The waves called to him.

  A steady whisper, sliding up and down the rocks without ever breaking against them. Beneath his boots, the black stones gleamed faintly from the heavy fog draped across Bruma’s Port. The moisture caught the moonlight and scattered it in pale shards across the narrow alley where Zyren stood, hood pulled low, breath tight in his chest.

  He hadn’t done anything wrong. He kept telling himself that. Not since they sailed through the cut bars of the iron gate.

  He kept to the shadows. Following Hisoka advice, he moved like someone who belonged.

  But still—his pulse thudded thickly against his ribs, cold and insistent. Every shape in the fog looked like a person. Every flicker of lantern-light felt like an eye turning toward him. Even here, even alone in the alley, Zyren had the strangest certainty that he was being watched.

  He drew a slow breath, lowered his head, and stepped forward.

  No one appeared. No one shouted. No hands seized his cloak.

  Yet the fear stayed.

  The prayers in the distance were little more than a low collective hum—soft voices rising and fading in a rhythm that seemed older than the city itself. The waves joined the sound in gentle pulses. Together, they made the empty streets feel even more hollow.

  With his task fixed in mind, Zyren headed toward the harbour.

  Bruma’s Port stretched along the lower end of a small mountain range, clinging to rock and slope. From where he approached, the city descended in stacked terraces and narrow stairways, giving him a clear vantage of the harbour below. He searched for a secluded place—a shadowed gap between houses where he could pause without being noticed—and slipped closer.

  Unlike Regismere, where armored patrols marched in rigid patterns, Bruma’s guards stood alone or in pairs, scattered like loose stones along the docks. No patrol routes. No marching lines. Their armor was light and almost ceremonial, too minimal to clang or catch light. Yet the spears they held were long-bladed and gleaming, and a single shift of posture from one of them was enough to ripple tension through the workers below.

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  No one was patrolling, Zyren realized, no one needed to.

  Everyone treated this night like a held breath. Even from high above, Zyren could sense it: a fragile truce enforced not by walls or soldiers, but by something sacred and unspoken. He guessed one misstep—one interruption of this ritual quiet—and the guards would act.

  He crouched lower, letting a rooftop’s shadow swallow him, and surveyed the docks.

  Different groups were preparing to depart: sailors hauling crates, traders arguing in hushed tones, fishermen coiling nets. Others unloaded cargo with sharp, efficient motions. None of them looked aligned with the Empire. No navy uniforms, no silver-edged pauldrons, no imperial banners. Humans moved among the crews, but not the kind who commanded fleets. These looked like wanderers, smugglers, locals, drifters.

  Still, the atmosphere felt taut—glares thrown between rival crews, shoulders squared, jaws clenched. Yet no one dared escalate. Wordless respect or wordless fear kept them still.

  Zyren moved closer.

  He chose a path between houses, staying off the main street. The fog muffled his steps. Hisoka’s voice echoed in the back of his mind, steady and precise: "Not being seen is your first task. After that, act like you belong. Don’t look lost. Don’t look new. People ignore what looks familiar."

  He straightened his shoulders, slowed his breathing, and walked.

  The harbour was busy enough that he could blend into the movement. Unlike the alley, this place had noise—ropes smacking against wood, crates thumping onto planks, soft curses from tired sailors. It all created cover.

  At the far end of the harbour, he noticed a smaller ship. Its crew was few but startlingly coordinated. Each person moved with crisp precision, completing their tasks with timed efficiency. The rhythm of their steps, the silent hand signals—something about them echoed the sharp discipline of Regismere’s guards. Zyren felt his chest tighten for a moment before he understood why.

  Everyone moved in perfect unison.

  Everyone except one.

  From this distance the figure was almost unremarkable—hooded, slender, working with a coil of rope. But then Zyren caught the unmistakable tilt of the ears beneath the hood. The faint sharpness to the cheekbones. The smooth, balanced way the person shifted their weight—too fluid to be fully human, too grounded to be animal.

  “Vyrrin?” he whispered to himself. “What are they—”

  A sound cut through his murmur.

  A soft scuff—barely audible—of a boot sliding across wet stone just behind him.

  “First sight of the harbour can steal your tongue,” a familiar voice said softly.

  Zyren froze. His mind raced through every scenario of what could happen if he got caught, and every voice he'd heard that sounded like this one. Slowly, carefully, he turned. He kept his hood angled low, hiding the full of his face, though his breath nearly stalled in his throat.

  The troubadour smiled in the moonlight.

  “You’ve come a long way, elf.”

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