merchants clutched their coin purses tighter, stray dogs barked and backed away, and ordinary citizens stopped dead in their tracks, openly staring at his obsidian skin, stark white hair, and the dual-sheathed sabers rattling softly at his back. In a maritime city full of sun-browned humans and southern folk, an elite drow mercenary walked like a walking eclipse. Every eye was locked on him.

Every busybody from here to the docks can pick me out of a crowd at fifty paces, Zev muttered inwardly, his jaw tightening beneath his dark cowl. It is sloppy. It invites unwanted attention.

If he was going to operate effectively in the south without every city guard and cutpurse tracking his every breath, he needed better camouflage. Not armor, as he was already well-equipped in rune-etched leather, but a heavy, deep-hooded cloak to swallow his silhouette when he needed to melt into the background noise of civilization.

He slipped down a side street, his keen eyes scanning the storefronts until he spotted a cramped, weather-beaten sign hanging above a crooked doorway: Gideon’s Weaves and Tailoring.

Without a sound, Zev pushed open the heavy velvet door and stepped inside.