Chapter 3: The Merchant's Bargain
The cliffs of Moonfall rose like ancient sentinels behind Kael, jagged silhouettes clawing at the evening sky. As he descended the sloping path toward the docks, Gavyn followed a few steps behind, his weatherworn spear tapping a steady rhythm on the cobblestones. The sound was rhythmic, but wrong somehow—hollow, grim, like a funeral march echoing through the tense air. Overhead, the rift-moon pulsed with its otherworldly light, a violet wound in the sky that bled hues of sickly lavender across the sea and rooftops. It seemed closer than it had been even hours before—its pull stronger, its influence undeniable.
Behind them, high on the ridge, the shrine remained sealed, the threads of its ancient lock now glowing faintly even in daylight. The seal hummed like a blade held too tightly, a tension strung on the edge of breaking. Kael could feel it in his bones, in the shimmer of his runes beneath his skin. And always, beneath his thoughts, like a whisper under breath, was the Tyrant's voice: cold, relentless, inevitable.
"Soon…"
The word twisted like a splinter in his mind, ice on the edges of every thought.
The docks below were no longer the calm bustle of fisherfolk preparing for evening hauls. Chaos reigned. Nets and crates lay abandoned, boats bobbed untethered in the churning tide, and voices shouted over one another in a storm of panic.
"The moon—it's fallin' faster now!"
"Bless the Tides, we're done for!"
A woman sobbed near a splintered stall, clutching her shawl as if it were armor. Children were being pulled indoors, and doors slammed like thunderclaps. Fear lingered in the air like salt spray—thick, choking, desperate.
Kael strode into the chaos, his cloak stirring like smoke around him. The runes etched into his skin pulsed in time with the moon's light—gentle, glowing lines that throbbed beneath the surface of his hands and neck. As if guiding him. As if calling him deeper into the storm.
Gavyn moved up beside him, eyes scanning the frightened crowd. "Lysa," he said, voice low, pitched for Kael's ears alone. "Merchant woman. Trades along the coast, sharp-tongued. I saw her this morning—was muttering to herself, pacing. Looked like someone who'd seen a ghost. Or made a deal with one."
Kael nodded once. "Where?"
"Near the net-weavers' stalls. Blue awning, frayed edges. You'll know it when you see it."
They moved together, threading through the crowd. A few townsfolk stopped to stare, murmuring behind their hands. "Rift-walker," someone whispered. "That's the one they said was at the shrine." Another voice—tense, suspicious—added, "Heard he's marked. Cursed by the Tyrant's eye."
Kael ignored them. Let them stare. Let them speculate. His mind was already moving toward Lysa.
The awning appeared through the smoke and sea mist—blue, faded nearly to gray, fluttering in the evening breeze like a tattered banner of surrender. Beneath it stood a woman hunched over a wooden counter, her fingers trembling as she moved a small pile of coins from one hand to the other.
She was wiry, her frame draped in loose cloth and worn leather, her eyes sharp but unfocused. She muttered to herself, her lips barely forming words.
"Profits and silence… weighed and measured…"
The coins spilled from her grasp and scattered across the stall. Her hands froze mid-motion.
"She's fading," Gavyn said grimly, his grip tightening around his spear. "Same look I had before you pulled me back."
Kael stepped closer, crouching beside her. "Lysa," he said, his voice soft but firm. "Can you hear me?"
There was no response. Only a faint twitch of her lips. Her breath came in shivers. The air around her felt colder than it should have been, laced with something wrong, something alien. The scent of sea brine and rot. The mark of the dream.
"I'm going in," Kael muttered.
Gavyn nodded and turned to face the crowd, which had begun to gather, drawn by the strange energy clinging to the stall. Murmurs crackled like static.
"He's doing something…"
"Dream magic…"
Kael placed his rune-marked hand gently against Lysa's chest. Violet light flared, and in an instant, the world dissolved into mist and shadow.
He fell—through memory, through thought, through layers of meaning not his own. The sound of the sea warped into a low hum, the smell of salt replaced by something acrid and metallic. When he landed, it was with a jolt.
The dreamscape was a corrupted mirror of the real world. The market was here, but broken—its stalls twisted and cracked, some floating freely over a vast black sea. The air shimmered with an oily sheen, and above it all, the rift-moon hung fractured and bleeding light in thin rays.
And there—on a crumbling dais of wood and bone—stood Lysa.
Or what remained of her.
She was taller now, unnaturally so, her limbs too long, her silhouette cloaked in a veil of glimmering coins that shifted and chattered with every movement. Her face was hidden beneath a hood stitched from gold thread. And in her hands she held a ledger bound in serpent-skin, pulsing with dark threads that curled around her fingers like living things.
"Lysa!" Kael called, striding forward, boots splashing in the black water beneath him. "You don't belong here. Let go of the bargain!"
She turned, and her voice came sharp and cruel, like coins falling on glass.
"Too late, thread-walker. The deal is struck. Silence for silver. Wealth for forgetting."
The ledger opened with a sudden crack, and from its pages burst shadow-chains that coiled through the air like vipers. Kael darted left, activating his Thread Step—Flicker Dash—his body blinking forward in a streak of light. The chains struck where he had stood, splintering the ruined boardwalk.
He landed on a nearby stall, knees bent, runes flaring across his arms. "I'm not here to break your promise," he said, eyes narrowing. "I'm here to break your chains."
"Thread Dance: Razor Weave!"
He swept his arms in a wide arc, summoning a dozen strands of violet light that spun outward like whirling blades. They sliced through the nearest chains with a hiss, sparks flying as shadow met magic. Lysa snarled, her veil rippling.
"Profit demands sacrifice!" she howled. "And the Tyrant pays in truths!"
With a gesture, she unleashed a torrent of coin-shaped projectiles from the ledger—jagged, sharp, and screaming through the air like a swarm. Kael raised his palm.
"Thread Wall: Shatter Pulse!"
A barrier of shimmering energy erupted before him, taking the brunt of the onslaught. Coins clanged against it in a deafening storm, then exploded outward in a wash of sparks. He was forced back a step—but he held.
"Do you even know what you bargained with?" Kael shouted, voice raw. "That thing—it's not a god. It's a hunger."
Lysa's laughter was brittle. "Better a god than a pauper. It promised me legacy. It promised I'd be remembered."
"You'll be remembered as a warning."
He surged forward, threads coiling around his arms and legs as he activated Thread Step: Sky Fang. With a blast of light, he shot into the air, flipping over Lysa's head. He landed in a crouch beside her, threads already extending from his palms.
"Thread Dance: Binding Lash!"
Strands of magic lashed out, curling around Lysa's arms and locking the ledger in place. She screamed—high, keening, furious—as coins spilled from her cloak, tumbling into the black sea below. Her body trembled with resistance.
"It promised me everything!" she shrieked. "Everything!"
Kael met her gaze. "It lies. That's all it has."
Behind her, the dream began to shift. The sea boiled, and a form began to rise—tall, hunched, cloaked in shadow. Eyes like molten stars opened in the void. Claws scraped against the sky.
The Tyrant's echo.
Kael's heart hammered.
"We're out of time," he growled, dragging Lysa toward a stall in the distance—one still intact, its sign etched in ancient Weaver runes. It pulsed with faint light. Sanctuary.
With one arm, Kael held the Binding Lash. With the other, he summoned his final defense.
"Thread Wall: Vortex Shield!"
A spinning barrier erupted between them and the approaching shadow. It held—barely—as Kael reached the stall and slammed his palm against the rune.
"Thread Pulse: Unraveling Cry!"
Threads burst outward in a blinding flare, unraveling the dream around them. The sky cracked. The sea screamed. The ledger dissolved into smoke, and the shadow reeled back, howling in ancient fury as the dream shattered into shards of violet light.
Kael hit the ground hard.
Back on the docks.
He gasped, his body trembling. Lysa lay beside him, clutching her head. Her eyes fluttered open—wet, frightened, human once more.
"The bargain…" she whispered, her voice raw. "It sank…"
"You're free," Kael said, helping her sit. "You broke it."
Gavyn knelt beside them. "She's back," he said, relief in his tone. "Whatever you did—it worked."
The townsfolk stood in silent awe. Even Brann pushed through the crowd, his broken oar slung over one shoulder.
"What'd she see?" the old sailor asked, voice quiet now.
Kael stood slowly. "Same as Gavyn. The Tyrant. Promising power, asking silence in return. Bargains tied to that rift."
Lysa stared at the coin in her hand. "Three days. That's what it said. From a cave beneath the cliffs. It needs silence to weave itself."
Gavyn paled. "The drowned cave. Smugglers used it. It runs deep—connects to the shrine's old foundations."
Kael's runes flared. "Then that's where it's waking."
He dropped to one knee, placing a palm on the stone.
"Thread Reset: Tide's Turn."
Light flared. Time shivered.
The world snapped back—to before the bargain. Lysa once again at her stall. Gavyn hauling nets. The crowd none the wiser.
Kael stood, breath short.
Two days left. Maybe less.
The Tyrant whispered still.
"Soon…"