It took time, too much time, checking each crate. Every few minutes, Keiser had to pull Tyron back, crouched low behind a stack of boxes or a draped cage, as the porters descended the stairs again. Their boots echoed against the stone floor, the clatter of wood and iron filling the undercroft as they struggled with another crate boxes.

"Shit, how come each of these are so damned heavy?" one porter spat, nearly dropping his side of the heavy load.

"Quit whining," the other grumbled, bracing his shoulder against the weight and shifting to help. "What, you'd rather be upstairs working with those hirelings?"

The first man visibly shivered, shaking his head. "No fucking way. I'll take crates over standing next to those monsters any day."

Their voices faded as they carried the cargo up toward the auction hall.

Keiser exhaled quietly through his nose, shaking off the distraction, and slipped back into motion. "Ignore them," he muttered under his breath, though it was more for himself than Tyron.

He pried the lid off the next crate, his movements quick and practiced. More trinkets. Gems, jewelry, carved artifacts from some foreign land. He pushed them aside with little care, they weren't what they came here for.

The process repeated. Crate after crate, lid after lid. Vials of liquid sealed in wax, bundles of parchment, strange trinkets that hummed faintly with mana. Too many things that could draw eyes, not the one thing they needed.

With so many containers scattered across the undercroft, they split the work. Tyron had taken to opening crates on his own, prying them up with clumsy urgency, leaving the lids resting slightly ajar once he was finished. It made Keiser twitch, an open crate was an invitation to suspicion if anyone sharp-eyed came through, but so far the porters hadn't noticed.

Ten minutes passed, maybe more. The footsteps kept coming and going, the endless shuffle of porters ferrying goods to the floor above, and still the two of them worked, half the crates already searched, half still looming in the dim light.

And every minute that slipped away dragged Keiser's nerves thinner, the weight of failure pressing heavier on his chest.

Keiser had been too preoccupied with scanning the stockpiled crates, his mind cycling through the vague descriptions he'd gathered. A ruby-red heart, shaped like a human fist, veined with scales, that was what the boy's mother's heart was supposed to look like.

It was too abstract, too specific, and with every ornate trinket and glittering artifact he uncovered, he found himself dismissing them as decoys, distractions, baubles crafted to look valuable.

He moved briskly, sifting through items without pause, but behind him, Tyron had stopped moving.

The boy's steps faltered, his shoulders rigid, his breath catching like something invisible had reached out and seized him. There was a pull, deep, instinctive, that rattled through his chest and stirred something primal in his blood. His beast half recognized it before his mind could. His heart pounded, each thud in his ribcage echoing the call coming from one particular cage.

It was larger than the others, looming, shrouded in heavy cloth that failed to hide everything. The coverings sagged where the frame bulged outward, unable to properly conceal the thing within.

Compelled, Tyron moved closer, his hands trembling as he reached for the edge of the fabric. He hesitated, then leaned just enough to peer through a gap where the lamplight leaked in.

Inside, he braced himself for the sight of something massive, monstrous, something befitting the size of such a cage. A towering beast of muscle, leathery wings and claw, perhaps.

But instead, his eyes caught on a far smaller form.

A silhouette, frail in comparison to the cage that held it.

And in the center of that darkness is a child, small, still, with a spill of long red hair that glinted like fire beneath the dim light breaking through the cloth.

Tyron's breath hitched, his pulse kicking faster. His beast blood screamed at him that this was no ordinary child. Something about the presence behind those bars demanded reverence, fear… or both.

"Y–your highness…"

Keiser snapped his head up at the hushed voice, his hands still sifting through the splintered remains of another crate. He'd been checking its contents, rushing through relics and trinkets under the flickering lamplight, when the faint echo of boots on stone reached him.

The porters were coming back.

He stilled, listening. Their voices carried first before their figures emerged, grumbling, irritated.

"…shitty crates weren't secured properly…"

"…split open again, and we'll be the ones paying for it…"

Keiser cursed inwardly. He had calculated their rotations carefully, but the rhythm had changed. They were moving faster now, returning sooner than he expected. He wasn't ready.

Without hesitation, he reached out, fingers snagging the edge of Tyron's cloak. The boy startled as Keiser yanked him down, forcing him low to the ground, pressing their bodies into the shadowed corner beside the very same cage Tyron had been gawking at earlier. The heavy cloth muffled them, but the faint shift set Keiser's nerves on edge.

"Stay down," Keiser hissed, his hand firm on Tyron's shoulder. He waited until the footsteps passed just pass their hiding spot before leaning close, his whisper edged sharp as a blade.

"Why the hell were you just standing there?" His eyes narrowed, more furious at the risk than at the boy himself. "I thought I could trust you to finally know the timing, their steps, how long they take between loads."

Tyron flinched under his glare. His sky-blue eyes flickered, not with fear of Keiser's anger but with something else, conflict, a pull toward the cage they hid beside. His clenched fists trembled against his chest as though he was holding something in.

Keiser, still crouched, studied him for a beat longer, his irritation biting back into silence. The boy's breaths came shallow and fast, but not from panic. No… it was something else. Something Keiser didn't yet understand, and that unsettled him far more than the approaching porters.

The sound of crates being heaved and boots retreating again gave them a brief window, but Keiser didn't relax. He kept his voice low, his gaze cutting back toward the boy.

"Focus, Tyron. Whatever has your head turned, set it aside. We can't afford mistakes."

But even as he said it. Keiser froze when he finally caught the boy's expression in full. Tyron's sky-blue eyes were no longer merely glowing in the dark, they seemed almost luminescent now, bright enough to be better than the faint lamplight.

Tyron's pupils, instead of tightening to pinpricks as before, were wide, dilated, consuming nearly all the color around them. It was the look of someone being pulled by instinct, something primal stirring just beneath his human surface.

The boy didn't dare speak this time. Instead, he jerked his chin in a subtle, almost jerky motion. He couldn't help but follow the boy's silent gesture toward the covered cage just right beside them.

For a moment he thought it strange. Unlike the others, which rang with restless sounds, metal claws against bars, low growls, wings fluttering against cramped confines, this one was silent. Too silent.

Not even a shift of weight, no hiss of breath, no scraping. For a cage that size, big enough to hold three of the others combined, it was unnatural.

Cautiously, Keiser shifted his angle, peering at the massive cage under its draped cloth. His frown deepened. The covering was heavy, but poorly fitted, gaps in the folds left just enough space for a curious eye to catch the outline of what lay within.

He leaned closer, his breath caught in his throat as the dim lamp-light fell into one of the openings. What he saw was not the hulking silhouette of some winged beast, nor the scaled hide of a Sheol predator. Instead...

"…what the fuck?" Keiser wheezed, too sharply, his voice breaking out louder than intended.

Behind the bars, huddled small in the vast emptiness of the cage, was a child. A child with hair that burned a deep, red, spilling down in tangled locks, the strands glinting faintly under the passing light. The figure was still, almost too still, as if waiting, or sleeping, or perhaps only pretending to be either.

Keiser jerked back slightly, disbelief etched across his face. His mind churned.

'A child? Here? In this place?'

There had been no mention of this. Nothing in his lists of items accounted for a beast that had escaped the royal brigade. The young beast were supposed to have been counted as they were subjugated, with a final check to ensure none were left in the streets. Nothing in all his years had prepared him for a sight like this.

He looked to Tyron, who was trembling, chest rising and falling too quickly, his eyes locked on the cage with a raw intensity that unsettled Keiser even more.

"What the hell is this…?" Keiser muttered under his breath, though he wasn't sure if he was asking Tyron, or himself.

Beside him, there was a sudden tug on his cloak. Keiser looked back. Tyron has his hand clamped tight in the fabric as though trying to hold him back. His eyes, wide and terrified, were locked on his eyes.

Then, barely above a whisper, the boy's lips moved.

"…It's a dragon."

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