Chapter 136: The Market Changes Hands

The cart was empty when it should have been loaded.

The carter had left it at the mouth of the freight court with the reins looped over the brake and walked in alone. He had been staring at the same shuttered side door long enough to watch 2 freight wagons crawl past on the public lane. Neither driver looked his way. That was normal. A covered cart waiting outside a Greycross freight court only became interesting if someone started asking what it was waiting for.

He checked the little brass token in his palm again.

Same stamped notch, same scratched corner. He’d used it here before.

The door stayed shut.

"Come on," he muttered. "Don’t make me haul air all morning."

A woman in a patched gray coat appeared from the alley beside the warehouse instead of through the door. She stopped beside the threshold and looked at the token before she looked at him.

The carter held it up. "About time."

"Put that away."

He closed his fingers around it. "Where’s the pickup?"

"Gone."

He frowned. "Gone where?"

The woman gave him a tired look. "If I knew that, I’d be selling you a route instead of a warning."

He glanced at the shuttered door. There was no guard or runner, and the chalk mark somebody used to leave near the lower hinge was gone.

"I was told this branch was still working."

The woman’s mouth tightened. "You were told somebody could check."

"I paid somebody to check."

"You paid to get your name in front of me." She held out her hand. "Confirmation costs separate now."

He stared at her palm.

"You’re charging me to say a dead door is dead?"

"I’m charging you for knowing it before you roll a covered cart into a worse place."

A laugh escaped him, dry and ugly. "That’s a hell of a business."

"Still breathing, isn’t it?"

The carter dug a coin from inside his coat and slapped it into her hand.

She pocketed it without looking down.

"This one doesn’t open," she said. "Another branch stopped answering before this one did. The tannery line quit after that. Old introductions aren’t worth much unless the man using them can prove he spoke to somebody recently."

His jaw tightened. "Then what did I just buy?"

"A reason not to waste the afternoon."

He stared at her. "That’s all I paid for?"

"That’s all I know for sure."

He looked at the brass token inside his fist. It had once been enough to get a cart through a back gate with no questions and send him out heavier than he came in.

Now it was scrap with a memory attached.

The woman stepped back toward the alley.

"If somebody offers you a live pickup off an old seal, don’t bring your own horse."

He looked up. "What happens if I do?"

"You might want to leave it behind and run."

She turned into the alley and left him with the shut door.

The carter stood in the freight court for another moment, listening to wheels grind over the street beyond it.

He put the token back in his pocket, walked out to the public lane, climbed onto the bench, and drove away with nothing under the canvas.

The route broker heard boots on the stable stair before Rhyvara Kordren came through the door.

He had expected the Dragonkin Hunter to ask who owned the broken routes. Instead, she stopped on the far side of his table and looked at the folded paper under his hand.

Deep-garnet hair fell behind her shoulders. The 2 dark horns rising high through it were compact rather than long, and her molten-gold eyes stayed on the report.

"Before you take this," the broker said, "it isn’t proof Morcant owns what’s left."

Rhyvara didn’t reach for it. "Then what is it?"

"Routes that stopped working, and who told me they had."

He placed the folded report on the table and nudged the chair opposite him out with his boot.

Only then did Rhyvara sit, draw the paper across the wood, and unfold it.

"Which of these did you see fail yourself?"

He wished, briefly, that he had used fewer confident words.

The broker tapped the first mark with a blunt fingernail. "That branch. I sent a cart on the first try. Nobody opened. On the next, the contact was gone and the local key didn’t fit anymore."

"You tried the key?"

"My driver did."

Her gaze lifted. The broker corrected himself before she had to.

"So I didn’t see that part. He came back with the key and the same temper he left with."

Rhyvara’s attention returned to the paper. "Better. Next."

He leaned over the report. "The other old staging branch was mine to verify. No dispatch came, the ledger was gone, and nobody was taking names at the rear room."

Rhyvara’s finger rested beside the third mark. "The tannery."

"Paid confirmation," the broker said.

"From whom?"

"A man who used to move carts through the lower side. He went back after the trouble and found the handoff dead. The people and records were gone. The old route signs didn’t buy him anything."

Rhyvara watched him. "Did he see Morcant?"

"He didn’t."

"Any of his people?"

The broker hesitated.

Below them, a horse kicked a stall board. Wood cracked against wood, and somebody in the stable swore.

Rhyvara waited.

That was worse than being shouted at.

"He saw men who said Morcant had taken the place," the broker said at last. "I wouldn’t call that proof."

"No. It isn’t."

He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table. "You wanted survivor talk. That’s what survives. People say Morcant owns the whole damn trade now. Buyers, handlers, routes, all of it."

Rhyvara looked back down at the report.

"And what do you say?"

The broker breathed out through his nose. "I used to sell introductions that opened doors. Now too many open nothing, and the rest need checking before I risk my name on them. Every time Morcant’s name turns up, something useful is missing afterward: papers, keys, the bastard who knew which knock mattered."

Rhyvara tapped the paper once. "How many can you actually prove?"

He pointed to the 3 marks. "These. 2 old staging branches. The tannery line. All failed. Different people brought me the stories about Morcant. I can’t prove he owns what replaced them."

Rhyvara kept a hand on the report. "Vardren Korr?"

The broker’s mouth tightened. "Missing. Still."

"Body?" Rhyvara asked.

He shook his head. "Haven’t seen a body."

Her next question came without a change in tone. "Witness who saw him die?"

"None I’d put in front of you."

Her jaw held still for a moment.

The broker had spent enough years selling bad news to recognize that stillness.

"Who first connected these route failures to Morcant?" she asked.

"Not first. I don’t know first." He pushed back from the table a little. "I know the same name keeps coming back from separate mouths. That’s all I’m willing to sell you."

Rhyvara studied him, then the paper. "Useful."

He blinked. "Useful?"

"Now I know what part is yours."

A short laugh escaped him before he could stop it. "Most people don’t ask that hard."

Her eyes stayed on the report. "They should."

Rhyvara folded it along its old crease and stood, taking it with her.

The broker rose more slowly. "You’re going to the manor. Today?"

"Yes. Tomorrow gives them another day to copy each other’s story."

He looked toward the stair. "If the stories about Morcant are true—"

Rhyvara’s eyes returned to him.

The rest of the warning dried up in his throat.

"Then I’ll learn faster at his door than in here."

She tucked the report inside her coat and went down the stairs.

The woman coming up the Greycross road made the south-gate servant straighten before he saw the badge.

She was taller than most men he knew, with deep-garnet hair and 2 dark horns set high through it. When she stopped outside the gate, late light caught gold in her eyes and turned the narrow pupils unmistakably vertical.

Dragonkin.

The servant kept his hand off the latch.

"Afternoon. What’s your business with the house?"

The woman drew a Hunter credential from inside her coat and held it where he could read it without opening the gate.

The credential named her Rhyvara Kordren, Rank A.

His stomach tightened, but his voice stayed level.

"What should I tell them?"

"That Rhyvara Kordren is here." She put the credential away. "I sent a note last night. It was received."

The servant had heard nothing about a Dragonkin Hunter coming in person.

"I’ll verify that before I open the gate."

"Verify it."

Rhyvara stepped back enough to leave him room to work and waited on the road.

The servant called the yard runner over and passed the name inward. The runner disappeared toward the house at a quick walk.

Rhyvara waited, shoulders open, chin level, a hand resting near the folded edge of something inside her coat.

The runner came back before long, breathing a little harder.

"The note was received," he told the servant. "She’s to be brought through to the front receiving side."

The servant nodded and lifted the latch.

The gate swung inward.

Rhyvara crossed the threshold with the folded report still inside her coat.

The runner turned toward the house and started ahead of her.

Behind them, the servant drew the gate closed and set the latch back into place.