The streets of Aurumvale were already stirring by the time they stepped out into the morning - alive with a carefully measured sort of motion, like a performance just beginning its first act.
The city was beautiful, in the way only cities that knew they were beautiful could be. Everything shone. Everything gleamed. The cobblestones were laid in deliberate patterns that caught and scattered sunlight in fractured golden beams. Dust from passing carts caught the light and glittered like powdered ore. Even the gutters were polished.
The buildings were close, built in tight lines of soft ochre and dusky white stone, their rooftops painted with gold and copper dyes that shimmered under the rising sun. Some had carvings along the edges - celestial motifs, sunbursts and moon phases, likely placed there for Sol and Luar alike, though the balance had clearly shifted toward Sol’s dominance here.
Guild banners hung from nearly every building, swaying in the warm breeze. Deep reds, rich blues, embroidered silvers - too pristine, too numerous. They were like masks - declarations of power hung like ornaments. And if you looked closely enough, you could see the strings that held them up.
Merchants stood at their thresholds, hawking wares with smiles that looked a little too rehearsed. Their voices carried - bright, persuasive - but Lyra noted the ones who didn’t shout. The ones who stood silently, eyes tracking every movement in the street. Guards passed regularly, wearing gold-detailed leather and silver-threaded capes, their pace slow and deliberate. They didn’t seem in a hurry - but they were always watching.
Aurumvale didn’t just want to be rich. It wanted to be admired.
It wanted you to know it had nothing to hide - which almost always meant it did.
Lyra moved with purpose, weaving through the gathering crowd. Her gaze swept the shadows between alleys, the glint of weapons at guard belts, the slight hesitations in the way people spoke. It wasn’t paranoia. It was pattern recognition. And something about Aurumvale felt... wrong. Like the city was smiling too wide.
She approached the bounty board near the market’s edge, mounted beneath a wrought-iron arch carved with sun symbols and inlaid with opal and gold. Dozens of papers were pinned in layered clusters - some curling at the edges with age, others crisp and new. Petty thefts. Escort requests. One about a missing dog, its description oddly detailed.
"It's all worthless," she muttered, more to herself than to Korie before turning and looking round, over his head. "This can't be the only board."
There were far too many, yet Korie recognized only few. He'd never been the type to roam during and explore the local market in Brimmond, but even he knew of the most popular guilds, the ones whose carts would cross their streets dragged down the road, cloaked in those colors and insignia of theirs.
Blacksmiths, jewelers, tailors and others within Brimmond, they'd all supply their crafts with imports by the Sovereign Concord. Their guild banners were also the ones most frequently spotted along the buildings and in the streets, a fabric that appeared expensive to even the untrained eye; dyed with golden yellows and rich reds, the insignia itself was painted on in black, SC in a font that was difficult to read. Fancy. A bit pretentious. Both to be expected from one of the richest guilds in Aurumvale and the north.
Korie kept his hood on and his head low, carefully following along after Lyra who moved with the same intensity as always. He'd never met anyone as alert as her in his past. What she was expecting to jump out at them, Korie could hardly guess. A royal guard of her ranking, she should be walking around as though she owned the very stone they stepped foot on. It worked out for Korie at least; if he allowed his paranoia to control him, it would probably appear normal to her, what with her habits.
His hands reached for the papers, softly tracing the text as he squinted. The voices all around them made it difficult to stay focused; far too many people, far too little space to fit them. He clutched his coat, instinctively attempting to appear smaller.
"Mmh..." He hummed, agreeing with her. He tried not to let the little smile across his lips show at the small win, bowing his head. None of the bounties offered a lot of gold. Perfect. He reached for one of the pinned parchments, gently unpinning it with one hand and reading the text on it with the other. "We could kill some rats," He offered, showing her his finding.
Written in lazy scribble, "Rats in the cellar. Need them gone. Ten gold reward," Korie read out loud, chewing on the inside of his cheek and turning to her, his face appearing as neutral as it usually did.
Lyra gave him the look.
It started slow - her chin tipping down ever so slightly, lips pressing into a razor-thin line, one brow lifting in silent, devastating judgement. Her eyes narrowed, green and cold as sea-glass dragged through winter surf, and her head tilted just enough to suggest that he was about five seconds from having that parchment stuffed somewhere deeply uncomfortable. It was a slow-burning, soul-searing expression that said without a single word: You are absolutely testing the last of my patience.
“Rats,” she repeated, flatly. Like the word itself offended her.
Her gaze moved pointedly from the parchment in his hand to his face, then down to the finely forged sword at her hip, and back again. “You think I put on seventy pounds of armour this morning,” she said, with the poise of a noblewoman and the bite of a dagger, “to go and stab vermin in someone’s cellar?”
Korie said nothing. Probably wisely.
Lyra took a slow step forward, not threatening - just precise. Deliberate. Her voice dropped low, her tone soaked in disdain. There was venom in her calm, the sort that slithered beneath skin and lingered, unseen but deeply felt. “If I wanted to spend my morning in ankle-deep filth, I’d have stayed in the army kitchens and fought off the roaches with a ladle.”
She turned back to the board without waiting for a reply, her armour creaking softly with the movement. Her voice floated over her shoulder, cold and imperious. “Let's find something that doesn’t insult both our skill and our intelligence.”
And just like that, she dismissed him - like a commander denying a recruit’s first strategy. The kind of dismissal that wasn’t loud, but carried weight all the same.
Rats. She had half a mind to make him eat the damn parchment.
Her outburst had him stone faced, holding back any form of a visible reaction. He'd not expected it to bother her so much, but her fury was noted and duly ignored. Something about her anger, her near snooty attitude at the mere suggestion of cleaning up rats, was incredibly entertaining to watch. Satisfying, even; Lyra had been pushing him enough on this journey thus far, chasing him around the land with such determination only days prior, so it was about time he pushed back in return. Even if she clearly didn't stand for it.
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She turned on her heel, long cloak catching the air behind her, and strode away from the pathetic board as if its mere presence offended her. The wooden frame gave a groan in the wind - one last, pitiful wheeze of protest.
“Come on,” she called over her shoulder, her voice clipped and commanding. “Aurumvale’s not some forgotten hamlet. This can’t be the only board in the city.”
As she walked past, muttering her complaints, Korie moved to pin the rat bounty back onto the tall board, reaching for the thin pin that had kept it there. His eyes drifted, and that was when he caught something far more important in his sights. "Wait, wait--" Korie spoke, reaching out blindly to her to pat her arm thoughtlessly.
Lyra was already halfway turned, her boots echoing softly as she muttered under her breath about rat bounties and the tragic death of self-respect, when she felt Korie's hand tap her arm. She froze.
Not because the touch startled her. No, not that. But because of how instinctive it had been. Thoughtless, casual, like they were the kind of people who touched each other when they wanted attention. It sent an uncomfortable ripple through her chest, a strange warmth rising unbidden, and she very nearly whipped around to glare at him again.
But then he was already moving, already reaching.
She watched as he dug into the depths of the board with the tenacity of a man searching for buried treasure, parchment rustling, pins clattering, layers peeling away. A couple of unrelated postings fluttered to the ground in his haste - one half a wanted notice, the other just a smudged flier for some tavern’s poetry night - and she raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, until he pulled the paper free.
Then, she saw it.
He grabbed at the parchment he'd spotted; it was under layers and layers of other pinned bounties, but he could clearly see the number fifty in between the gaps. He didn't bother trying to figure out which pin held it up and tore it off, a paper or two coming with it and slowly floating onto the dirty cobble.
He held it between them, tilting his head curiously as he began to read out loud for them both. "Harpies. Fifty gold. Contact the Sovereign Guild past the Merchant’s Gate."
Fifty. Now that was a number worth pausing for.
He raised an eyebrow, lights dancing on his cheeks. Fifty gold was a significant amount, an offer he didn't particularly want to refuse. It would be enough for them to stay a few more days in Aurumvale, and at the same time it wouldn't be enough to pay for supplies for the road ahead. Their next destination involved subzero temperatures and a tall mountain; they'd need more than some dried meat or thin fabric to survive it. Considering he wanted a new set of armor on top of an expensive set of supplies, this marked an ideal amount of gold for both their goals.
He felt his ear flick, tickled by the sensation of hair against it, and realized he'd been standing a little too close to the human beside him. He stood up straighter and cleared his throat, offering her the bounty paper. "Have you fought harpies before?" He asked her, wondering if she had any knowledge regarding the beasts.
He'd fought harpies once in the past, though not out of want. They'd somehow managed to find their way into his cult's territory. Their presence had been accompanied by foul winds and the stench of decay, as those beasts had a habit of hoarding the bodies they tore apart. Highly territorial, they'd all attacked in one group when his cult had come to clean their sacred land of their presence, using their agility and flight to try and outmaneuver them, singing their vile, twisted tune, alluring enough to blind any person that heard.
Unfortunately for them, any servant of their cult was well trained not to fall for illusions and simultaneously only marched to the thrum of nobody else's but its song. The old memories and routines came to him, uninvited and intrusive, and he shut his eyes to push them away.
"Surely a foe of your caliber...?" He blinked his eyes open, focusing on her instead, forcing those thoughts low, low, low.
Her interest sharpened. She turned fully to face him, stepping closer as he held the sheet between them. Her eyes scanned the parchment again, slow and deliberate, reading between the lines. Not the words - those were straightforward. But it was what wasn’t written that caught her attention. The gaps. The assumptions. The danger implied in the reward alone. Fifty gold wasn’t pocket change. Not from a guild. Not for something easy.
Her fingers brushed the edge of the parchment as he offered it, and for a moment, she studied the words in silence. Harpies weren’t common in most parts of Eclipsia - not unless something was very wrong. They nested in cliffs and ruins, often drawn to sites of death and old magic. Vultures in a world already rotting. Her lips pressed together in a thin line. Slowly, she gave a small nod.
“I’ve fought them before,” she said, voice low. “Once. On the western coasts, just outside the Spine. Nest was built in an old lighthouse - half the local guard had already gone missing by the time we got there. We found what was left of them.”
She paused, memory flickering behind her eyes like a shadow beneath glass. Something in her shifted. Her fingers curled ever so slightly at her sides, already itching to wrap around the hilt of her blade. Her eyes narrowed faintly, not in suspicion but in focus. She stared down at the parchment, her gaze sharp and unblinking, the number fifty bold and solid at the top like a challenge carved in stone. Harpies. A real threat. A real fight. Not rats, not stolen chickens, not some drunken farmer who thought the wind was a ghost - actual danger. It had been too long since she’d drawn her blade for something that deserved it.
And gods, she missed it.
The weight of combat. The blur of motion. The way the world shrank down to a breath, a heartbeat, the edge of steel against screaming flesh. She didn’t crave blood - not like some did - but there was clarity in it. A kind of truth she hadn’t tasted in a while. Her lips twitched. Not quite a smile. But close. The first real spark of interest that had lit her eyes all day.
She looked at Korie then, and nodded once, firm and deliberate.
“Sounds like fun,” she said.
And this time, there was a flicker of eagerness in her voice, subtle but unmistakable. Not cold, not dry - just quiet anticipation. As if her armour had been too still for too long, and the steel at her hip had grown restless waiting for the right fight. She turned, already walking, already leaving the rat-stained board behind.
“Let’s find the Sovereign Guild,” she called over her shoulder. “Before someone else gets there first.”
Because if there was one thing worse than killing rats for coin - it was letting someone else take the fight she was meant to win.
Korie noticed that glint in her eye, a look she'd not shown him up until that point; it was a far call from the previous frustration that had clouded her green eyes. This was an energy he could gladly match. Reaching back, he tenderly slid his hand over the contours of his longbow, fastened with care to his bag. The old wood was still smooth in texture, perfectly preserved all that time and with hardly as much as a chip in it. The string, Would his old reflexes return after around ten years apart from the hunt? Pursuing outsiders, slaying beasts in the name of their God... it all felt like a lifetime away at that point, despite how vivid his recollections and intrusive memories could be.
He knew, deep down, his expertise would never falter, even if he wanted it to. Even if he wanted to pretend the past had never happened and that he was not the same man he used to be, he could feel it in the flex of his fingers, the beat of his heart thrumming wildly, his breath caught at his throat at the mere thought of actually using it again. The excitement. An excitement that made his limbs tingle with anticipation. Five years of waiting tables when he'd been raised and grown as a hunter had begun to take their toll on him. He could remember it then; living in that attic, pacing restlessly, his weapon only taken out to be caressed like a kitten.
To think he'd actually use it again...
His freckles flickered, lights flashing across his cheeks and illuminating the inside of his hood. He pulled down further over his face. Hold it together. He was far too excited over a harpy or two.
"To the Merchant's Gate, then."
