The Shard-Bearer

Chapter 2 - The Whisper in the Dark

The stink of tannery smoke clung to me long after we left the district. It burned in my lungs, coated my tongue, mixed with the copper tang of blood that hadn’t come out from under my nails. No matter how deep into the alleys we went, I couldn’t shake it.

Corin led the way, silent, his coat drawn tight. His knife-hand never strayed far from his side.

I touched the cut on my cheek. The skin throbbed under my fingers, sharp every time I breathed too hard. It wasn’t deep, but it felt like everyone in Drakemire could see it. Like it screamed Guild blood louder than any cloak.

We ducked under a crooked arch into a narrow passageway, the walls sweating moisture. The cobbles here were broken, the puddles green with slime. Above, washing lines sagged with rags heavy with rainwater.

Corin finally stopped in the shadow of a crumbling stairwell. He leaned back against the wall, eyes sharp. “We can’t stay in the market. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Word’ll spread.”

I forced a smirk, though my stomach twisted. “Guild’s always spilling blood. What’s two more bodies?”

His gaze cut to me hard and cold. “They weren’t ours before.”

The words landed heavier than the cut on my cheek.

I dropped into a crouch, elbows on my knees, trying not to look like I wanted to puke. “So what, we keep running?”

Corin’s jaw clenched. “Better than waiting to be gutted in our sleep.”

I wanted to argue, to tell him we weren’t rats in a trap. But the truth pressed in on me from every dripping wall, every shadow where eyes might be watching. For the first time in a long time, I felt cornered.

The Guild didn’t forgive. And we’d given them something they couldn’t ignore.

“Fine,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. “So we hide. But where?”

Corin’s silence was answer enough. In Drakemire, there were no safe places. Just darker holes to crawl into.

We sat in that silence, the city groaning around us. The hiss of a forge, the cry of gulls by the river, the distant toll of the bells. My wound pulsed with each sound, a reminder I couldn’t scrub away.

And for the first time since I could remember, I wondered if this city was finally done with us.

We ended up in the Cellar of Sighs. That’s what the drunks called it anyway, a tavern so damp the walls wept more than the patrons. It sat three levels below the street, down a stairwell that smelled like mold and piss, the ceiling so low I had to duck.

Corin hated the place. He’d told me once it felt like a grave you walked into willingly. But tonight, he didn’t argue when I led us down. The Guild wouldn’t follow this far. Not yet.

The barkeep, an old crow of a woman with no teeth, barely looked at us. She just jerked her head toward the back, as if she’d been expecting us. That should’ve been my first warning.

The back room was smaller, darker, lit only by a single candle dripping wax onto a cracked table. And at that table sat a man I didn’t know, though something about him itched in my skull.

Thin as a starving hound, robes patched and ink-stained, hair wild like he’d just lost a fight with sleep. His eyes were sharp, fever-bright, the kind that made you feel studied even when he wasn’t looking straight at you.

“Malrik,” he said, as if he’d been waiting all night for me. “And Corin.”

I froze in the doorway. “Do I know you?”

“Not yet.” His smile was small and crooked. “But I know you. Both of you. Tanners’ Yard, two Guild men dead.”

My hand twitched toward my knife. Corin didn’t move, but I saw the way his weight shifted, ready.

The man lifted both palms, ink stains up to the knuckles. “Peace. If I meant to give you to the Guild, you’d already be trussed and bled. No, no, I want something different.”

“Name,” Corin said, flat and sharp.

“Fennric,” the man replied smoothly. “Scholar of dead things. Hunter of forgotten whispers. And tonight, your salvation.”

I barked a laugh. Couldn’t help it. “Salvation? In Drakemire?”

Fennric leaned forward, elbows on the table. The candlelight caught in his eyes. “I have a job. A dangerous one. But if it succeeds… you’ll never crawl in alleys again. You’ll never fear the Guild, or the Crown, or hunger. You’ll be kings in a city that eats its children.”

I wanted to scoff, but his words lit a spark somewhere low in my gut.

Corin cut in, voice like a blade. “What’s the catch?”

Fennric’s smile sharpened. “A vault. Hidden beneath the Guild’s own storehouses. And in that vault… a shard.”

The word hit the air like a stone dropped in a still pond.

Shard.

I didn’t breathe, I couldn’t.

Fennric’s voice dropped lower, soft as poison. “Help me take it, and the city won’t matter anymore. Nothing will.”

The word shard hung between us, thick as the smoke curling from the candlewick.

Corin was the first to break it. “You’re either mad,” he said flatly, “or you’re baiting us for the Guild.”

Fennric chuckled, not offended. “If I worked for the Guild, I’d have brought more than one candle.”

Corin’s hand twitched toward his knife, but I put mine on his arm. Not to stop him, just to steady him. My eyes stayed on Fennric.

“What’s in it for us?” I asked. “Coin? Shelter? Or are you offering bedtime stories about becoming kings?”

Fennric tilted his head, studying me like a puzzle. “Coin, yes. Enough to buy your way out of Drakemire twice over.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice until I had to tilt my head to hear. “But more than that. Power. A shard doesn’t just buy you safety. It bends the world.”

I forced myself to laugh, though my chest felt tight. “You sound like a street preacher. Next you’ll be telling me the shards whisper in your sleep.”

Something flickered in his expression. A little too sharp. A little too knowing.

He tapped a long finger on the table. “You’ve heard it, haven’t you? The whispers. I can see it in your eyes.”

The room felt smaller suddenly. I shifted in my chair, heat prickling at the back of my neck.

Corin cut in, voice low, dangerous. “Coin. Up front. Or this meeting ends with your blood on the floor.”

Fennric smiled as if he’d been waiting for that. He reached under the table and slid something across the wood. A leather pouch. It clinked when it moved.

I didn’t touch it. I just stared.

“You’ll take the job,” he said softly. “Because you can’t afford not to, not now. The vault is under the Guild’s storehouses, buried in the bones of the old city. They guard it without knowing what they guard. But I know. And soon, so will you.”

Corin swore under his breath.

Me? I just kept staring at that pouch.

Because deep down, I already knew he was right.

The Cellar of Sighs spat us back into the night like a chewed gristle. The air aboveground was no cleaner, thick with smoke and the sour reek of the canals, but at least I could breathe without tasting mildew.

Corin walked fast, shoulders tight, hood up. He didn’t look at me, didn’t look anywhere, just kept moving like he could outpace what we’d just heard.

“You’re quiet,” I said finally.

“Don’t.”

I almost laughed. “What, no lecture about how we should’ve cut his throat?”

Corin’s stride didn’t falter. “You’re thinking about it.”

I stopped walking. “And you’re not?”

He spun on me, face dark, eyes sharper than any blade. “We killed Guild men tonight, Malrik. That’s a death sentence. Every rat-catcher, every blade-for-hire will be sniffing for us before dawn. And you want to dig deeper? Into their vaults?”

The heat in his voice made my cut throb all over again.

“He offered coin,” I said, too quickly. “Up front. Enough to get us out.”

Corin’s laugh was harsh, humorless. “Out? You think Fennric gives a damn about us? He’s using you. He sees your hunger, your wound, your…” He broke off, jaw clenching. “You’re not thinking straight.”

I stepped closer, jabbing a finger into his chest. “And what’s your plan? Keep running? Hide until the Guild forgets? They don’t forget, Corin. They’ll bleed this city dry before they let us slip.”

His hand shot up, grabbed mine, squeezed hard enough to grind bone. “Better running than walking into a grave with your eyes open.”

We stood like that in the alley, faces inches apart, both of us breathing hard, both too damn proud to back down.

Then Corin let go, shoving my hand away. “Do what you want,” he muttered, turning his back. “But don’t drag me with you when it kills you.”

The words stung worse than the cut on my cheek.

For the first time, I wondered if Corin and I were really on the same side anymore.

Sleep didn’t come easy. Not in Drakemire, not ever. But that night it was worse.

I curled up in a loft above a tannery storehouse, the air sharp with old piss and boiled leather, rats scratching under the floorboards. Corin hadn’t followed me here. He’d gone his own way after the fight in the alley, and for the first time in years, the space beside me felt too wide, too cold.

I closed my eyes anyway, forcing stillness, listening to the city’s night-song. Gulls crying over black water, cart wheels grinding on cobbles, a woman screaming at someone who didn’t scream back.

And beneath it all, something else.

At first I thought it was just my wound throbbing in rhythm and blood pounding in my ears. But no. It was softer, thinner, almost a breath against my skull. Words I couldn’t quite catch, curling at the edge of thought.

Malrik.

My eyes snapped open. The loft was empty. Shadows crouched in the corners, but nothing moved.

I told myself it was a dream. That I’d already fallen asleep without knowing it. But when I closed my eyes again, the voice came back.

The vault. The shard. Take it.

The air went cold, my breath misting. My hands clenched in the blanket, nails biting through the cloth.

“Who’s there?” I whispered, hating the tremor in my voice.

Silence. Then, faint as ash scattering on the wind:

Power waits.

I woke up almost immediately, chest heaving, sweat soaking through my shirt. The shadows hadn’t moved. The city still groaned outside.

But the whisper lingered in me, like smoke clinging to skin.

And though I told myself it was nothing, just nerves, just blood loss, just the weight of Fennric’s words. But deep down I knew.

The shard had already chosen me.