Outside, dusk had thickened over Prav. The lower market changed faster than the main avenue. Respectable customers disappeared. Shutters closed. Different doors opened. Men who had been invisible in daylight leaned under awnings now, watching the flow of bodies with patient hunger. Lamps burned red behind curtained windows. Dice clicked in alleys. Somewhere nearby, someone was laughing too hard at something that was not funny.
Lucien walked without hurry.
He saw the three men again near the mouth of a narrow alley, half-hidden beneath a hanging lantern with cracked glass. The first wore a patched brown coat and had a narrow face made meaner by hunger. The second was broader, with one hand resting under his cloak where a knife would be. The third had the loose posture of someone pretending not to watch too closely while watching best of all.
They had seen him earlier.
Now they saw the satchel.
Then his coat.
Then the purse.
Lucien turned as though choosing his direction at random, letting his cloak shift open just enough for the purse to move.
Silver clicked.
Not too loudly.
A careless noble would have made it obvious. A frightened noble would have clutched the purse and hurried away. Lucien let the sound happen naturally, a small bright spill of temptation in a street full of men trained to hear coin through stone.
The narrow-faced man's eyes followed him.
Good.
Lucien moved deeper into the city.
He did not head straight into darkness. That would look staged. He crossed through a fish market being washed down for the night, passed a shrine where two tired women prayed over a bowl of river water, then turned along a street lined with shuttered tailors. Behind him, footsteps gathered and separated, never too close, never too far. The three men were cautious enough not to rush him in the open, and hungry enough not to leave.
He needed more than three blades.
Prav would provide.
His next stop was a blacksmith near the edge of the forge quarter, where smoke hung low between the roofs and the heat of banked coals still breathed through open doors. The shop he chose was not grand. Grand smiths in Prav sold ornamental blades to duelists and ceremonial steel to fools pretending they were duelists. This place sold hinges, nails, horseshoes, belt knives, spearheads, and occasionally swords for people who needed something sharp before morning.
The blacksmith was a thick-necked man with tired eyes and forearms marked by old burns. He was preparing to close when Lucien stepped in.
"No custom work after dusk," the smith said.
"I need a sword."
"Then go to a swordsmith."
"I need one tonight."
"Then you need whatever I have left."
"That's why I'm here."
The smith looked him over and snorted. "Noble boy wants gutter steel?"
"Noble boy wants steel that won't embarrass itself if someone swings at him."
"That costs."
"Everything costs. Some things deserve to."
That earned Lucien a longer look.
The smith walked to a rack near the wall and took down a sword with a plain scabbard. "This one. Guard's ugly, grip's old, blade's straight. It'll cut."
Lucien drew it halfway.
The steel was not beautiful. No enchantment hummed through it. No family crest marked the pommel. The edge had been sharpened by someone competent, though not loving. The balance leaned slightly forward, which would annoy a court duelist and help a desperate man who needed his cuts to land with weight. The guard had been repaired once. The grip would need replacing soon.
It was good enough.
"How much?" Lucien asked.
"Eight crowns."
"Three."
The smith stared at him. "Leave."
"The repair on the guard is visible, the grip is old, and the scabbard mouth is cracked. Three."
"Seven."
"Four."
"Six."
"Four and a half silver."
The smith's eyes narrowed. "You plan to use it or resell it?"
"Use it."
"Against what?"
"Bad decisions."
The smith grunted. "Five crowns."
Lucien slid four crowns and seven silvers onto the counter. "And you throw in a belt that won't snap if I run."
"You nobles always bargain like this?"
"No," Lucien said. "I'm told we're usually easier."
The smith looked at the coin, then at him, then barked out a short laugh. "Fine. Take the damned belt."
Lucien fastened the sword at his side before leaving the shop. The weight settled against his hip, plain and real. Not powerful. Not impressive. But steel was honest in a way cards were not. Steel did not speak in riddles. Steel did not limit itself to once a day. Steel only asked whether the hand holding it understood distance, timing, and the cost of hesitation.
Lucien understood enough.
He had been a waste in his first life. A drunk, a debtor, a man who had run from his own name until the road stripped him down to stubbornness and bone. But failure had not spared him from violence. He had fought in alleys, on bridges, in roadside mud, under broken roofs, and once waist-deep in floodwater while something laughed from the dark. He had learned how to fall without offering his throat. How to take a shallow wound instead of a killing one. How to strike knees, wrists, eyes, fingers. How to use panic in others because he had known it so intimately in himself.
He also knew the Imperial Swordsmanship.
Not beautifully. Not as Delan would have demanded. Not with Gareth's natural force or Cedric's polished precision. But Lucien knew its bones. He knew where it was strong, where it was predictable, and where it lied to the person using it. He knew the high guard invited a low feint from someone familiar with the style. He knew the third retreating step failed on uneven ground. He knew its cleanest thrust was too committed for tight alleys and too proud for men who fought with knives.
In Avaron's barracks, such knowledge would have been correction.
In Prav's alleys, it was survival.
When he left the forge quarter, five men were following him.
By the time he turned into the darker streets beyond the tanners' run, there were six.
The three from the lantern had gathered friends. One moved ahead through a side passage. One stayed behind. Two drifted left, their shadows lengthening across walls stained by old damp. Another crossed a roofline briefly before dropping somewhere out of sight. The last was either very good or very stupid, because Lucien could hear his breathing every time the city noise thinned.
He kept walking.
The streets narrowed until the buildings leaned toward one another overhead. Lanterns became rare. Windows were shuttered. The stones underfoot grew slick with old water and worse things. Somewhere nearby, a dog growled, then yelped, then went silent.
Lucien stopped in a small junction between three alleys.
A good killing place.
He had chosen it carefully.
There was a wall at his back if he moved three steps. Broken crates to the right, useless as cover but useful as obstacles. A drainage channel cut along the left side of the street, shallow enough to step over if expected, treacherous if not. No open windows close enough for an archer to sit comfortably. No clear line for a charge. Bad for escape, but worse for surrounding him cleanly.
The men took the bait anyway.
The narrow-faced one appeared first, knife already drawn. The broad man stepped in behind Lucien with a short blade. Two others came from the side passage, one with a sword, the other with a long dagger. A fifth blocked the alley ahead with a rusted saber. The sixth stayed near the wall, holding a butcher's blade with a chipped edge.
Five blades.
Six, if he counted the butcher's tool, and Lucien absolutely did.
The blue window flashed into existence.
[Condition Fulfilled.]
[Five swords are surrounding you.]
[Band of Swords obtained.]
The air went cold enough that Lucien's breath almost misted.
The men did not see the window. They only saw a lone noble youth standing in a dark Prav alley with a new sword, a full purse, and the calm expression of someone too stupid to be afraid.
The narrow-faced man smiled. "You lost, little lord?"
Lucien's hand rested on his sword hilt. "No."
"Good," the man said. "Then you know what comes next."
The window shifted.
[Band of Swords has begun transformation.]
[Black Arcana responding to class: Death Dealer.]
A card appeared beside Lucien's shoulder, visible only to him.
For a heartbeat, it looked like the Band of Swords he remembered from his first life: pale blades suspended over darkness, ready to fall. Then the image blackened. The blades rusted at the edges. Their hilts became finger bones wrapped in burial cloth. The background turned into a battlefield after crows had finished eating, with swords planted in the ground like grave markers. Thin skeletal hands reached from below, each one gripping a different blade, pulling them free from dead soil.
The name wrote itself across the bottom in silver-black script.
[Band of Swords has transformed into Black Arcana.]
Dirge of Blades: The Funeral March
Lucien drew his sword.
Plain steel whispered out of its scabbard.
Around him, six men raised their weapons.
Beside him, unseen by all but Lucien, the black card turned slowly in the air, and the dead hands on its face began to pull their swords from the grave.