Chapter 234: Ash and Masks

At the same time, in the Black Market

Night had fallen over the market well before Tobias moved. Normally, this would be the time when he slept—it was midnight after all—but this was one of the busiest times in the market. The market was even more crowded than it had been earlier in the day.

Normally, Tobias would station someone to sell at the stall because this was the best time for business, but not tonight.

He was the one selling now.

He made sure to collect the clothes he had asked the young man to keep for him earlier. He wasn’t sure why but he was certain the clothes were going to come in handy.

He had expected the men to be vicious—Victoria did not send dainty emissaries—but he had not expected them to be careless in pacing. A dozen of them moved through the market in staggered pairs, eyes scanning, hands ready on hilt or strap. Their hoods were drawn low, faces masked in anonymity; armor pieces caught the lantern light with a predatory flash.

It was obvious they were not traders. Everyone knew now. But one rule of the black market was to mind your business—and besides, it wasn’t like they were disrupting trade after all. They moved like a hunting pack with a contract. Tobias still remembered the plan they had for him. They were sent to kill him.

He wondered if they thought that just because they had only one mission or goal in mind, they didn’t need to move discreetly.

Or maybe it wasn’t only Victoria who had sent them. Everyone knew the enclave sought to control the black market. In the past, they had resorted to destroying it, but immediately after they did, it opened up in another location. It was like a game of cat and mouse: the enclave sought to destroy, but the market still stood.

There was still a part of Tobias that was curious though. The enclave sought to own the black market and even made sure it was known that buying or trading at all was forbidden, so why were Victoria’s people here? What was the aim?

Tobias burned with the need to get that information. But first, he had to survive. He had thought carefully about how to turn their plan against them.

Panic!

If the whole market was in panic, then they would not have the opportunity to double-check if their mission had been carried out.

He made sure no one saw him before slipping into the shadows. He made his way to the forest near the black market—the same place where he had heard them talking about how they would lure him out with money. The joke was on them.

He made sure no one saw him and pretended he was going to take a piss. Then, in one swift motion, he let the spark flare.

He made sure the flames caught on a dried log and watched as they spread before sneaking away.

Immediately after he left, he heard a woman shout.

"Fire! There’s fire in the woods!" she screamed.

Another woman screamed loudly when she heard it, and just like that, the chatter in the black market stopped.

People ran to put out the fire, but while that was going on, Tobias’s gaze was on Victoria’s men.

He thought maybe they’d help—but he should have known they wouldn’t.

They stayed on their mission at first. One of them barked orders, voice flat as a blade. The client who had bought the Skylur remains from Tobias cursed through his mask when he noticed a child slipping between legs and over barrels, the sack of coin pulled tight in the boy’s arms. He took off with his men in a line meant to trap—fast, silent, brutal.

Tobias was sure that coin was what they planned to use in luring him out. But what if the coin wasn’t with them? he thought to himself with a smile.

The child ran fast. He ran like someone whose life was on the line. He darted between crates, over a fallen barrel, under the bell of a closed lantern. He was small and quick and grinning in the way only the very young can grin when danger tastes like a dare. One of Victoria’s men lunged, caught air, and cursed when his foot hit a crate and the lid tore his shin.

A merchant beside him waved an iron tray across the attacker’s face to stop the swing.

"Care to check my goods?" the merchant asked with a wide smile.

The man stumbled and released a curse.

The merchant didn’t expect it. Even Tobias, who was watching from a distance, never anticipated what came next.

The man unsheathed his sword and pierced the merchant through the heart. The merchant’s eyes went wide as he fell to the ground.

"He’s dead!" a woman screamed. "There are killers in the market! There’s a dead body here!"

Merchants slammed shutters across counters with practiced moves. Crates were shoved into doorways. Hands lifted to fetch what mattered—pouches, ledgers, goods. But the real valuables were people: wives and sons dragged to back rooms, children shoved under tables as lantern light jittered across faces. The market’s rules peeled away under the heat of fear.

That one dead man made way for a massacre.

There were rules in the black market—unspoken but ironclad: do not shift beneath these tunnels, never drag a fight where honest trade occurs, and never, ever disrupt business. They had all lived by those rules because the market’s survival depended on a fragile order. For the first time in years, that order was about to be broken.

Tobias kept his head as others lost theirs. He had to find the child first—and fast. If any of Victoria’s people found the child, they wouldn’t spare him. If they could kill a man who just wanted to sell his products, they could kill anyone.

This had not been a part of his plan. This wasn’t what he had in mind when he put it into action.

The market was chaos. People ran as blood flew like rain. Tobias made sure his people were safe. He didn’t wait until it got to them. He told them to move.

"Boss," one of his people reported, "they blocked the entrance."