The obsidian docks at midnight were an absolute mess, proving that no matter how grand a fantasy kingdom claimed to be, its infrastructure was always the first thing to rot.
A thick, salty fog rolled off the black water of the harbor, carrying the putrid stench of cheap coal smoke, wet timber, and rotten fish.
It was freezing, damp, and completely dark, but I didn’t care about the miserable weather.
My eyes were tightly locked onto the massive iron crates sitting on the edge of the central pier.
I pulled the hood of my dark woolen cloak tighter around my shoulders, making sure my face was entirely obscured.
This cloak was a standard commoner’s garment I had smuggled out of the servant quarters, designed to blend into the shadows of the capital’s worst district.
Behind me, Kaelen moved like a silent shadow given physical mass.
His hand was resting casually on the leather-wrapped hilt of his broadsword, his golden eyes scanning the misty perimeter with a dangerous, hyper-focused intensity.
Even though things had been incredibly awkward between us since our tense conversation in Julian’s office, his protective instincts were still fully locked into place.
He stayed exactly two paces behind me, keeping his movements fluid and silent, positioned perfectly as my primary line of defense.
“The harbor guards rotate their shifts every twenty minutes,” I whispered, glancing back at him over my shoulder, keeping my voice low enough to be swallowed by the sound of the waves lapping against the wooden pilings.
“I managed to swipe the official security schedule from the palace treasury ledger this morning while the head scribe was at lunch.
The guards stationed out here are operating on outdated paperwork, so they have absolutely no idea we’re coming.”
“Julian’s rebel crew is already hiding beneath the lower boardwalk,” Kaelen murmured, his deep baritone vibrating in the chilly night air.
He leaned down slightly so his voice wouldn’t carry across the open pier.
“The moment you give the signal, they will take the cargo.
But you are playing a dangerous game, Evangeline.
Lord Silas didn’t hire regular city watchmen for this operation.
He hired hardened mercenaries from the borderlands.”
“Which means they cost him an exorbitant amount of money,” I whispered back, a sharp, confident smile cutting across my face beneath the cover of my hood.
“And expensive assets are always the very first things to be cut when a noble runs out of operational capital.
Silas is running a basic, uninspired scam.
He’s stealing raw iron from the royal foundries, falsifying the official shipping manifests to show lower yields, and liquidating the surplus here on the black market to pay for his private army.
If we steal his shipment tonight, we completely cut off his funds and leave his mercenaries unpaid.
A mercenary with an empty wallet is no longer a threat.”
We crept along the side of Warehouse 7, a sprawling, ugly building made of rotted timber and reinforced iron plates at the edge of the pier.
I stopped near a high window and peeked through a narrow crack in the rotted wood panels.
Inside, five heavily armed mercenaries wearing unmarked steel breastplates were pacing around a stack of sixteen massive wooden crates.
At the far end of the room, sitting under a flickering oil lamp, a man in fancy velvet robes, Lord Silas’s chief logistics clerk was busy stamping a pile of fake shipping manifests with a forged royal seal.
“He’s not even trying to hide the discrepancy,” I muttered, shaking my head in sheer disbelief.
“He’s just counting on the fact that nobody in the palace council knows how to do basic addition and subtraction.
It’s pathetic.”
“Just tell me when to move,” Kaelen whispered, leaning in closer to my ear.
His chest brushed against the back of my shoulder, and my heart instantly did a weird, violent flip.
It wasn’t fear.
It was that strange, warm energy flaring up behind my ribs again, perfectly matching the heavy rhythm of his breathing.
My face felt suddenly hot despite the freezing fog rolling off the sea.
I shook my head quickly, forcing myself to look away from him and focus on the task at hand.
*Focus, Melissa.
Do the math, stay alive.
Don’t let a handsome bodyguard ruin your spreadsheets.*
“No need to fight them head-on and risk damaging the cargo,” I said, pulling a heavy brass seal from my cloak pocket—the official master clearance I had extracted from the high treasury vault.
Kaelen, smash the outside lanterns.
Let’s give them an artificial blackout.”
Kaelen nodded once, his expression completely blank.
He closed his eyes, and the air around us suddenly became incredibly heavy, pressing down on my eardrums.
With a loud, simultaneous *crack*, the glass lamps lining the exterior pier shattered all at once, their flames extinguished as the local air pressure spiked under his silent command.
Inside the warehouse, shouting immediately broke out as the light vanished.
“What happened to the exterior lamps?
Check the lines!
Secure the perimeter!”
I didn’t give them a single chance to figure out what was happening.
I shoved the heavy warehouse doors open and walked right inside, my dark cloak billowing behind me.
Kaelen stepped in right after me, his massive frame completely blocking the exit as he drew his gleaming steel sword, his golden eyes glowing dangerously in the dim indoor light.
The five mercenaries spun around, their hands flying to their weapons, but the moment the clerk saw the royal crest gleaming on the brass seal in my hand, he froze flat in his seat.
“By order of the Crown,” I announced, keeping my voice cold, clear, and loud enough to echo off the high timber ceilings.
“This facility is currently undergoing a surprise forensic audit.
Put your weapons down immediately, or your contracts are permanently terminated for treason.”
“The…
The Queen?” the clerk stammered, dropping his ink pen and staining his velvet robes.
He looked at me, then looked at the towering, gold-eyed warrior standing behind me, and began to sweat profusely.
“Your Majesty…
this is just private merchant trade.
There has been a misunderstanding with the cargo—”
“There is no misunderstanding, Master Finch,” I said, walking right up to his desk with slow, deliberate steps.
I reached out, picked up the messy papers, and scanned the numbers in a matter of seconds.
“Your paperwork says these crates are full of cheap agricultural scrap metal worth forty silver pieces per ton.
But based on the volume, the structural reinforcement of the transport pallets, and the official royal foundry stamps on the iron bands, this is high-grade military steel.
You’re short four thousand gold pieces, Master Finch.
Where is the missing capital?”
The mercenaries looked at each other, completely baffled.
They had no idea what an “audit” or a “capital discrepancy” was, but they knew a threat when they heard one.
One big guard stepped forward, raising a heavy spiked mace.
“I don’t care what the girl says.
Lord Silas pays our gold.
Kill the guard and secure the queen!”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence.
Kaelen didn’t even lift his sword to strike.
He just took one heavy step forward and slammed his heavy boot against the floorboards.
An invisible wave of crushing gravity slammed into the room like a physical wall.
The air felt like solid brick.
The five mercenaries were instantly crashed to their knees, gasping for breath as their armor suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
Their weapons became too heavy to hold and clattered loudly to the floor.
The clerk fell out of his chair, pinned flat on his stomach, his face shoved right into his own inkwell as he whined in terror.
I was standing right in the middle of the room, completely unaffected by the pressure, but that terrifying chest pain started burning again.
My heart throbbed hard, perfectly copying the heavy, pulsing rhythm of Kaelen’s magic.
For a brief second, weird glowing lines and equations flashed across my vision, mapping out the weight and kinetic energy of everything in the room before vanishing.
I grabbed my chest, trying to breathe through the heat.
*I’m supposed to be hollow.
I don’t have magic.
Why is my body reacting to him?*
“Julian!” I called out, my voice a little tight but steady.
“The inventory is clear.
Get your men in here.”
The lower loading doors burst open, and dozens of slum rebels poured into the warehouse, led by Julian.
The rebel leader looked at the pinned guards, then looked at the massive crates of iron, a huge, smug grin breaking across his handsome face.
“You actually did it,” Julian said, walking up to the iron crates and laughing loudly.
“With this much steel, the Silt District can forge enough weapons and armor to protect ourselves from the lords’ conscription squads for the next three winters.
Silas is completely ruined.”
“Silas is going to excel in exile,” I corrected, turning around as Kaelen finally let go of the gravity pressure.
The mercenaries collapsed onto the floor, completely exhausted and panting for air.
“Take the crates to your hidden workshops in the lower levels.
Tomorrow morning, I’m showing these fake papers to the High Council.
By lunchtime, Silas will be stripped of his title, and his money will belong to the crown.”
Julian walked right up to me, standing way too close.
He smelled like rain, sweat, and cheap tobacco.
He leaned down, his voice dropping to a smooth, teasing whisper.
“You really are something else, Evangeline.
You talk like a scholar, think like a demon, and actually get things done.
I’m starting to see why my brother stays so fiercely quiet around you.”
Before I could even think of a witty comeback, Kaelen stepped right between us, his big shoulder shoving Julian back a few inches.
The air between the two brothers instantly turned icy as they stared each other down, gold eyes clashing against amber.
“The job is done, Julian,” Kaelen growled, his voice dangerously low and protective.
“Take the iron and leave.
The Queen needs to get back to the castle before the morning guards notice she’s missing from her chambers.”
Julian raised his hands in a mocking surrender, smirking.
“Whatever you say, Commander.
Wouldn’t want to upset the royal asset.” He looked past Kaelen’s broad shoulder, winking at me.
“See you around, Evangeline.
The Silt District is officially on your side.”
As the rebels started rapidly moving the crates into the dark alleys of the slums, I walked back out into the freezing fog of the pier, my mind already calculating the next phase of the political restructuring.
Lord Silas was out of the picture.
The slums were secured.
My market share of power was growing.
But as Kaelen took his familiar spot two paces behind me, his silent, protective energy radiating through the mist, I knew the biggest mystery in my ledger wasn’t the High Council.
It was the bodyguard behind me and the strange, fiery echo waking up in my own blood.