Chapter 14: Twelve Gloomhoof—and Every One of Them Advances to Rare

Chapter 14: The Cheapest Quote Wanted Him to Open the Gate

Marek’s message arrived while Cassian was sitting beside the sealed black-gold case.

It contained only three points.

Only one person truly understood this set of ordinary equipment: Toren Voss.

If Toren inspected it onsite, he would charge one service fee.

If he was kept away and forced to judge from samples alone, he would charge three.

Cassian stared at the last two lines, his thumb pressing hard against the edge of the paper.

Triple.

The man Marek had found was clearly valuable. Unfortunately, that value was biting into the exact place where Cassian hated paying extra.

He looked up at the cloth covering the main roll.

Drag the case behind the divine seat.

Cover the black-gold traces on the inner side of the Chain Gate. Blindfold Toren on the way in, remove it only when he reached the equipment, then take him away the moment he finished.

The roll, Veyra, the Shrine—everything could be hidden.

Cassian could save two service fees and still get the most reliable judgment.

The entire plan took shape in his mind almost instantly. He had even decided what Toren would and would not be allowed to see.

"You found someone?" Veyra asked.

Cassian told her the two prices.

"Onsite only costs one fee," he said. "I’ll move the roll."

Veyra looked at the long black-gold case beneath the cloth.

"Outsiders stop at the Chain Gate."

"I remember."

"And now you want to let one cross it."

Irritation rose in Cassian’s chest.

The gate was his. So was the money.

One sentence from Veyra was about to cost him two more service fees.

"He’ll be blindfolded."

"But he’ll know where the entrance is," Veyra said. "He’ll see the Chain Gate. He’ll also see that an ancient road behind it needs heavy transport equipment."

"I can control how much he sees."

"And the people inside?"

Veyra’s gaze settled on the main roll.

"You wouldn’t be moving them to protect them. You’d only be moving them because they’re standing in the way of the cheaper quote."

Cassian’s jaw tightened.

"That sentence just cost me two service fees."

"Then decide whether it’s worth the price."

Veyra did not choose for him.

She could not stop him, either. If Cassian opened the Chain Gate, Toren could enter.

Then a stranger would learn three things at once.

The Mausoleum’s true entrance.

The structure of the Chain Gate.

And the scale of the ancient road behind it that required heavy transport.

This was not a cheap repair.

It was Toren buying that intelligence with a two-fee discount.

Worse, Veyra would remember what happened today.

The next time Cassian asked whether she accepted another Covenant investment, she would no longer believe that the question truly protected her choice.

Once the entrance leaked, he could never take it back.

Nor could two more service fees buy back that kind of trust.

Cassian picked up Toren’s onsite quote and drew a line through it.

As the ink cut across the lowest price, the irritation in his chest abruptly turned into satisfaction.

Two service fees were not enough to buy the entrance to his territory.

Toren could sell his expertise. He could not buy discounted access to the Chain Gate.

"Three fees," Cassian replied to Marek. "The gate stays closed."

He had decided to pay two extra service fees to preserve this boundary.

Cassian turned toward Veyra.

Now he wanted to see exactly what the boundary he had paid to protect was guarding.

A prisoner who could only react when an enemy appeared?

Or a goddess of war who could still raise her banner by her own will, even while chained to a divine seat?

Every previous Covenant investment had answered an enemy, a road, or an immediate crisis.

This time, there was no enemy in the Shrine.

Cassian called up his remaining three points of Divine Essence.

"Two points," he said. "They will only let you raise the Eclipse War Banner by your own will. Five heartbeats."

Veyra did not look at the black-gold light in his palm.

She looked at the sealed main roll.

"I accept this investment," she said. "I will raise this banner only for them."

"I’ll still ask you separately about every future investment."

"Of course."

Cassian released two points of Divine Essence.

Black-gold light surged along the patterns on the Shrine floor toward the divine seat.

The Eclipse Chains snapped taut.

Veyra’s shoulders and back slowly straightened against them.

Black-gold light flowed from beneath her palm and over her broken divine armor, filling the empty air behind her line by line. The banner pole appeared first. Then came the torn corner of the flag. Only at the end did the warlike silhouette that had once appeared solely in response to hostility take shape.

There was no enemy in the Shrine.

No warning came from the Chain Gate.

Yet the incomplete black-gold banner still unfurled behind her.

There was no wind.

For the first time, the Eclipse War Banner stood inside the Shrine for no reason except Veyra’s own will.

It did not answer Cassian.

It did not answer an approaching enemy.

It answered the hand Veyra had pressed against the divine seat.

One heartbeat.

Two.

Five.

Veyra never looked away from the main roll, not even as the banner’s shadow dissolved from its edges inward.

For those five heartbeats, the black-gold shadow fell across the sealed case as though a commander delayed for far too long had finally returned to stand before her fallen soldiers.

For the first time, Cassian understood so clearly what kind of power now shared this Shrine with him.

She was still chained.

But one part of the goddess of war belonged to her again.

That black-gold power heated Cassian’s chest.

He liked this result. Greedily, he already wanted to see the banner stand longer next time.

[Covenant Investment: 2]

[Veyra: 4/24 → 6/24]

[Cassian: 1 available / 19 cumulative]

Having only one available Divine Essence left made his stomach feel faintly hollow.

But those two points had not vanished.

They had become a war banner Veyra could raise herself.

Afterward, Cassian carried the waste rock bolt and the other samples to a graystone slope in Ashen March.

Marek took them without asking where they had come from.

Cassian watched him leave with the samples and did not add a single instruction about his route.

One ordinary day and night later, Toren’s report came back with the samples.

The report was short.

First, the bent rock bolt could not be repaired.

Second, even a new bolt of the same class would be ripped out of the rock during the first formal transport of a heavy load.

The reason was simple. The old bolt bore pry marks on both sides. It had been levered back and forth from two directions again and again. The Bell-Keeper’s final pull had only exposed a problem that was already there.

A chill slowly spread across Cassian’s back as he read those words.

He could almost see it happen: the heavy load reaching the middle of the black-gold plate, the rock bolt tearing free, the coarse steel cable and cargo sliding together toward the gap.

He would not jump after them.

But he would never recover whatever fell, either.

And it would not be only a rock bolt disappearing into the darkness.

The triple service fee had bought him this conclusion before the accident happened.

The report ended with only one new method. Toren had marked three changes Cassian could record onsite. In the future, Toren—or any other specialist—could continue judging and correcting the setup from the results Cassian sent out.

They did not need the location.

Much less access through the Chain Gate.

Cassian brought the report back to the Shrine and set it beside the sealed main roll.

Veyra glanced at him.

"Is it fixed?"

"No," Cassian said. "But it stopped me from attempting a transport that was certain to fail."

The final unused formal rock bolt was still in his hand.

Cassian weighed it in his palm. It had not become a second piece of scrap because of a bad plan. It had not vanished into the gap along with his next prize.

No outsider had obtained the true entrance.

From this day onward, the Chain Gate would never again be part of any quote.

Outside experts would see only the test results Cassian chose to give them, then compete with their own expertise.

The gate would remain closed.

Outside expertise would still work for him.

Next time, the quotes outside could keep falling.

The threshold of the Chain Gate would not.