Chapter Forty-Two: Tarn of the River Veins
The river city of Varneth gleamed like a jewel set in a poisoned crown.
Its towers were silver-veined, rising high above the winding canals where commerce and betrayal flowed in equal measure. Masked courtiers whispered on balconies, while daggers danced beneath the ripples of each passing boat. Songs rose from the drunken mouths of revelers in gold-threaded silks, while assassins drifted like ghosts through alleyways so narrow they could barely hold secrets, let alone souls.
Tarn Virell had grown up in such places. Cities where every word had a price and every friendship a knife hidden just behind it. He remembered Varneth not by its streets or towers, but by the feel of its silence before blood spilled. As a boy, he had run coin-swaps for the Grinless Guild, listening to names whispered between dockside curses and watching backs for signs of betrayal. Now he returned not as a thief, but as something far more dangerous—a loyal man in a city that despised loyalty.
He walked the Nightward Market with a hunter's gait, cloaked in dust and shadow. Stalls overflowed with black spice, fireglass trinkets, and cursed relics from dead empires. Tongues spoke a dozen dialects, none of them honest. Tarn had traded his Bastion sigil for the tattoos of a salt mercenary—etched ink across his arms, forged in old fire. A coil of kraken teeth on one shoulder. A broken anchor on the other. Marks that opened doors—and closed others.
He was looking for a name.
And when he found it, he wished he hadn't.
They called him "The Collector."
A broker of secrets. A keeper of masks.
And a friend—once—to Ivan himself.
But time is the cruellest butcher of loyalties.
The Collector lived beneath the city, in a chamber carved from an abandoned dry cistern—walls lined with memory-orbs, fragments of forgotten voices. Old candles burned with blue flame, and the air smelled of old ink and slow rot. Each orb floated with a faint hum, glowing faintly with memories trapped within—snippets of voices, fragments of wars, confessions, betrayals, loves.
He welcomed Tarn with a smile too wide and a voice that moved like oil across water.
"I know why you've come," he purred.
"I doubt that."
The Collector gestured, and three of his guards stepped back. They were tall and veiled, blades resting idle against the cistern walls. They didn't speak. Their silence was cultivated—like hounds bred never to bark.
"The Assenters never truly left, Tarn. They merely waited. And now, they wear the faces of your allies. Of kings, priests… of councilmen."
Tarn froze.
"You're lying."
"I'm collecting," the man replied. "And what I've gathered… is that Caedren's court has a serpent. One coiled close. Whispering war into his ear."
He held out a glass orb.
Inside, a flicker of light.
And a voice—Neris.
Tarn took the orb, jaw clenched.
The voice inside was only a fragment—but it was enough to cast shadows on everything he trusted. It was brief, distorted, but undeniably hers:
"—if he doesn't act, we must. Even if he never knows."
He played it twice more. On the third time, he crushed the orb in his hand, shards glittering like broken stars on the stone floor.
"I need more," he said. "Proof."
The Collector leaned close. His breath smelled of clove and something darker.
"You want truth? Truth has a cost. And the cost is not always coin."
"I'm not here to trade riddles."
"No," the Collector said, smile fading. "You're here because you believe in him. In Caedren. Like Ivan once believed in a world that could remember. But even memory rots, Tarn. And sometimes it lies."
Tarn stepped back. "Send your price to the Bastion. We'll pay."
As he turned, the Collector called after him:
"Tell Caedren this—the game of thrones may be dead… but the game of masks has just begun."
He did not look back.
That night, Tarn rode hard, wind stinging his eyes. Varneth shrank behind him, its towers swallowed by mist and lies. He crossed the Saltspan Bridge before dawn, riding into a fog that swallowed sound and soul alike. Betrayal burned like salt in his blood. He thought of Neris. Of her loyalty. Her fury. Her belief in Caedren.
And the voice in the orb.
Could she be turned? Or was she already lost?
He didn't know.
But he knew what Caedren would do.
He would confront it. Head on. Sword unsheathed. Eyes open.
Tarn would do the same.
Behind him, in the cistern beneath Varneth, the Collector sat alone once more. He reached into the gloom and touched another orb—one not yet shown.
This one bore a different voice.
Older.
Wiser.
Ivan.
The voice was quiet, but clear:
"Caedren will need him."
A pause.
"And when he does… I must be dead."
The Collector closed his eyes.
"Ivan," he whispered. "You always did speak in prophecy."
Outside, the waters of the river Vein churned under the weight of rising storm.
And in the dark, the game of masks began anew.