The rain tasted like iron filings tonight, clinging to my tongue with a familiar bitterness. Byzantium always smelled of oil and polished brass – the scent of industry and control. But the rain…the rain carried something older, something that clung to your bones. My father used to say it was the residue of forgotten rituals, weeping for what we'd become. I didn't understand then. Now, at eighteen, I understood too much about how empires are built on lies and maintained with fear.
My name is Arthur. And I operate in the shadows of this city. A Shadow Broker – a discreet information gatherer. It's not heroic work; it's survival. You learn to listen more than you speak, to observe more than you act. The price for visibility in Byzantium is always too high.
I watched from the eaves of The Clockwork Heron Inn as Lord Valerius stumbled out, his face a roadmap of bad decisions and cheap wine. He was one of Theron's cogs – a man who'd traded his integrity for a place within the King's machine. My father had been like that once - a Master Artificer in the Royal Guild, designing intricate automatons for the military. Until he questioned the cost.
The accusation against him was simple: heresy. A convenient label to silence dissent. I remember the day they took him – the whirring of the Clockwork Guard's servos, the blank faces of the citizens who averted their eyes. Ten years spent learning how to disappear, how to read a room, how to anticipate betrayal.
My strength isn't in brute force; it's in analysis. I see the micro-expressions that betray fear, the subtle shifts in posture that reveal hidden agendas. People are predictable when you understand their motivations – and most of them boil down to power or survival. That understanding has kept me alive.
Valerius slurred something about "the Whisperwood Weaver." The words were a discordant note in the city's carefully orchestrated symphony of order. Whisperwood Weavers – those who draw power from the ancient forest bordering Byzantium, manipulating shadows and illusions. They're branded heretics, hunted down by Theron's Guard, their knowledge dissected for its potential use.
I'd heard whispers before, dismissed as folklore by the elite. My father… he'd spoken of them too, in hushed tones, hinting at a power that defied Byzantium's rigid laws of mechanics and causality. He never said he knew one, but I suspected he did. The secrets he carried were buried deep.
A hand clamped on my shoulder. "Lost in thought, Arthur?" It was Silas, the innkeeper's son – younger than me, but with a quiet resilience that belied his age. He's one of the few who know my real name and history. A necessary risk.
"Just observing," I replied, keeping my voice flat. "Lord Valerius seems… compromised."
Silas followed Valerius's unsteady progress towards a carriage powered by intricate steam engines. "He's been like that since the King returned from the Obsidian Peaks." He lowered his voice, almost imperceptible. "They say he brought something back with him... something that resonates with an unsettling frequency."
Something unsettling. That phrase resonated within me, echoing my father's warnings. I knew then that observation wasn't enough. The shadows were deepening, and I was being drawn into a game far more dangerous than I could have imagined.