Chương 116: SUGAR APPLE

Jax returned to the hideout through the rear entrance of the jewelry shop, brushing snow from his shoulders before stepping inside. The bell above the front door chimed faintly as a customer left, and the warm, lamplit interior swallowed him in gold and amber tones that felt far too gentle for the kind of place this had become. Torvin was behind the counter, pretending to polish a bracelet with exaggerated care. He looked up immediately.

"Where've you been?" Jax ignored him at first, moving toward the workbench where strands of silver wire and half-set gemstones lay scattered like the remnants of an honest trade. He picked up a tool and began aligning prongs around a garnet with slow, methodical precision. Torvin didn't let it go.

"Oi. I asked you something." Once Lyle had ordered them to infiltrate Blackhaven, there had been very little they could do to truly hide. Not with three Saints and a Praetorian within the city walls. Not with Roric Thorne prowling somewhere in the shadows like a patient predator. So Jax had done the only thing he could. He had used his Trait, ' The Moon'. The Dominion over dreams. His first Resonant allowed him to induce forced slumber.

He had stretched that ability into an area of effect, a circular field roughly the width of the distance between the jewelry shop's door and the opposite sidewalk—perhaps fifteen meters across. Anyone who walked through that invisible boundary fell into a subtle, half-waking state. They did not collapse. They did not realize anything was wrong, that ther minds were in his grasp. They simply… drifted. Then his second Resonant took over. Within that haze, Jax navigated their dreams consciously.

If they saw something strange—a man who did not belong, a face they could not place, a movement that did not fit reality—he replaced it. He overlaid it with dreams born of thier own memories. Familiar routes. Familiar sights. Familiar faces. They would interpret these... Dream Memories as their current reality. They would remember passing this place exactly as they always had. Of course, he had to edit the dreams occasionally to prevent the creeping itch of déjà vu.

The real staff of the shop had been gently, patiently molded this way. Their minds guided, nudged, reshaped. Not broken. Not violently altered. Just… persuaded through slumber. They welcomed the intruders as coworkers. They forgot to question anything. He could have used his third Resonant—manifesting dreams as illusions in reality—but that required extending his influence far wider, and that risked brushing against the Saints' senses. So he kept the field tight, controlled, suffocatingly precise.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. The downside? He could not leave the bubble ha had made for more than five minutes a day. If he did, the dreamfield would unravel. Torvin folded his arms.

"You didn't answer me." Jax didn't look at him.

"I went for a walk." Torvin snorted.

"In the cold of a foreign land? Don't lie to me. Did you find the target?" Jax's fingers tightened slightly around the tool. He had found the target. He had found him long ago. Since that day in the vault under the shop, when Lyle had killed two of their own men in a fit of paranoia. He knew exactly where who they were looking for was, what he was doing and who he was doing it with. And he had kept quiet. Why? Even he didn't know. Torvin kept talking.

"Lyle's getting impatient. We didn't come all this way to polish jewelry. If you found something, you tell us. You don't—" The tool slammed onto the table with a loud metallic crack that echoed through the shop. Everyone froze, turning towards the source of the sound. Jax turned and walked out without a word. Behind the shop, the world was white and silent. Snow blanketed the alley, muffling sound, muting thought. He dropped into a squat, scooped up two handfuls of snow, and pressed them hard against his face.

Cold burned his skin. He groaned into it. Thinking back on events logically is a mantra. He repeated it in his mind, again and again. It did nothing. What they were doing went against everything he believed as a knight. Former knight. Everything he had sworn to protect. Everything that had betrayed him. Everything he had stood for when he and Torvin had opposed Nordhelm's command. Everything he had thrown his freedom away for. And for that… they had been captured. Chained. Dishonoured.

Forced into service alongside criminals. He exhaled shakily, leaning his head back against the wall. Then his thoughts drifted to her. Raizelle... And her daughter. Jamie. The similarity was unsettling. The same energy. The same stubborn brightness. The same way of stepping into a space as if it belonged to them. He understood Roric. He understood that man perfectly. After all, his feelings for her were the same. Are the same... To see the people who killed your wife walking freely in the world.

To know they might be after your child. He closed his eyes. He didn't agree with this hunt. He didn't agree with Nordhelm's obsession over some implication of power that might destroy countless lives. And yet… He was here. Compelled. A shadow fell over him. Jax opened his eyes. Jamie stood in front of him. He froze.

'How...?' She could not be here. She should have drifted into the dreamfield, half-asleep, memories rearranged. He would have sensed it. His senses flared outward instinctively. The field was active. Intact.

'So why—' Jamie dipped her hand into a paper bag and pulled out a sugar apple. She held it out to him. He stared.

"I saw you looking all sad," she said casually.

"Papa comes home like that sometimes. So I give him something sweet." Jax's mind struggled to catch up.

"I don't get the adult stuff," she continued, "but you look like you're going through a lot. So you should have something sweet to sweeten your day." He slowly took the fruit. Never breaking eye contact. Jamie grinned, bright and careless.

"Don't work too much! Have fun!" She ran off. Jax's eyes widened slightly. That grin. That voice. Raizelle. He stood slowly and took a bite of the sugar apple before walking back inside. He had calmed down.

Elsewhere, Roric Thorne felt a faint tug along one of his resonance threads. He followed it. For a moment—only a moment—he sensed Jax. Then the connection snapped as the dreamfield tightened like a clenched fist. Roric smiled faintly. He had enough. In the shop, Lyle stood at a table in the back room. He uncorked a small vial. Black liquid oozed out slowly, moving like a living thing. It pulsed against the glass, thick and viscous, tendrils sliding along the surface as if testing for escape.

Lyle watched it with hungry impatience.

"This, is my solution" he muttered.