Merran's practiced smile faltered for the first time as Elder Neria's command echoed through the hall. The ledger beneath his arm felt suddenly heavier, as if the ink itself had weight. He tightened his gloved hand over the leather, fingers whitening. For a heartbeat his calm slipped, a tiny, human crack in the porcelain.

(Shit… if I stall, I'll look guilty. If I show them, they'll notice. Calm down, Merran. Just another trade. Just another game.)

He bowed, the perfect picture of obedience. Sweat gathered at his temple although his clothes remained immaculate.

"Of course, Pearl Matron. I am but a humble merchant. I hide nothing from my beloved Pearlbay."

From his satchel he unfurled the scrolls thin sheets of vellum rolled like sleeping things. He smoothed them across the elder's table with a flourish that said this was routine, nothing to fear. Inked coastlines uncoiled in neat calligraphy; shoals, reefs and currents were charted in a mariner's hand. Some pages brimmed with fine detail, the work of someone who had listened to old captains and traced every harbor mouth.

Khael's gaze sharpened the instant the parchment touched wood. His dragon-marked instincts older than habit stirred against the ink. He leaned closer, nostrils flaring as if he could sniff deceit.

(This ink… fresh. Not weeks old, but days. Why redraw what's already known? Unless he's covering something.)

Lira reached forward, gentle, exact. Her finger hovered over a page. "These show the reef caves south of Pearlbay… but here." She tapped a wash of blank parchment where the map should have continued. "Why is this missing?"

Kaen's brow scrunched into a question only he could crack. "Yeah… even I know that's not right. I've seen those cliffs. They lead somewhere."

Merran's chuckle came too quickly, a sound forced into polite pockets. "Ah, merely an error, nothing more. Old maps fade, salt eats the ink. You understand, yes?"

The excuse smelled of desperation.

Rael stepped forward, blade tip ghosting the table's edge. His voice was low, mean as a snapped wire. "Errors don't make ink fresh. You left it out on purpose. What are you hiding, merchant?"

The air in the hall tightened. Guardians murmured behind clenched teeth; villagers edged nearer like prey at a scent. Merran's knuckles whitened on the scroll's edge as his mind ran through options and outcomes at a speed his smooth face didn't betray.

(Damn them… they're sniffing too close. If they trace it to the fragments, if they find the shard site, the whole deal collapses. The Hollow Nine won't forgive failure. I must twist this divert their eyes elsewhere.)

He spread another map with theatrical speed, slapping it across the blank space as if to distract. "Look! See here, the northern ridges, where currents twist. Surely that's where your troubles begin? The sea is wild; it always provides surprises."

Khael's voice cut through the murmuring hall like a blade.

"Why are you so eager to point us north, merchant? We don't even know why the tide is raging like this. Why insist the monster is there… unless you want us looking in the wrong place?"

Then Ceyla's eyes narrowed like a blade finding grain. "He is… lying... If you keep lying, Pearlbay will burn before your profits ever reach your hands."

Merran's smile thinned, a crack showing calculation beneath the charm. His mouth opened, closed. Nothing came. His practiced voice returned, but brittle now. "Surely, young knight, you don't mean to accuse me, your faithful supplier…. of treachery? What could I possibly gain from monsters and storms?"

No one believed it. The pearl-lamps hummed, their light flicking doubt into warm faces. Murmurs rose like tidewater.

Juno stepped forward, close enough that Merran could smell wet ink and the faint tang of sea on his breath. He cracked his palm against his other hand a sound like a bone snapping and his voice rolled slow and dangerous. "I think you're stalling. And if you keep talking, I might stop caring about your excuses."

Kaen's grin was all teeth and flame as he crossed his arms, the heat in his fingertips more irritation than threat. "Yeah, and you got that shady face too. Even I can tell you're sweating."

Rael's hand slid to his sword not a grand gesture, just the quiet readiness that carried more menace than shouting. His voice, when he used it, was thin and lethal. "People died here. Families lost everything. If you know something, and you're hiding it, I'll carve the truth out of you."

The hall bristled. Captain Roan's hand hovered at his sword hilt. The fisherfolk who'd come to watch leaned together, dubbing their whispers into a chorus of suspicion.

Elder Neria's staff struck the table with authority; the single sound cut the room down to silence. "Guards!" she commanded.

Pearl-armored sentries moved with the crystalline precision of long practice. Halberds slid out of racks, their metal singing as they crossed, and two guards closed around Merran with businesslike care.

Elder Moe, leaning heavy on his cane-like tail, watched through watery lids and rasped into the hush. "What's this now?"

Khael stepped into the light, voice even but edged with surf-hardened steel. "I think this merchant knows more than he admits. Whatever he hides, it's tied to the tide and to those fragments."

The room fractured in a dozen stares, an audible intake like breath held too long. Merran's practiced smile trembled, but he kept his hands flat on the table, the pose of an honest man.

(Damn them… they're too close. If they find the shard site, it's over. Hollow Nine will gut me. I can't let this unravel.)

He adopted a look of wounded civility and spread his palms. "Young ones, you misunderstand. I am but a trader. I chart seas for safe passage, blank spaces? Dangerous currents. No sailor worth his salt charts them precisely."

But the ledger his life on paper looked obscene now, an artifact of profit under a roof of grief. Voices grew sharp.

Elder Neria's next words were soft and absolute. "You will not leave Pearlbay, Merran. Not until this is resolved."

The guards guided him toward the stone doorways that led to the tide-cells low rooms carved into the cliffs where outsiders might be secured. Merran's smile returned like a cracked mask.

"As you command, Pearl Matron," he said, but his eyes flicked fast, evaluating exits, routes, risks.

Kaen spat a soot-dark ember to the floor and frowned. "Don't try anything stupid while we watch."

Rael's hand didn't lower from his blade. His voice was a wire pulled taut. "Speak now. What did you do?"

For the first time, Merran's lips worked as if unmooring a secret might be tempting but then he fastened the merchant face back on.

"You outsiders," he said, offensive civility like salve, "you bring swords and questions. Perhaps the sea turns for reasons you do not comprehend. Storms, currents, old tempers."

Captain Roan's patience snapped. He stepped forward until their faces were inches apart. "Save it. We'll ask the right questions with witnesses."

The guards tightened their hold. Merran was escorted from the hall beneath the quiet storm of looks that could scorch skin. In the corridor beyond the doors, he felt the cool press of stone and the ledger against his ribs as if it were a talisman. His thoughts hissed.

(Hold on. The Hollow Nine will move. They'll use confusion to take the shards. If I vanish, they'll think me innocent; if I stay, they watch me. Either way, the plan goes forward. The storm will mask the theft.)

As the heavy doors thudded closed, Khael watched Merran go. His face, by design, revealed nothing calm enough to make people trust him, hard enough to make them wary. He bent toward Elder Neria.

"We'll search the north and the south. Every ledger, every coil of rope, every whisper. No one profits from this while I stand."

Elder Neria's nod was a brittle break, small and resolute. "Do so discreetly. Pearlbay needs its shield tonight. Protect it with your lives."

The hall emptied like breath released. Outside, the sound of the sea pressed against the cliff patient, hungry, ignorant of justice. Under the door, a sliver of light fell on the ledger Merran had left open; one page fluttered in a draft and revealed, for a moment, a tiny sigil inked in the corner a black knot of lines that did not belong to any merchant's hand.

Khael saw it. His jaw tightened.

(That sigil. Hollow Nine.)

He closed his fist around the table's edge until knuckles blanched. A low, bitter laugh escaped him not of humor but of iron resolve.

Pearlbay's wounds were still raw, and danger had teeth beyond the ocean. Tonight the guardians had captured a merchant; by dawn they might need to stare into the dark and count enemies framed in shadow, not only in fins and teeth but in ink and silver.

Outside, the tide heaved and fell, patient as a predator. Inside the hall, plans were drawn in hushed voices, maps unrolled, and a small band readied itself for work that would take them up cliff paths, into caves, and through fine lies that had been sewn into the ledger's pages.

Merran's footsteps faded down the corridor. His last thought before the door sealed was a promise and a threat both: (They've trapped me, for now. The Hollow Nine will not be patient. They move swift, and their knives are silent. Watch them sleep, and wake to ash.)

The sea kept time at the window. Khael pressed his palm to the wood, feeling the thrum of the tide through the grain, and swore a quiet vow that tasted like salt and iron.

"Then we'll be faster," he said under his breath not a promise to Merran, not a threat to the Hollow Nine, but a promise to the village that had trusted them with its life.

Outside, Pearlbay's lamps blinked against the dark. The ledger lay closed in a cell that smelled faintly of paper and fear. The war beneath the waves had become a war of maps, sigils, and stolen pieces and the guardians, wind-burned and tired, would have to learn to fight on these terms as well.

To be continue

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.