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chapter 14

  Morning light poured through the trees in slanted ribbons, gold and green and soft as gauze. The forest road curved gently ahead, the ground packed and dappled with dew-wet leaves that stuck to the wagon wheels and flared out behind in a lazy scatter. Birds trilled overhead, cautious but not silent, as if the passage of the wagons had become part of the forest's breathing — not an intrusion, but a slow, cautious song.

  Inside the wide belly of a Conestoga wagon, ProlixalParagon sat cross-legged, his silver-furred legs tucked beneath him on a thick woven mat. His back rested against a padded trunk, and his ears twitched reflexively with each creak of axle and call of birds. Around him, at least a dozen kits nestled — Fennician and Goblin alike, in a loose sprawl of blankets and travel-worn toys. The air within the wagon smelled of sage, felt, and cinnamon bread someone had saved for the road.

  Nara sat at the far end, back straight, her voice a steady thread weaving through the morning calm.

  “…and when the sandwyrm finally uncoiled from beneath the dunes, the brave little smith didn’t flinch,” she said, her tail swishing softly behind her as she spoke. “He raised his hammer — not to strike, but to sing. For that was how he shaped the desert: not with force, but with rhythm.”

  The children hung on her every word, eyes wide, ears perked. A small Goblin girl with mismatched buttons sewn into her shawl gasped, “Did the wyrm like the song?”

  Nara smiled, her eyes crinkling. “It didn’t just like it, sweetleaf — it remembered it. That song had been its lullaby, long ago, when the dunes were still new and the stars much lower in the sky.”

  ProlixalParagon exhaled, a small smile tugging at his lips. Nara’s stories always seemed to bend time — softening the sharpness of the world just enough to let the Troupe breathe. He had no illusions that the peace would last, but here, in the slow cradle of the wagon and with the whisper of trees outside, it was easy to forget the salt barrens and patrol banners behind them.

  One of the older kits, a tawny-furred Fennician with a single blue bead braided into her ear, shifted closer to ProlixalParagon. “Paragon, is it true you fought a siege beast?”

  He blinked, caught off-guard. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Marx said you stuck something in its throat,” the girl whispered, eyes gleaming with awe. “He said it exploded.”

  Nara arched a brow, grinning. “That does sound like the sort of thing our Prolix would do.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, fur bristling. “I didn’t stick anything. I… misdirected a combustion rune. Very sloppily. It wasn’t elegant.”

  The kits didn’t care. They erupted into excited whispers, the word combustion rune passed like treasure.

  Outside, a low whistle cut through the air — one of the perimeter scouts signaling all-clear. The forest ahead was still theirs.

  Nara clapped her hands twice, gently. “One more tale, then we all take a rest. Prolix, your turn.”

  He stiffened. “Me?”

  “You’ve lived stories, whether you meant to or not,” Nara said. “Tell the little ones one that almost ended poorly — but didn’t.”

  He hesitated, then slowly pulled a caltrop from his belt pouch — the small, wicked device gleamed dully in the filtered light. “All right,” he said, rolling it between his fingers. “This is from a day in Dustreach, when a merchant tried to short us on a load of saltcakes…”

  The children leaned in. The trees swayed. And the wheels kept turning.

  Somewhere ahead, Sern Ka'Torr waited — a city of wind-carved towers and salt-flecked trade routes. But for now, in the lull between perils, the Troupe rode on through morning sun and the promise of story.

  ProlixalParagon turned the caltrop over in his fingers once… twice… then slipped it back into his pouch with a small click and leaned forward, ears angling mischievously.

  “All right,” he said, voice soft but rising with mischief. “Not all stories are true. But the best ones feel like they could be, if you squint sideways and don’t ask too many questions.”

  The children shuffled closer, small bodies nestled in travel-worn blankets, their eyes wide and eager.

  “This,” he began, lowering his voice, “is the tale of Knucklebeak the Sparrow-Rogue… the tiniest thief ever exiled from the Branch Court of High Canopy.”

  A few kits giggled already. Nara raised a brow, but let him continue, settling back with a grin of her own.

  “Knucklebeak,” Prolixal said with theatrical seriousness, “was no larger than a pinecone and three feathers wide, but he was faster than a dive hawk and slipperier than oil on a rain-soaked feather. His crime?” Prolix paused dramatically. “He stole a crumb from the Queen-Wren’s coronation cake.”

  Gasps. One of the goblin children clapped their hands over their mouth.

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  “Now, this wasn’t just any crumb,” ProlixalParagon continued. “Oh no. This was a Frosting-Crumb of Prophecy, said to contain three visions, a tune that opened doors, and exactly one blessing from the god of lost buttons.”

  “That’s so many things for one crumb,” a small Fennician boy murmured, eyes round.

  “Exactly,” Prolixal agreed solemnly. “And Knucklebeak gobbled it all in one bite.”

  The children shrieked in laughter.

  “Thus began the Great Feathered Chase — from the squirrel barracks of Trunkhold, past the whisper-thickets of the Hare Alliance, and into the forbidden Moss-City beneath the stone owl’s eye. Every sparrow, jay, robin, and feathered scout of the canopy wanted him caught.”

  “What about crows?” asked the button-shawl girl.

  ProlixalParagon nodded gravely. “The crows refused to get involved. Union rules.”

  The wagon rocked gently as it hit a smooth stretch of path. Outside, the forest thinned — sunlight grew brighter, crisper, and the steady scent of salt began to creep in on the wind.

  “But Knucklebeak was clever,” Prolixal pressed on. “He tucked the last of the frosting prophecy behind his eye and escaped in a hollow reed boat, singing door-opening songs and dodging patrol owls by hiding under lily pads.”

  “Where did he go?” asked a goblin kit, bouncing a little with anticipation.

  “Out of the forest,” ProlixalParagon said, shifting to glance toward the canvas flap as golden light spilled in. “Toward the sea. Toward a city carved from coral and driftwood, where birds wore bracelets and trade was done with fish bones and tideglass. The city was called…”

  He paused, letting the suspense settle.

  “…Sern Ka’Torr.”

  The children gasped as one, all craning toward the wagon flap now.

  “Did he make it?” the tawny-furred girl asked breathlessly.

  “No one knows,” Prolixal said, sitting back with a wink. “Some say he became the treasurer of the seabird council. Some say he opened a bakery that sells only dream-crumbs. And some,” he added, tapping his snout, “believe he still roosts in the tallest tower of Sern Ka’Torr, watching the tides for more frosting to steal.”

  Laughter erupted, loud and joyful. Even Nara applauded, her eyes warm.

  The wagon creaked forward, and outside the last of the trees fell away. The road opened into sunlight and open air, and there — shimmering beyond the forest’s edge — stood Sern Ka’Torr.

  Wind-beaten towers stretched like fingers toward the sky, sea-battered walls gleaming faintly with chalky blue. Rope bridges swayed between buildings, gulls wheeled overhead, and the scent of salt and spices rolled across the wind. In the distance, sails billowed above the docks, and the tide flashed silver where it lapped at the city’s foundation stones.

  The children fell silent.

  The city looked like it had been built from stories.

  ProlixalParagon let out a slow breath and adjusted the strap across his chest.

  “Well,” he said softly, “let’s see if they’ve got any frosting left.”

  The road widened into packed stone, sun-bleached and grooved by centuries of wheels and feet. Salt crust glittered in the crevices like pale lichen, and the forest behind them gave one final sigh before yielding entirely to open sky and sea-wind.

  Sern Ka’Torr rose ahead like a memory etched in tideglass — wind-worn towers with shutters painted in sea-foam hues, crumbling sandstone arches veined with coral-pink mortar, and copper bells that rang not by hand but by wind alone. The air smelled of brine, of citrus and rotting rope, of grilled fish and sweet tobacco. The crash of surf came not in waves, but in rhythm — a conversation between sea and stone, punctuated by the cries of gulls and ship crows.

  The Vermillion Troupe’s wagons slowed as they reached the outer wards — the first of many layered districts that spiraled loosely around the port. Here, the gates weren’t walls so much as thresholds. No soldiers barred the way, only a long, sea-scored stone bridge arcing over a channel of dark water, flanked by statues of pelicans and sea lions, their eyes inlaid with shells and weathered copper.

  Lyra rode at the front, standing atop her vardo’s running board with her staff held high and her silver fur rippling in the wind. She did not call out. She simply nodded to the twin gatekeepers who lounged beneath a canvas awning near the bridge — a lanky elf with a sun-peeled face and a broad-shouldered halfling smoking from a pipe shaped like a whale.

  The halfling raised one brow. “Caravan name?”

  “Vermillion Troupe,” Lyra rasped, her voice barely louder than the wind.

  The elf squinted toward them, then snapped his fingers. A thin shimmer of mana flickered in the air as a glyph inscribed into the stone bridge sparked to life — a lazy, sea-green pulse of verification.

  “Red Fox-affiliated, right?” the elf said. “You’re in the book. Keep to the causeway until dock tier two. Don’t try the cliff routes, the tides took out part of the eastern pass.”

  The halfling gestured lazily. “Welcome to Sern Ka’Torr. Watch your wheels on the coral-etched stone, and mind the sea cats. They’re in rut.”

  “Sea cats?” Marx muttered from behind Lyra’s wagon. “That’s a sentence I didn’t need today.”

  As they passed through the arched threshold, the city unfolded around them like a spilled tapestry.

  Cobbled paths climbed and coiled like sea serpents, lined with buildings that looked grown rather than built — driftwood-bone spires wrapped in flowering vines, sandstone domes crowned in spiky shells, walkways woven of rope and palm slats. Boats bobbed in narrow canals that cut between alleys, their occupants calling greetings and trading through nets tossed from window to window.

  ProlixalParagon leaned out from his wagon, eyes wide, absorbing everything.

  It was nothing like Dustreach. Nothing like the barrens. The city was alive — not just inhabited, but breathing, humming. Music drifted from balconies, laughter spilled from shaded courtyards, and somewhere ahead, the deep gong of a tide-clock tower rang noon.

  Children gawked. Goblin kits squealed when they saw a fish-seller juggling silver eels while standing on one leg. A Fennician youth pointed at a passing merchant boat crewed entirely by crustacean automata.

  ProlixalParagon felt the tension coiled in his chest begin to ease — not vanish, never that, but shift. The weight of survival had been constant. Here, it might at least take a different shape.

  “Look!” cried one of the kits, tugging at Nara’s sleeve. “There’s a tower with wings!”

  Nara followed the child’s pointing hand. Sure enough, a tall stone spire near the upper tier had massive canvas sails rigged to it, fluttering like bird wings in the wind.

  “That’s the Aviator’s Guild,” she murmured. “They chart wind-maps and trade with sky barges.”

  As the wagons turned into the broad, circular plaza at dock tier two, Lyra raised her staff and called softly, “Camp lines here.”

  The wagons began to circle and settle in the shade of a long, sea-curved wall. Locals gave them curious glances but no one shouted, no one barred their way. The Troupe had arrived as strangers — but not unwelcome.

  ProlixalParagon hopped down from the wagon, his boots hitting stone with a satisfying solid clack. The children followed, stretching legs and tails, some wide-eyed and silent, others already pointing excitedly toward every new scent, sound, or fluttering banner.

  A lean woman with kelp-colored braids and a ledger strapped to her hip strode up from one of the dock-side pergolas, her robe trailing sea-glass beads.

  “You the ones from the Saltline trail?” she asked, eyes sharp and tone brisk.

  Lyra stepped forward. “We are.”

  “Good. Your sponsor’s already been through. Left word you’d be coming. Said to send you to the Tide-Tier Registry when you arrived. You’ll want to get your papers stamped before the dockmasters start nosing.”

  ProlixalParagon tilted his head. “Sponsor?”

  The woman snorted. “Didn’t give a name. Just a sea coin and a message: ‘Red Foxes move under moonlight, not lanterns. Shelter’s arranged.’” She pointed upslope toward a street carved into the cliff. “Registry’s that way. Don’t lose the token, or you’ll be paying twice in paperwork.”

  Lyra took the coin. It shimmered like a scale — and bore the faint crescent of Onthir.

  “Looks like we’ve got a shadow watching out for us,” she said.

  ProlixalParagon glanced up at the city rising before them, then down at the salt-etched stone underfoot.

  Sern Ka’Torr had opened its gates.

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