THE ILLUSIONIST OF ELDRALITH

The crowd was already restless by the time Kaelen slipped onto the makeshift stage. He could feel their hunger that was not for food (though many bellies rumbled), but for something rarer wonder.

The marketplace of Caldre, capital of Eldralith, was loud by day, but at dusk it changed its face. By torchlight and fire-pit, the shouts of merchants dulled, and something older stirred; a craving for story, for music, for anything that reminded them they were more than subjects trapped between kings and conquerors. Kaelen knew how to feed that hunger. He lived for it.

“Ladies and lords of Caldre!” he cried, sweeping into a bow that sent his patched cloak flaring like wings. “And farmers, thieves, soldiers, beggars don’t pretend you’re not here too tonight you will see with your own eyes what the world has forgotten. Wonders that should be impossible! Secrets of the ancients!”

A child giggled. Someone in the back muttered, “Bah, another juggler.”

Kaelen smiled crookedly. Doubt was fuel.

He flicked his wrist, and the torches lining the stage flared, flames leaping higher as if answering his command. Gasps rose from the crowd. Too quick to be trickery. Too sudden.

“Impossible?” Kaelen murmured, almost to himself, as he palmed a silver coin. He tossed it high into the air. Instead of falling, it froze mid-arc, hanging against the night sky like a star caught on a string. The crowd surged forward, craning necks. Children squealed, men cursed, women covered their mouths.

Kaelen strolled beneath the hovering coin as if nothing were amiss. His grin widened. Not sleight-of-hand this time. Not smoke, not mirror.

He whispered under his breath, the words older than any court tongue. A ripple of light spilled across the coin, and suddenly it burst into a swarm of silver birds, wings flashing, scattering across the marketplace before dissolving into mist.

The crowd erupted. Applause, laughter, shouts. Someone tossed him a copper. Another threw a half-eaten apple. He caught both with a flourish, bowing deeply as his troupe joined him on stage , Soen on his lute, Dalia balancing atop a pole no thicker than her wrist, Orin (gray-bearded, sharp-eyed) pretending to stumble with a basket of fireworks.

The night became fire and music, smoke and strings. The troupe spun illusions with Kaelen at the center — fire shaped like dragons, shadow puppets that whispered back when spoken to, ribbons of smoke that curled into words before fading.

And all the while, Kaelen’s heart beat with something the crowd could not name. His laughter was free, his movements wild, but beneath them lingered a secret truth: this was not entirely performance.

Not entirely.

The old tongue thrummed in his veins. The Forgotten Arts, they were called. Outlawed, hunted, and broken by the empires long before his birth. Most thought magic had died. Kaelen knew better.

It wasn’t dead. It was hiding. In him.

Later, when the crowd drifted away and coins clinked into their strongbox, Kaelen lounged by the dying embers of the fire. His troupe shared food and wine, trading stories, laughter ringing through the night air.

Soen plucked lazily at his lute. “Another city dazzled. Another purse filled. Tell me, Kael, do you ever tire of their gawking?”

“Never,” Kaelen said, biting into the apple that had been thrown at him earlier. “As long as they look up with wide eyes, as long as they forget their sorrows for a breath, we’ve done more than kings do in years.”

Dalia smirked, balancing the hilt of a dagger on her fingertip. “Careful or they’ll start calling you prophet instead of trickster.”

“Prophets get nailed to gates,” Kaelen said. “Tricksters get free wine.” He raised his cup, and they laughed again.

Only Orin did not laugh. The old man’s eyes were on Kaelen, sharp despite the haze of drink.

“You used the words tonight,” Orin said quietly.

Kaelen’s smile faltered. “Just a touch.”

“Too much,” Orin replied. “There were Veyran soldiers in that crowd.”

The fire popped, sending sparks spiraling. Kaelen’s jaw tightened. Veyra. Always Veyra. The empire of iron that pressed against Eldralith’s throat. Their soldiers marched its roads; their coin corrupted its ministers, their shadow stretched long.

“If they noticed,” Kaelen said, forcing a shrug, “they’ll think it a trick.”

Orin’s voice was a growl. “And if they don’t?”

Kaelen said nothing. His hand tightened around the stem of his cup until it cracked.

Later still, when the troupe had fallen into sleep, Kaelen lay awake staring at the stars. He had always lived between worlds: one foot in laughter, one foot in exile. He did not fear soldiers, or kings. But he feared chains.

The stars wheeled slowly above, cold and uncaring.

And far to the east, a torchlight procession moved along the road, banners of Veyra glinting against the dark. Their general rode at the head, his gaze fixed toward Caldre.

They came not for laughter. Not for wonder. They came for conquest.

And Kaelen, though he did not know it yet, had already stepped onto their stage.