Chapter 441: Fornication Fiasco During Boys’ Night Out

The word "fornicate" echoed off the walls. Every working professional within earshot received it and found it offensive.

The pimp, who had been whistling at Maddox, twisted his face like Kael had said something vulgar. The one next to him physically recoiled. "Fornicate? What is WRONG with you? Just say fuck like a normal person."

Kael did not notice the attention because Kael was busy being right. The alley noticed him. The alley was bewildered by him. The alley would talk about the man who yelled "fornicate" next to a sex carriage for the rest of the week.

Nicholas’s eyes hit Kael like a closing argument. "My Beta protected your sister. My Beta held your line. My Beta carried the unconscious body of your Third in command. My Beta has shown more restraint toward you than you deserve. You’re done with this topic."

Kael opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Fine. Your Beta is on thin ice, Shadowfell. But the ice is thicker than it was an hour ago. That’s all you’re getting from me tonight. Moving on."

In the back of the group, Brennan pulled out a black burglar mask from his cloak with the quiet belief that this time, this particular outing, this particular alley, was different than the other times and the mask was necessary.

"Put it away," Nicholas ordered without turning his head, without breaking stride, without any indication that he had seen Brennan’s hand move except for the fact that he had been managing Brennan Pike for almost a week, which was long enough to feel the mask being drawn the way a parent feels a cookie jar opening from two rooms away.

Brennan’s hand froze, the mask dangling from his fingers like a dream dying in slow motion. Hope, acceptance, grief, all three crossed his face.

"Right. Habit," he muttered, stuffing it back into his cloak, visibly deflating.

They walked in silence for exactly five seconds.

"If you look to your left, that’s the drug carriage," Brennan narrated for the group like an expert tour guide who had been here exactly one time.

No one had asked for it. But no one stopped him.

"To your right, that’s the other drug carriage," he continued. "Straight ahead is where the gentleman with the knife lives. He’s friendly if you don’t make eye contact. I made eye contact last time. We’re past it now. The gentleman with the lockbox, different crate though. He upgraded. Good for him. You love to see small businesses adapt."

They stepped out of the alley onto the main road and the world changed.

Maddox stopped walking.

The stop was involuntary. His boots planted on white stone that lit beneath them and stayed lit and the staying was the first indication that this kingdom operated on rules his kingdom had never considered. The street stretched ahead of him in a corridor of light, every surface glowing, every building radiating, the entire civilization burning with a quiet, steady luminance that made torchlight look like a child’s first attempt at illumination.

Nicholas kept walking. Kael kept walking. Two men who had seen this shit before continued through it unbothered, leaving the Dragon King standing at the mouth of an alley between a drug carriage and a revelation.

Brennan stopped with the Dragon King. "Fun fact: everything in this city glows. The streets glow. The buildings glow. The food glows. I ate something glowing last time and it was delicious and I was scared and those two things happened at the same time."

Maddox’s head turned towards Brennan like a predator spotting prey. At the same moment, Ryker clapped a hand on Maddox’s shoulder.

"Well," Ryker said, taking it in. "This is nicer than Drakencrest. And I mean that with full disrespect to every architect we’ve ever employed."

His eyes swept the street, the buildings, the stone, the light, all of it.

Sterling stopped on Maddox’s other side. His concussed eyes processed the city at seventy percent speed, which meant the awe arrived in stages rather than all at once. "If our dungeons looked like their streets, we would have a waitlist for incarceration."

They started walking.

A woman passed them carrying a basket of glowing fruit.

"On our right, we have an adult female Luminari," Brennan narrated. "She is foraging during an evening cycle. The bioluminescent produce she carries suggests a harvest window aligned with the ambient light output of the local flora. Fascinating."

The woman glanced over her shoulder at him.

Brennan dropped his voice. "She’s aware of our presence. Note the single backward glance. This is a territorial awareness behavior, common in civilizations that have maintained isolation for extended periods."

Sterling looked at Ryker. Ryker looked at Sterling. Both of them looked at Maddox who looked like he was ready to murder someone.

A child waved at the group.

"Remarkable. The juvenile initiates contact with the outsiders," Brennan continued. "This suggests a culture that teaches inclusivity at the developmental stage. Note the open palm. The fingers are spread. This is a trust display. The child is communicating that it carries no weapons."

Maddox’s head snapped towards Brennan, who was still staring at the juvenile without a care in the world.

"Look at that fountain, Commander," Ryker called from Maddox’s right.

Maddox turned his head to see a fountain.

Water spiraled upward in a double helix, two streams twisting around each other in a formation that looked like DNA had a religious experience and decided to become a water feature. The streams climbed twelve feet, braided at the top, separated, and descended on opposite sides into a basin that was somehow also glowing because nothing in this kingdom knew how to be dark.

Maddox stopped.

His dragon made a noise. The beast had been making sounds under his ribs since they hit the main street, and the sounds were getting worse. Every new thing they passed added a new sound to the dragon’s expanding vocabulary of confusion.

Glowing stone: low rumble.

Glowing building: deeper rumble.

Fountain going up: confused growl, like a dog hearing a noise it can’t locate.

Another fountain going up: extended warble that Maddox had never heard before and hoped to never hear again.

Glowing drinks: a sound that could only be described as a question mark with lungs.

"Stop," Maddox muttered to his own chest.

The dragon did not stop.