Chapter2

After the turn, I stopped for three seconds.

Rainwater dripped from my hair into my collar. The door behind me had cut off her voice, but I knew she was still kneeling there. In my past life, I had pushed that door open, lifted her from the garbage pile, wrapped her in my coat, and walked half an hour through the rain to find a healer. In this life, she could walk herself.

Silvermist City's lower district had no streetlights. I crossed three alleys and stopped at the back door of a smithy. There was no sign on the door—only a symbol drawn in charcoal on the corner of the wall: three crossed lines with a circle in the middle. Moro's mark.

I knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice.

The door opened. A wave of smells—sulfur, herbs, old books—rushed out. Moro stood behind the door, about fifty, graying hair, his pipe burning red in his hand. He'd been in this trade for twenty years. Not the most skilled technician in the black market, but the tightest-lipped. The reason he'd survived this long was simple: he never asked where things came from, and he never remembered faces.

"The blood-oath collar." He glanced at the dark red mark around my neck. "Ashen Guild. Not many people live to get that thing off."

"That's why I came to you."

"Breaking the curse costs three thousand gold." He took the pipe from his mouth. "No bargaining."

I pulled the fire-attribute magic core from my pocket and set it on the table. The core pulsed with a dark red glow under the lamplight, like a still-beating heart.

The breaking process took about two hours. When Moro's unbinding runes touched the mark on my neck, the dark flame moved. It surged from the cavity left by the carved-out magic core, climbing along the runes' guidance and latching onto the mark. The blood-oath collar's dark red light was ripped apart and devoured by the dark flame like paper.

Moro's hand trembled. "The seventh school."

Etheria's magic system was divided into six orthodox schools: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Light, and Dark. The last two, due to their unique properties, had each spawned independent sub-schools—Light had given rise to holy magic, Dark to blood magic. The Ashen Guild's blood-oath collar was a forbidden application of Dark blood magic. As for the seventh school—fifty years ago, a mage named Valen had tried to study this "anti-magic." He was executed by the Six Schools Council, and all his research was burned with him.

"Forbidden magic." Moro put his pipe back in his mouth. "I don't ask where it comes from. I just do business."

The mark was burned away inch by inch by the dark flame. In the end, that blood-red binding that had held me for twelve years became a faint silver scar, as if touched by moonlight. The hollow left by the carved-out magic core had become a vessel for the dark flame. It didn't produce—it only devoured. If it went too long without something to consume, it would start feeding on its host.

Moro handed me a bronze mirror. In it, I saw a face—black hair to the shoulders, a thin scar running from cheekbone to jaw on the left side, eyes a gray-blue tinged with silver. After the dark flame's awakening, my eye color had lightened. From gray-blue to cold silver.

"What's your new name?"

"Ember."

Three days later, I picked up a complete set of identity papers from Crow Alley. Number three Crow Alley was a windowless stone room; inside sat an old man with a monocle. He asked my name, origin, magic school—stamped a stack of forms, and the whole process took less than a quarter hour. I handed him Moro's card; he glanced at it and added a courtesy inspection waiver stamp—the lower district had its own credit system, and Moro's name was worth three stamps in that system.

After that, I went back to see Moro.

"Gareth." I placed a bag of gold on his table.

"That errand boy for the nobles?" Moro raised an eyebrow. "He's been doing well lately. He's putting on an opera called Ashes and Lilies. The crown prince read the script himself and was very pleased. The premiere is set for the autumn social season."

"I know."

"He's already wormed his way into the crown prince's circle through that opera. On premiere night, he'll be sitting in the prince's box—as a 'royal bard.'"

"Where does he rehearse?"

"The Old Rose Theater, on the border between the lower and upper districts. Every night, eight till dawn."

I pushed the gold across the table. "That's enough."

Moro pocketed the coins and said, almost offhand: "Don't die. I can't have repeat customers if you're dead."

When I stepped out of Moro's shop, the bell tower of Silvermist City was striking twelve. The Old Rose Theater sat in the glow of the upper district, an iron rose atop its dome. I could go there now—infiltrate the opera house, find Gareth, burn everything he had with the dark flame. With my current strength, killing him would take three seconds. But if I killed him, he'd never stand before a tribunal.

I was in no rush.

In the autumn of this year in my past life, the champion of the tournament would be a northern mercenary named Ulrich, who would win S-class certification but be turned away by Gareth when he tried to meet the crown prince. That information hadn't been useful in my past life—this time, it worked in reverse: the tournament champion would have direct access to the crown prince, and Gareth would be sitting right beside him. He wasn't the gatekeeper anymore—he was the target.

I chose the tournament not because I liked the spotlight. Silvermist City's autumn tournament was a fixed event for high society—the crown prince and the nobles would definitely attend. Winning as a mercenary would earn me S-class certification and the right to an audience with the crown prince. That was the fastest way into the royal court. Gareth was now someone close to the prince—I had to stand before him in a way he couldn't ignore before he could prepare.

Three months later, at Silver Square. The man named Gareth would sit beside the crown prince, watching a masked mercenary step onto the ring.

As I walked down the smithy's stairs, my hand brushed a crack in the railing—identical to the one on the guild dormitory stairs in my past life.

In that life, I would come down those stairs, and Leonora would be looking up at me from below. Her face looked so small from that angle, with light in her eyes.