The capital of Vermilion was extremely far from the forest, as it was at the very edge of the kingdom. They would need to go through several major cities and towns to get to the capital.

It was a pretty long journey, but they did not need to do that on foot. After all, they were from the noble bloodline of the capital. They had a lot of money, which also meant they had money for flying ships. One was surely docked in a city, and with it they could make it back to the capital.

A flying ship was not something that a normal person could get. It was powered with ancient magic created by the dwarves. One alone could cost the price of a small town.

The city that they would need to arrive at in order to board their ship was closer, taking half a day at full speed.

[.....]

Argath City announced itself before it came into view.

The noise reached them first, a low and constant hum that grew with every mile the carriages covered, the sound of thousands of people and hundreds of transactions happening simultaneously, layered over each other until it became something closer to weather than sound. Then the smell, smoke and spice and animal and fresh-cut wood all pressed together into something that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant but was simply the scent of a place that never stopped moving.

Then the walls.

They were tall and dark grey, built from stone that had been there long enough to collect its own history in the cracks and discolouration along the lower sections.

The gates were open wide to accommodate the steady river of people and carts and animals flowing in and out in both directions, and above the gates and along the battlements the guards stood in armour carrying a crest that was distinct from the Vermilion phoenix. A sword with two coiling snakes winding up the blade in opposite directions, clean and deliberate, the mark of Argath City pressed into every chest plate and shield facing outward from the walls.

The river of people at the gates parted the moment the lead rider raised the Vermilion flag.

The guards on the walls saw it first. A signal passed down fast, and the gate guards were already moving before the carriages had fully slowed, clearing the crowd to either side with practiced efficiency, the gates opening wider to receive them without any ceremony beyond the speed of it.

Several merchants in the queue, who had clearly been waiting a long time, watched the carriages roll through with expressions that had long since made peace with how things worked.

They entered the city.

Ken looked out of the small carriage window and said nothing.

Argath stretched in every direction with the confidence of something that had been growing for a very long time and had no intention of stopping. The outer edges were dense and loud, buildings pressed close together with narrow streets running between them, stalls overflowing onto the roads, people negotiating in doorways, children moving through gaps that adults could not use, animals tied to posts outside establishments that had no space inside. Everything was for sale and everyone was selling.

But further in, visible even from the carriage window, the city changed its character. The buildings grew taller and further apart, the stone cleaner, the streets wider and better kept.

Merchant houses with proper signage. Establishments with guards at the door. The wealth did not announce itself loudly in that part of the city, it simply made everything quieter and more deliberate, which was its own kind of announcement.

Ken’s eyes moved across all of it steadily, taking it in without any particular expression on his face.

Then they moved to the alleys.

There were figures in them. Not moving, not buying, not doing any of the things that the rest of the city was doing. They stood or leaned in the gaps between buildings and in the shadows under overhanging upper floors, and their eyes were on the carriages with a quality of attention that was different from the curiosity of ordinary people watching something expensive pass by.

This was the attention of people running calculations.

Ken watched them without making it visible that he was watching them.

At the front of the procession, the white-haired woman riding with the three unhelmeted figures let her gaze move to the left side of the road for a moment, then the right, then back ahead. Her expression did not change. Her hand did not move toward her weapon. But her posture shifted by a degree that only someone looking for it would notice, something settling into a readier position beneath the surface of her composure.

Inside the front carriage, the suited man was looking out of his own window with the particular stillness of someone who had stopped actually seeing the scenery and started seeing something else entirely. His eyes moved to an alley entrance as they passed it, held there for a fraction of a second longer than casual interest would explain, and then moved forward again.

Three people. Three separate observations. No one said anything about it.

The carriages rolled on toward the port.

The flying ship was visible from a distance, and it stopped the eye immediately. It sat in the elevated dock at the city’s port quarter like something that had been built to make everything around it look provisional by comparison.

The hull was dark treated wood reinforced with metal plating along the lower sections, the joinery clean and exact, the lines of it carrying that particular quality of something built by people who understood both function and the impression that function could make. Rigging ran between masts that were shorter and sturdier than a sea vessel’s, and along the hull at intervals were formations carved directly into the wood, geometric and precise, ancient dwarf work that hummed with a faint energy even from a distance.

Mounted at the bow was the Vermilion phoenix in polished metal, catching the afternoon light.

It was not the largest thing in the port. It was the most deliberate.

The carriages came to a stop at the dock, and the knights dismounted. The doors opened and everyone stepped out into the cooler air of the port quarter, the smell of the city mixing here with something cleaner coming off the wind.

The captain was already walking toward them before they had fully assembled.

He was a broad man with a weathered face and the particular directness of someone who had spent enough time in the air to have no patience left for softening things. He went straight to the suited man and stopped in front of him, and whatever was in his expression made the suited man’s composure tighten very slightly at the edges.

"There is a problem," the captain said.

The suited man looked at him. "What kind of problem?"

The captain glanced once at the ship and then back. "She’s not turning on."