In our kingdom, every major trade house knew that the High Council had two faces. The public face was made of rich lords who sat in golden chairs and collected taxes from merchant caravans. The hidden face was the Shadow Guild, a secret division of alchemists who built green-fire weapons below the city floor. My father always said that if green fire ever touched the night sky, it meant the council was willing to burn every innocent person in the territory just to hold onto power. I grabbed the wooden railing of the boat as the massive shadow rose from the deep river water right beneath our hull. The water cracked open like glass. A black iron submarine, twenty feet long and covered in glowing green light, broke through the surface. The sudden wave lifted our trade craft three feet into the air, tilting the floorboards so fast that Am

In the southern territories, family ties meant nothing if there was silver on the table. The high council lords used to teach their sons that blood was thicker than water, but every trade house master knew the truth: blood was just another asset to be bought, sold, or spilled when power was at stake. My father had trusted his own brother with the keys to the southern red stone mines ten years ago, only to find out that family could betray you faster than an enemy army. I held the master ledger tight against my chest as General Simeon the Second took three slow steps forward. His ten elite guards formed a tight half-circle around us, their long iron spears pointed straight at our throats. The heavy iron doors behind us were locked firm, leaving us trapped in the narrow stone entry hall with nowhere to run. 

In the southern trade cities, every merchant learned the first law of survival before they learned to count coins: an open vault is always a death trap. The High Council built its wealth by baiting greedy men into dark rooms, using gold as the cheese and heavy iron bars as the snap. My father had taught me that exact lesson when I was ten years old, yet here I stood, trapped inside the very cage my family had designed to destroy our enemies. The heavy iron bars of the ceiling cage hit the stone floor with a crash that rattled my teeth. "Nkiru!" my father called out, straining against the thick iron chains bound around his chest and arms. "You shouldn't have come! The ledger was never meant to save me!" Tobenna slammed his shoulder against the iron bars, but the metal did not

In the northern waters, the sea lords owned every drop of salt water by force of iron and flame. Unlike the High Council, which used trade ledgers and quiet bribes to steal lands, the northern pirates took what they wanted with heavy wooden warships and black-feathered arrows. My father always warned me that when a merchant meets a sea lord, money stops talking and power takes over the room. I had survived traps, cages, and burning mountain vaults, but standing on a naked stone cliff with a hundred archers aiming at my heart was a equation where numbers alone could not save us. "Take cover!" Tobenna roared. He tackled my father and me down onto the stone surface just as a thick rain of iron-tipped arrows whistled through the air. The arrows slammed into the stone ledge aroun