Chương 37: Chapter 36: The Scar of Truth

Body triumphed over thought. Without consulting reason, without passing through the filter of fear or caution, her legs carried her directly toward the man. She moved through the shadows like an apparition, dodging the absorbed bodies of the heretics who listened spellbound to the acolyte's words, words that were now merely a meaningless murmur to her. The world had shrunk to a single point: the man with the scar. She reached his side.

The blonde man was focused, his blue eyes fixed on the figure in the ashen robe, drinking in every syllable of that forbidden philosophy. Selena heard nothing. Her mind, her heart, every fiber of her being had room for only one thing. No preamble. No beating around the bush. Without the caution she had learned by force in this hostile world, Selena launched her question like a poisoned dart.

Her voice was sharp, cutting, laden with the full weight of her days of uncertainty, of her awakening in a stranger's body bathed in phantom blood. There was no trace of the confused or frightened girl. The one speaking was someone else: the one who had survived the horror of the mirror, who had negotiated with Ralien the Severe, who had seen a man beaten nearly to death for an insult. It was Selena that this world was forging through hard blows. —Was it you who placed the order for an egg at The Nimora's Heat?

The blonde man blinked rapidly. His eyes, previously lost in heretical doctrine, snapped to her with a mixture of surprise and alarm. His face showed bewilderment; his eyebrows arched and his mouth opened slightly before he could control the reaction. He dismissed her with a shake of his head, a jerky movement, too fast, too nervous. —I don't know what you're talking about— he said. His response was too quick. His voice, shaky and nervous, betrayed the lie before he even finished speaking.

He turned his head quickly, averting his gaze, and did not look at her again. But Selena did not waver. She reached into her bag, the gesture slow and deliberate so he could see it. The man watched her from the corner of his eye, attentive, his blue eyes scrutinizing every movement, weighing the danger, calculating his options. But what she pulled out was not a weapon; it was not a threat. It was pennies. She held them out to him in her open palm, the pennies dull-glimmering under the torchlight.

—Three hard pennies for the truth— she said, her expression shifting to absolute seriousness, a mask of negotiation. —Don't lie to me, and it could be four. The blonde man stared at her. One second. Two. Then, a slow, ear-to-ear grin spread across his face. The fear vanished, replaced by the cunning of one who recognizes an opportunity. He nodded slowly, savoring the moment. —Deal. He counted the hard pennies with a speed that betrayed years of practice, making them disappear into some fold of his clothes.

Then, with a voice much more confident than before, he spoke. —Don't look at me like that, girl. I know as much as you do. Ha! The irony hung in the air between them, bitter and mocking. —I got lucky. One of the stewards of House Scargoth gave me five bronze crowns. All I had to do was show up at the place and say: 'A boy will come for the order.' He scrutinized Selena's green eyes, searching for a reaction, a clue, something that would allow him to measure the impact of his words.

—He told me to keep the secret— he continued —in exchange for a larger tip. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. He made a gesture with his hand, thumb rubbing against index finger in that universal sign for more. Selena, without hesitation, pulled out another hard penny and gave it to him. The man made it vanish as fast as the others. —Good. One day I arrived early for the meeting with the man. And I overheard him speak.

He said something that might actually be of use to you: 'Every step, as the master requested, must be taken by a different intermediary. He is only part of one of those steps.' The words fell upon Selena like a tangible, physical, crushing weight. Her legs, which until that moment had supported her with a firmness she didn't even understand, gave way. She sat on the stone floor, feeling the cold of the rock through the fabric of her dress, feeling the world crumble around her into pieces that didn't fit.

The man, his job done and his payment collected, left without another word. His figure was lost among the shadows of the cave, swallowed by the darkness, and Selena didn't even see him go. His words had been a sledgehammer blow. Her thoughts were still a whirlwind. Scargoth. A noble name. A Baron, at least. Perhaps more. And he was just one link among others, a name in an endless chain of intermediaries that stretched upward, toward the heights where the air was too thin for someone like her to breathe. The causes.

Uncertainty loomed in her mind like a dark beast. An organization in the background. Victims. Projects. And then, like a flash of lightning, the connection: juveniles underground, adults in the forest. The words from the dream, those of the soldier in the green uniform, those of the dangerous project being tested in the darkness and the thicket. Are the memories hers? The question hit her with the force of a punch. Were those dreams fragments of the original Selena's memory? Had she belonged to that organization?

Was she an agent, a messenger, one more piece on that board of conspiracies that extended further than she could imagine? The pieces spun violently in her head, with the same violence with which she had awakened in this body, the same violence with which the blood had vanished from the bathroom floor. And the questions returned, relentlessly: And me? Where do I fit in this? Was the other Selena part of this organization? An agent? A messenger? Or just another tool, like this blonde man, used and disposable?

She looked at her hands. They were trembling visibly, an uncontrollable shudder running through her fingers, palms, and wrists. They were her hands. The other's hands. A cold nausea churned in her stomach, rising up her esophagus to her throat, threatening to choke her. These are the same hands that wove conspiracies, she thought. Or they are the hands of a woman victimized by the consequences. There was no answer. SHIT, her brain screamed. There were never answers. Never complete ones.

Only fragments, loose pieces of a puzzle that seemed to grow and complicate with every new clue. But the words pounded against her skull with force, a relentless hammering: Intermediaries of intermediaries. An endless chain. And she, Selena, was at some link she could not see. She was aware once again of her own insignificance.

A woman in an unknown world, chasing ghosts, following clues that only led to more questions, only to find an immense titan in the darkness, a shadow that loomed over everything without showing its face. What now? Chase a Baron? A nobility that orders heads to roll for a misinterpreted look? The idea was as absurd as it was terrifying. She, Selena, the daughter of a merchant who never existed, the woman without a past, without resources, without power, chasing the nobility of Terracanto.

It was like an insect trying to challenge a hurricane. And then, a thought pulled her from the abyss. A simple, powerful thought that gave strength to her trembling legs. A name.

"Kaela." She stood up, staggering. Her legs faltered for a moment, but she pulled herself up, correcting her posture before the stunned gazes of the heretics in the circle, who watched her as if she were a ghost that had burst into their ritual. She paid them no mind. She walked, her mind a whirlwind, trying to master the chaos, repeating to herself like a mantra: She is waiting for me. I cannot keep going blindly like this. I must seek more to understand. Bjorn must know something else. He must have more answers.

There must be at least a few more willing to talk for money. She looked ahead, and there was Kaela. The tanner, seeing her approach, quickly lowered her hands from her ears. Relief flooded her face like a wave, erasing the marks of tension, returning that expression of youth that fear had stolen from her. Selena reached her and hugged herself. She felt Kaela's arms around her, felt her warmth, her strength, her presence anchoring her to reality. This cave held no more answers for her.

The ones she needed were elsewhere: in the markets, in the plazas, in the dark alleys, among the intermediaries that no one knew. She would have to find them in the shadows, scrutinize the corners of the map, follow the trail of invisible blood that the original Selena had left behind. This labyrinth, far from ending, had only just begun. But at least now she had one more name to pursue. A name that rose in the darkness like a tower. Scargoth.