Chương 33: The Eastern Road

The scream came five minutes after they left. Not very loud. Not close enough to make the whole street stop. Just a sharp burst from an alley behind them, immediately swallowed by the noise of the market, the rumble of cart wheels, the low tolling bells, and the voice of a merchant still shouting the price of his fruit as if nothing in the world could possibly matter more than overripe plums. Zayn did not turn around. Mira did. Only for a second. Then her gaze returned to him. Not to his face. To his sleeve.

To the spot of blood that was not his. He could have said something. Pretended not to hear. Asked what it was. Played innocent with enough irritation to make any question feel exhausting. He did nothing. Because sometimes, the most effective thing was not to add another lie. It was to let the others run out of time to prove the first one. Voss forced a faster pace.

"We don't stop." Lena turned toward the sound.

"What was that?"

"Aurelis," Jonah answered.

"A city of several hundred thousand people. Statistically, somebody is probably screaming every six seconds." He paused, then added,"Which is an excellent reason never to live in a city." Voss did not slow down.

"Finally, an opinion worth defending." The reply might almost have made Lena smile in another world. Not this one. She was still looking back. Elias had heard it too. Of course he had. He said nothing at first. That silence was not naive. It did not mean he believed Zayn. It only meant he was choosing not to break their momentum in the middle of a street where someone was already moving them around like pieces. That was perhaps worse. Because patient suspicion was more dangerous than immediate accusation.

The group pressed on toward the East Gate through more and more controlled routes. Aurelis changed face with every ring they crossed. The Upper City had the polished whiteness of places where important people did not want to see where their food came from. Lower down, the streets became denser, louder, more human. Then the east began to show itself before the walls even appeared. Reinforced wagons. Soldiers in more worn armor. Families in dust-stained clothes.

Merchants specializing in bandages, salt, boiled leather, weapon oil. Recruitment boards. Smaller, darker altars where the Glass Sun looked less like a promise of salvation than a lamp one still hoped would stay lit before the next attack. The center of Aurelis spoke of the cycle as a historical threat. The east carried its smell. Zayn felt it in the values too. The people here were denser on average. Not all of them. But more often. A porter at 19.

An elderly woman at 26, limping but with harder eyes than many guards. A veteran missing his left hand at 33. A skinny child at 8, sitting on a crate and watching the weapons with the focus of a boy who had already understood far too early that adulthood would not wait for his permission. The eastern road began in bodies before it began on the map. They finally reached a logistics yard behind a secondary royal barracks, less than fifteen minutes from the East Gate. No more market. No more dense crowd.

Only wagons, soldiers, crates, snapped orders, and the smell of oiled metal. Voss took possession of the place through the simple way he walked. Two officers came to him. He did not give them time to ask the wrong question.

"Discreet convoy. Six mounts, two light carriages, no banner, no priest, no singing, no shiny nonsense. Destination Halbreach. Departure the moment the wheels touch the ground." The first officer blinked.

"Captain, an exit at this level requires authorization—" Voss pulled out the black tube taken from the messenger and almost slammed it against the man's chest.

"Authorization: someone is trying to kill us." The second officer straightened.

"Emergency procedure?"

"Procedure of basic sense. If that doesn't exist, invent it fast and sign it afterward." Jonah leaned toward Elias.

"I'm starting to like him. Is that serious?" If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Elias answered without smiling,"It's probably a symptom of sleep deprivation." Zayn, despite himself, thought that was actually pretty good. Not enough to laugh. But enough to recognize that Jonah still possessed some minimal social usefulness in a disaster. Voss was already barking new orders. Maelor, meanwhile, worked differently.

He stood by a loading table, bent over an unrolled map with a College mage and the Crown representative, who had rejoined them without anyone really knowing how long she had been there. Zayn was beginning to dislike that woman for a very simple reason: she always appeared when a situation became bad enough to be politically profitable. That was almost admirable. A kind of office predator. The sort of being who, in another world, could have sold fire insurance to someone while their house was burning.

And made a commission. The Crown representative placed a finger on the map.

"Vaulne is out of the question."

"Already compromised," said Maelor.

"Halbreach is farther, but harder to bypass without alerting the royal posts." From the far side of the yard, Voss said,"Halbreach is also within the Ashes' sphere of influence." The woman replied,"The entire east is within the Ashes' sphere of influence. That is both the problem and the reason we have no choice." Zayn listened without moving closer. Not out of respect. Because he was watching the yard. More precisely, he was watching the lives. Soldiers at 25, 28, 31. A high-ranking knight at 54, near the gate.

A military mage at 63, checking the wheels of a carriage with the bad temper of a man too competent to appreciate improvised emergencies. So many values. So many possible targets. And all of them protected by the same things: structure, witnesses, consequences. He understood more clearly now. Morality was only one lock among others. And in him, it was not the strongest. Lena came up on his right. He felt her before she spoke. 75. Stable. Still too clear.

"Zayn." He did not look at her.

"Yes?"

"The messenger." There it was. No detour. He would have preferred Jonah. Jonah accused more loudly, which made him easier to deal with. Lena, on the other hand, laid things out in a way that forced the human weight beneath the words to be felt.

"What about him?"

"You said he got away."

"Yes."

"And the scream?" Zayn watched a stablehand pull a strap too hard on a nervous mount. The beast jerked its head. 14 above it. Even animals were sometimes worth more than he had been at the start. Unpleasant thought.

"Like Jonah said, cities scream."

"Don't do that." Her voice did not rise. That made it worse. Zayn finally turned his eyes toward her.

"Do what?"

"Talk to me like I'm just someone you need to move out of your way." The hit landed clean. Not violent. Just too close. For a second, he wanted to tell her the truth. Not out of remorse. Out of cruelty. To tell her: yes, I killed him. Yes, he was weak. Yes, he was worth one point. Yes, the only thing that really annoys me is that he wasn't worth more. To watch her face change. To finally see the thread stretch until it might snap. The urge passed through him like a cold hand. He did not do it.

Not because it was wrong. Because Lena was still more useful doubting than knowing. There it was again. He answered instead,"If I wanted to move you out of my way, I'd be more polite." She stared at him. For a moment, he thought she would back away. She did not.

"You're changing too fast." He felt his mark pulse under the collar.

"Everyone changes fast here."

"No." She shook her head gently.

"Elias is getting steadier. Jonah is getting harder. Mira is getting sharper. Me, I don't know yet. But you…" She searched for the word. That made him want to help her in the worst possible way. I'm becoming more profitable when other people die. But he stayed silent. Lena finished:"You're becoming colder when something should shake you." He smiled faintly. A bad smile.

"Maybe I was already cold." She did not answer right away. Then:"No. You were closed off. That's not the same." Very bad line. Because it came from the world before. From someone who had known him before the window, before the Throne, before Envy, before he had a cosmic excuse for what he already was. Zayn looked away.

"You should talk to Elias. He'll probably have a more reassuring version of me." Lena let out a short laugh. Not happy.

"You know, it's fascinating."

"What is?"

"Every time someone tries to talk about you, you bring Elias into the room. Even when he isn't there." Zayn fell silent. For a second, he almost hated her. Not really for the sentence. For seeing it. Thankfully, Voss shouted:"Departure in three minutes!" Very good news. A conversation avoided thanks to logistics. Logistics sometimes deserved a temple. Zayn promised himself inwardly that if he survived long enough to become Demon King, he might create a national holiday dedicated to opportunistic interruptions.

With tax exemptions for people who saved a bad conversation at the right moment. That was probably the healthiest thought he had had all morning. Which said a great deal. The carriages were brought to the center of the yard. Not luxurious coaches. Two light vehicles enclosed at the sides with shifting panels, built to transport important people without giving them the stupid comfort of a gilded coffin. The horses were nervous, but well trained. The wheels bore noise-reduction sigils. The plan was simple.

Too simple to be reassuring. Voss and two riders in front. First carriage: Elias, Lena, Maelor, one College mage. Second carriage: Zayn, Mira, Jonah, the Crown representative. Two riders behind. No banner. Zayn looked at the second carriage's composition. Mira on one side. Jonah on the other. The Crown woman opposite. He looked up at Voss.

"Is this an escort or a cage with wheels?" Voss answered without blinking.

"Yes." Jonah climbed in behind him.

"Finally, an honest political structure." The Crown representative settled in as if the hard wood had been honored to receive her.

"If you could avoid killing each other before the East Gate, it would simplify the paperwork." Zayn took his seat.

"And after that?" She looked at him.

"After that, it depends who survives the road." Not bad. He was beginning to understand why she had reached 72. The convoy started moving. The gates of the yard opened onto the incline toward the East Gate. Hooves struck stone. Wheels rolled over the paving joints. One last group of guards pushed aside the few passersby who had already stopped to watch. Then Aurelis changed again. The streets grew wider, more military. Fewer stalls. More warehouses. More barracks.

Secondary walls rose on either side as if the city, in the east, had begun turning into a fortress long before the true frontier. People watched them from the sidewalks. Too many people. The rumor was already moving faster than they were. Zayn saw one discreetly point toward the second carriage. Not toward Elias. Toward him. The fifth. The failed hero. The delayed stabilization case. The problem that now had enough shape to be recognized even under a hood. He felt the mark pulse. This time, he did not look away.

Let them look. The East Gate finally appeared. Immense. Not beautiful. Functional. Three concentric arches reinforced with black metal, massive portcullises, firing balconies, defensive runes carved into the stone like scars. Through the central opening, the road beyond could be seen: broad at first, bordered by low walls, then stretching toward lands less urban, grayer, more open. The eastern road. The road that led toward Halbreach. Toward the Marches. Toward the Ashes.

Toward the places where they would probably no longer speak of him as a fragile symbol, but as a thing to be tested. The convoy slowed at the checkpoint. A royal officer approached, recognized Voss, saw Maelor, saw the Crown representative, and chose absolute wisdom: ask no stupid questions. Good professional survival instinct. The portcullises began to rise. Jonah looked outside through the slit of the carriage.

"So it's official. We're leaving the city because staying in the sanctuary was too dangerous." Mira replied,"And we're heading closer to the people who probably want to get their hands on him." The Crown representative smiled faintly.

"Politics is the art of choosing which catastrophe you would rather supervise." Jonah stared at her.

"I hate that that sounds competent." Zayn, meanwhile, was watching the light beyond the gate. He had left behind a compromised sanctuary. A city full of weak lives. An alley with a corpse worth +1. Ahead of him opened a war road. More soldiers. More beasts. More risks. More targets. And behind all that, somewhere, one very simple certainty: the more dangerous the world became, the more opportunities it would offer him to become worse. The East Gate opened fully. The convoy passed through.

Aurelis remained behind them, immense, bright, already full of rumors. And Zayn, beneath his dark hood, did not feel fear at leaving the city. He felt space. As if something in him had just understood that the sanctuary walls had been too narrow for the road waiting ahead.