Prav's merchant avenue tried very hard to look respectable.
That was the first lie every traveler saw when they entered the Free City. Lanterns were hung evenly along the main road, shopfronts were painted in bright colors, and municipal guards walked in pairs with polished breastplates that caught the light just enough to reassure visitors with coin. The stalls near the gate sold dried fruit, folded cloth, cheap jewelry, traveling charms, and all the other harmless things a city placed in front of its uglier teeth.
Lucien knew better than to mistake a mask for a face.
He rode past the welcoming shops, past the loud taverns with open doors and laughing women leaning against the frames, past the money changers who kept their smiles gentle and their ledgers vicious. He did not stop until the road split toward the lower market, where the stones became damp, the smell of the river thickened, and the shops began placing fewer items in their windows. Prav was free in the way a pit was free. No king's law held it too tightly. No noble could step inside and expect every head to bow, every tongue to soften, every guard to tremble at the sound of a family name. Here, blood bought caution, not obedience.
That suited him perfectly.
Lucien left Vela at a crowded stable near the lower market after paying enough to ensure she would be fed and watered, but not enough to make the stablemaster think he was careless with money. The man looked disappointed by that, which told Lucien he had chosen the correct amount. After checking the saddle, the bridle, and the horse's feed himself, he took his purse, adjusted his coat, and stepped back into the city on foot.
The blue window no longer hovered directly in front of him, but he could feel it waiting at the edge of his sight.
[Band of Swords.]
[Condition Pending.]
[Be in a situation where more than five blades are pointed at you.]
He let the words fade.
Not yet.
He needed to be weaker first.
That thought would have sounded absurd to most men.
The place beneath the old burial hill west of Prav did not reward strength. It punished it. The stronger the intruder, the more perfect the reflection standing opposite them. The sickly child who would one day clear it had done so because the dungeon copied weakness too honestly. A broken body had produced a broken opponent, and the boy survived a trial that had slaughtered knights, mages, and men whose names used to make taverns go quiet.
Lucien had no intention of waiting years for that boy to stumble into destiny.
He only needed to borrow the shape of his weakness.
The apothecary stood where memory promised it would, pressed between a candle shop and the sour wall of a tannery. No proper sign hung above the door. Only a small green rat had been painted beneath the left window, half-hidden by grime and old rain. A person who did not know to look for it would walk past without noticing. A person who did know to look for it was either ill, desperate, murderous, or in Prav long enough to become all three.
The bell above the door gave a tired little ring when Lucien entered.
Warm, bitter air closed around him. Bundles of herbs hung from the rafters, dried leaves whispering faintly whenever someone moved. Shelves covered every wall, packed with jars, tins, wax-sealed bottles, cloth pouches, clay pots, and small wooden boxes marked with symbols instead of names. The shop smelled of crushed roots, sour spirits, medicinal smoke, stale flowers, and poison pretending to be medicine until measured otherwise.
Behind the counter stood Renn.
Not old, despite the name Prav had given her. Her face was lean, her hair tied back under a dark scarf, her sleeves rolled to the elbows. Her eyes cut over Lucien once, quick and complete, taking in his coat, boots, clean hands, controlled posture, and the faint stiffness of a noble trying not to look like one in a place that ate such men for sport.
"You're in the wrong shop," she said.
"I'm not."
"You sure? Perfume's three doors back. Hangover cures are across the street if you want watered piss with mint in it. Love draughts are sold by liars, and I'm not in the mood to pretend."
"I need poison."
That finally made her look properly.
"For rats?" she asked.
"No."
"Dogs?"
"No."
"People?"
Lucien placed one silver crown on the counter and rested his finger over it. "I need enough to make a healthy man drop dead in minutes."
Renn did not touch the coin.
The silence that followed was not fear. Prav's lower market had no room for fear that simple. It was calculation. Renn studied him with the irritation of a woman watching a customer become interesting when she had other work to do.
"That sort of request usually costs more than one silver," she said.
"The silver is for not wasting my time with moral theater."
Her mouth twitched. "Nobles. Always dramatic."
"Apothecaries. Always pretending poison is rare."
Now she smiled, but it had no warmth in it. "You walked into my shop in clean boots and asked for a man-killer before greeting me. That makes the price high."
"That makes you hopeful."
"It makes me cautious."
"No," Lucien said, glancing at the shelves behind her. "Cautious would mean refusing the sale. Hopeful means starting high and seeing how stupid I am."
Renn's fingers tapped once against the counter.
Most nobles who entered shops like hers did so with arrogance, shame, or appetite. Lucien remembered that because he had been all three once. They either threw too much money around because they wanted to leave quickly, or haggled badly because they thought bargaining meant lowering their voice and threatening a family name. Renn had loved those men. Every hidden shop in Prav loved those men. Noble wastrels were soft purses wrapped in perfume and desperation.
Lucien watched the thought form behind her eyes.
Why is this one difficult?
"Fine," she said. "What exactly do you want?"
"A fast blood-stopper, a nerve-blackener, and something that sinks into the lungs. Nothing too exotic. I need them to work predictably."
"Predictably," Renn repeated. "You speak like a physician planning a murder."
"Do you have them?"
"I have many things."
"Then sell me the ones that won't fail."
"Thirty crowns."
Lucien gave her a flat look. "For common cellar poison dressed in expensive names?"
"For poison that drops a healthy man dead in minutes."
"For poison that leaves traces any temple examiner could smell from the doorway."
"Temple examiners charge more than families like yours enjoy paying."
"Twenty."
"Twenty-seven."
"Fifteen."
Renn stared at him. "You are either very brave or very confused."
"Both are cheaper than twenty-seven."
She leaned forward slightly. "Twenty-three."
"Seventeen, and I buy an emergency treatment."
That changed her expression again.
"An emergency treatment," she said slowly.
"Yes."
"For the poison."
"For the poison."
Renn's eyes moved over him, sharper now. "That is not how murder usually works."
"I never said I was murdering anyone."
"No. You simply walked in and asked for enough poison to kill a man."
"Many misunderstandings begin with accurate statements."
She let out a short laugh despite herself, then looked annoyed that he had gotten it from her. "Twenty-one for the poison. Eight for the treatment."
"Twenty-two for all."
"Get out."
Lucien reached for the silver crown.
Renn's hand snapped forward and covered it.
"Twenty-seven for all," she said.
"Twenty-three."
"Twenty-six."
"Twenty-four, and I don't ask why your upper shelf contains royal-banned fever ash in a jar marked dried basil."
Her fingers stopped tapping.
Lucien smiled politely.
Renn looked at him with the expression of a person deciding whether a customer was worth killing, robbing, hiring, or remembering. "Noble wastrels are supposed to be easier than this."
"So I've heard."
"You've heard?"
"From wastrels."
Another silence stretched between them, then Renn cursed under her breath and turned toward the shelves. "Twenty-four, and if anyone asks, you bought stomach bitters and moth powder."
"No one will ask."
"That's what corpses always say before becoming evidence."
She gathered the poisons without naming them aloud. Lucien appreciated that. Renn was many things, but not sloppy. One vial held a clear liquid that clung too thickly to the glass. Another contained a dark powder folded into wax paper. A third was a small clay ampoule sealed with black resin. Each one was packed separately, padded with straw and wrapped in plain cloth. The treatment came last in a narrow flask of dull green glass, stoppered with wax and bound in copper wire.
Renn placed it apart from the others. "This is not a remedy."
"I know."
"It doesn't slowly purge poison from your system. It shocks the body into fighting it. Violently."
"How violently?"
"Enough that most people spend the next day wishing they had died instead."
Lucien nodded.
That answer seemed to bother her more than if he had flinched.
"You drink it immediately after exposure," Renn continued. "Not an hour later. Not after a nap. Immediately. If your heart stops first, this won't help. If your organs fail first, this won't help. If you take too much poison, this won't help."
"So it buys a chance."
"It forces one."
Lucien turned the flask in his hand, studying the dull green glass.
Renn folded her arms. "You're not asking the right questions."
"I know enough."
"No, you know words. That's different."
Lucien packed the items into the inner lining of his satchel with careful hands. The cloth hid the shape of the vials well enough unless someone searched properly.
Renn watched him. "Why?"
He looked up.
"Why buy enough poison to kill a man and a treatment meant for the same poison?" she asked. "Debt? Duel? Inheritance? Woman? Ritual? Some noble game where everyone pretends dying is romantic until the bowels loosen?"
Lucien tied the satchel shut. "I'm not answering that."
"I can refuse the sale."
"You already took the coin."
"I can give it back."
"But you won't."
Renn's jaw shifted.
Lucien picked up the satchel. "Because now you're curious."
Her smile vanished.
He left before she decided curiosity needed a sharper tool.