Asmith Ashanti is a man of impossible poise and unbearable charm, the kind of figure whose very presence suggests a truth deeper than the surface. Of deep umber skin and bold Westering features, Asmith wears his status like silk, both literally and figuratively. Long, finely kept dreadlocks cascade past his shoulders, each bound with golden beads or jeweled clasps, tokens gifted or stolen from foreign lords, grateful clients, or slain rivals. His clothing is an opulent fusion of merchant nobility and decadent criminality: richly dyed robes of carmine and black trimmed in sun-gold thread, belted by a girdle set with amber and aquamarine. His fingers glitter with rings of various origin, and around his neck drape enough gold to pay a small city’s ransom.
But it is his eyes, sharp as obsidian and always smiling with secrets, that people remember. That, and the scimitar at his hip, M’Zakra, the Gilded Edge, an ancient weapon whose history predates even the Salt Treaty. Its golden hue is not mere ornamentation but the sheen of some forgotten alloy that resists tarnish and pulses with subtle magic. Many have tried to claim it, and all of them lie dead or disappeared. Some say the blade whispers to him. Others say Asmith doesn’t draw it often because he doesn’t need to.
Asmith Ashanti is the undisputed lord of the Mithrin underworld. From black market armaments to velvet contraband, from forbidden relics to political favors measured in blood, there is little in the criminal ecosystem of the nation that does not, at some point, pass through his fingers. He does not own everything, he does not need to. A sliver here, a whisper there, a tithe in coin or silence. He owns enough.
Enough to know when a noble’s second son is missing, when a temple’s donation chest grows suspiciously light, when foreign coin shows up on the docks. Yet, crucially, not enough to force the council’s hand. He treads that delicate tightrope with an elegance others have never managed. His wealth flows beneath notice, his crimes hidden behind layers of cutouts, dead drops, and agents who believe themselves freelancers. The Council of Mithrin, for all their pomp, cannot quite pin him. And so, they do not try.
Asmith remains physically untouchable, exiled by choice to Kangga, a weather-blasted island just off the Mithrin coast, where his manse sprawls like a jungle-fed parasite across the cliffs and southern coves. Built in layers over older ruins, the estate is a luxurious labyrinth of shuttered towers, trellis-wrapped galleries, and vast sunken vaults. Kangga itself is forbidden territory for lawmen, few go and fewer return, except those Asmith invites.
His reach is long. His agents are legion. Even among his own ranks, there are known double agents, and still, they report to him in the end. For every pirate admiral, corrupt inspector, or blackscale mercenary who thinks they serve their own ends, there is Asmith, already profiting from both sides of the game. He is not a spider in the web. He is the web.
Thorn in the Silk: Alder Manse
But even webs have flies. The one name that continually vexes Asmith is Alder Manse, the Lizard King enforcer of Voolnishart’s harbormaster, a veteran of tide wars and a hard-scaled problem solver who does not bend to gold or flattery. Alder and his cadre of loyal lizardmen patrol the watery alleys and sunken docks where Asmith’s smugglers love to operate. He is relentless, incorruptible, and worst of all, patient.
Asmith has tried diplomacy. He has tried distraction. Rumors whisper of half a dozen assassins who never returned from Kangga’s shallows, their corpses found gnawed or not at all. But Alder persists. A cold-blooded counterbalance to Asmith’s heat. Their duel, so far bloodless, plays out like a game of shifting sand. Yet each success Alder scores in the city drags a little more of Asmith’s influence into the light.
It is said, among the underfolk, that Asmith smiles slightly wider whenever Alder’s name is mentioned, but his hand always rests just a little closer to the hilt of M’Zakra.
A Disquieting Audience
Location: The Latchhold Vaults, beneath the Third Counting House of Mithrin
Beneath a thundering waterfall of coin and silence, far below the streets of Voolnishart, Harker maintained his most sacred sanctuary, a vault chamber of greensteel doors and stone warded with binding runes older than the church records. The air hung thick with incense and whispered oaths. Here, beneath a chandelier of blackened crystal and a ceiling inlaid with scenes of mercantile conquest, the Merchant Lord conferred with a single, carefully chosen guest: Asmith Ashanti, the Smuggler King.
The conversation had been taut and sharp-edged. Harker, ever the polished manipulator, angled for an alliance, if not in name, then in function. Asmith, ever draped in quiet menace and golden calm, declined most of the offers with that slight, knowing smile that made lesser men shift in their boots.
But the temperature changed with the air.
No sound. No vibration. Not even magic surged, just the sudden knowing that they were no longer alone.
Asmith turned his head slowly, the way a jungle cat turns when it senses a predator more ancient than itself. The shadows had not deepened, but the room had. The space behind the great ledger table, where no door existed and no passage led, had shifted, and there she stood.
Shinazazi.
The Drow Matron of Silk and Shadow, daughter of Yezed, the Ghostwidow. No announcement, no scent, no step. She was simply there, poised in stillness like a knife held just above the ribs. Her eyes, a sheenless, moonless violet, glimmered with the sort of disdain one reserves for unswept dust. She wore no armor, no blade. Just a flowing garment of woven night, trimmed with bloodrose silk and pinched with obsidian clasps. Even her breath was silent.
Asmith, who had not truly been startled in years, stood abruptly. His hand moved, smooth and swift, and the Gilded Edge whispered from its sheath in a single, fluid arc of readiness. He did not snarl, did not demand, but for the first time in memory, he reacted without control.
And she did not flinch.
Instead, Shinazazi extended a single open hand, palm up, fingers loose, an almost casual insult in drow culture, one normally reserved for speaking to a servant, or a supplicant.
Her words, when they came, were silk dragged over razors.
“Do not interfere with the market… or meet your end. We have no agreement with you, nor do we wish to.”
There was no fury in her voice. No hatred. Only the cutting indifference of one who swats away gnats before uncorking a finer wine.
“Stay out of the market, or be removed.”
Asmith hesitated for a fraction of a breath. Long enough. His eyes narrowed, the Gilded Edge trembled not an inch, but he did not move to strike.
Before another word could pass, she was gone.
No flash. No puff of arcane flair. One heartbeat she stood before them. The next, the space was whole again, as if she had never been, no scent, no footprints, no arcane residue. Only the ripple she left behind in the confidence of titans.
Harker’s wine glass had shattered in his hand.
And Asmith stood very still, the scimitar still drawn, his lips pressed to a tight line, the slight smile long since gone.
A Blade Against the Silk: Shinazazi Confronts the Smuggler King
Location: The Cradle of Coin, Kangga Island , Asmith’s Most Secure Vault Hall
The Cradle of Coin was not merely a vault. It was Asmith Ashanti’s final sanctuary, a chamber hewn deep into the volcanic stone beneath his island manse on Kangga, its walls embedded with petrified shellglass and lined with heavy columns etched in dead languages. No light entered save for the soft amber glow of braziers burning perfumed oil made from rare fungal sap. The scent was sweet and lulling, a calculated luxury.
Here, beneath dozens of encrypted wards and the bloodbound sigils of forgotten godlets, the Smuggler King kept his true empire: maps of trade lines not found on any nautical chart, black ledgers that bore names of kings and killers alike, artifacts too dangerous for open hands, and the whisper scrolls, sealed missives from every major port in Mithrin, passed hand to hand by agents who would bite out their own tongues before speaking aloud.
Asmith Ashanti stood alone this evening. Dressed in loose silks of obsidian and cobalt, his many rings catching the dim firelight, he reviewed a message left in ochre ink from one of his spies embedded in the Temple of the Coinmother. His expression, as always, was a study in calm. His long dreadlocks were bound with gilded loops and a single sapphire pin, denoting him, quietly, as untouchable.
And then… the flame nearest the west wall flickered sideways.
Not extinguished.
Not doused.
Simply moved, as though shamed by the presence of something older.
He looked up.
She was already there.
No sound of door, no step on tile. No magical ripple, no disruption in the wards. Shinazazi had not breached them, she had never been outside them. She had simply chosen to be inside now, and so she was.
The Drow stood with one hip cocked slightly to the side, robed in shadowwoven silk that shimmered faintly with the hue of midnight roses. Her skin was flawless obsidian, her hair silver as ash and bound in narrow braids that whispered with every movement, though now they were still. Her hands hung loosely at her sides. She carried no weapon.
But her eyes, those cold, moonless amethyst pits, spoke of dominion, of patience that could outlast dynasties, and of disdain layered like dust over a forgotten tomb.
For a brief, impossible moment, Asmith froze.
Not in fear. But in calculation. In disbelief.
And then the Gilded Edge sang.
With one practiced motion, Asmith’s scimitar cleared its sheath, a flash of golden brilliance catching every ember of light in the chamber. Its curved blade was etched with sigils older than the Calahari tongues, and its hilt had tasted the blood of warlords. It was not drawn lightly.
He did not speak. There was no question to ask.
Her response was not a counterdraw.
It was an open hand, extended forward, palm toward the earth, fingers slightly curved.
Not peace. Not threat.
A dismissal.
Her voice, when it came, was low. Measured. The crack of silk folding against itself in a slow wind.
“Do not interfere with the market… or meet your end.”
She stepped forward, slowly. The shadows bowed around her.
“We have no agreement with you, nor do we wish to.”
Asmith’s knuckles whitened on his blade. But he did not raise it.
“Stay out of the market, or be removed.”
And with that, she vanished.
Not in a swirl of shadow or dramatic teleportation, no, Shinazazi ceased to be visible. She was there. Then she wasn’t. Like a thought you never quite finished. No scent. No sound. Not even a change in the temperature. The wards had never noticed.
Asmith stood still for a long moment, the scimitar still humming softly in his hand. His brow was furrowed. A single bead of sweat rolled down one temple.
He sheathed the Gilded Edge with slow deliberation and whispered, more to the room than himself:
“…She came through the Cradle.”
And for the first time in perhaps a decade, the Smuggler King felt a sensation he had nearly forgotten.
Unease.
Whispers in the Folded Flame
Kangga, the Day After the Visit
The chamber was emptied. The usual rhythm of couriers and whisper-scribes halted. Even his closest lieutenants were ordered away, not with anger, but silence. That was worse.
Asmith Ashanti sat once more in the Cradle of Coin, though now the atmosphere had changed. The brazier flames guttered in unnatural drafts, the air still clinging to the scent of Shinazazi’s presence like a cloying perfume. There had been no evidence left behind. Not even a trace of the magical currents that typically marked teleportation or planar intrusion.
She had walked through everything as if it were illusion. As if the wards, the glyphwork, the salt-thread barriers meant nothing.
That could not be ignored.
So he summoned one of the only minds he trusted with such matters.
A pale-skinned woman named Eilovna Trask, veiled in layers of black gauze and bone charms, stepped into the chamber from the rear vaults. Her third eye, an actual embedded stone of sentient quartz, blinked softly in the center of her forehead. She was not just an arcanist. She was an unbinder, trained in the deciphering of anti-sorcery and ghostwork.
Asmith gestured without looking up.
“The space she entered from. Trace it.”
Eilovna circled slowly, one long-fingered hand weaving through the air like she was stirring unseen dust.
Minutes passed. The silence stretched. And then,
“There is nothing here,” she whispered. “Not just no magic, there is absence. Something passed through this place and did not disturb a single boundary.”
She turned, her third eye gleaming faintly.
“She is not hiding from the wards, my lord. She is older than them. Or the wards… think she belongs here.”
Asmith’s hands folded beneath his chin. The quiet pulse of fury and fascination coiled within him.
“She gave a warning. Said the market is off-limits. No agreement, no negotiation.”
Eilovna nodded slowly.
“A proclamation.”
He rose. His finery today was darker, unadorned save for the scarlet pin at his collar, mark of his more serious dealings. He walked to the edge of the ledger table and pressed a single button beneath a false carving.
A hidden drawer slid open, revealing a sliver of jet stone etched with an eight-point sigil: a contract-seal from the Low Courts of Sigil itself, a wildcard tool. Dangerous. Treacherous. But useful in the right hands.
“She wants silence. She’ll have it. For now.”
He plucked the stone up, holding it to the light.
“But nobody comes into my house without leaving a scent. Nobody.”
Foreshadowing Retaliation: The Quiet Fire
That night, five of his agents were dispatched without name or trace. None were told the nature of their true mission. One to the Spine-Bridge of Voolnishart. One to the Lantern Warrens beneath the sea-market. One to an old, ruined shrine to Lolth in the southern cliffs. One to a silk dealer’s guild that had paid unusual tithes.
And one to die, publicly and loudly, bearing a letter full of false secrets designed to draw attention.
Asmith would not strike Shinazazi directly. Not yet.
But he would map her silence.
And when the shape of her shadow became clear, the blade would follow.
the city.
The Matron Knows
Location: House of Falling Violets, Voolnishart’s Old Silk Quarter
The House of Falling Violets was an ancient drow enclave now half-swallowed by the surface city’s shifting economies. What remained of it lay beneath the Silk Quarter in a yawning substructure of curtained tunnels and chitin-carved chambers thick with perfume and memory. It was here that Shinazazi held court when necessary, though she rarely needed to anymore. She preferred to be felt, not seen.
The message reached her.
A braided lock of hair, burned and sealed in wax. A method used only in the circles where words were traps and truths were poison. It was the fourth such message this week.
One from the shrines. One from the sea-market. One from the warrens. And now this.
Asmith’s fingers were creeping along her walls.
Shinazazi did not summon a meeting. She did not dispatch her elite. Instead, she simply turned to her seneschal, a mute albino goblin named Tharruk, and whispered:
“Light the lanterns. He’s sniffing at corners.”
The goblin nodded and disappeared into the curtains.
By the time the second sliver-stone spy of Asmith’s had activated its return protocol, the signal returned wrong. Warped. Contaminated. The images it captured were nonsensical: moths fluttering in circles, eyes painted on stone, a woman whispering a lullaby in a language that made the device hum with pain.
Back on Kangga, Asmith received the recording and winced. Even the quartz golem that served as his playback conduit faltered. He clenched his jaw and snapped his fingers.
“She knows.”
Alder Manse Senses Weakness
Location: Subdock 12-Gamma, Voolnishart’s Waterline Patrol Office
Alder Manse did not sleep in the way most did. The Lizard King stood eight feet tall, muscle-bound and scarred, and his nights were spent submerged up to the neck in a vat of herbal alkaloids brewed by his own kin, liquid vigilance. When he rose, his mind was honed, eyes clear, and instincts burning.
The reports came in by drip. A few missing smugglers. A strangled contact in the Violet Quarter. An intercepted courier found afloat in the canal, his tongue burned to ash.
Too clean. Too coordinated.
Someone was cleansing.
Alder stood on a reinforced gantry over the shallow bay, arms crossed. His second-in-command, a slate-gray lizardwoman named Keshari, handed him a rough slate scroll.
“Ashanti’s movements have gone still. Surface-level quiet. No activity out of Kangga in 48 hours. But three of his flagged ships reversed course mid-voyage. No contact.”
Alder grunted. Low and thoughtful.
“A predator found the snake’s nest.”
He ran a claw along the edge of the scroll, not in contemplation, but anticipation.
“Let them fight.”
He turned, tail swaying with purpose, toward his chart room.
“Keshari, alert the night watch. Double guards on the Greenwalk, the Silk Quarter, and the sea vaults. No one moves without us knowing.”
“You think he’s about to act?”
Alder’s mouth curled, not quite a smile. A flash of sharp, cold teeth.
“He’s afraid. That makes him foolish. And I have been waiting a long time for foolish.”
The Letter of Silk and Teeth
Location: The Forum of Seven Lanterns, Voolnishart’s Central Civic Hall
The Forum of Seven Lanterns was a place of law, ancient and binding, seated at the heart of Voolnishart atop black basalt steps worn smooth by centuries of petitioners. Lit at all times by seven magical lanterns, each a different hue representing a pillar of civic judgment, the Forum was where contracts were registered, oaths bound, and justice dispensed for both the noble and the criminal alike.
And this morning, all seven lanterns burned violet.
A rare event. One that drew attention. And fear.
The scribes of the High Clerk’s Office were first to find it. The object. A letter, but not on parchment.
It had been affixed to the Forum’s central registry obelisk using seven black pins made of spiderbone, perfectly spaced, each inserted through a folded corner of a mantle of violet silk.
The silk was alive. It shimmered slightly, shifting like a calm pool when wind approaches. And on its surface, traced in ink that smelled faintly of nightbloom and burnt honey, were these words:
**“Let the Law speak.
I, Shinazazi of the House Without Chains, have not trespassed, nor broken pact, nor raised blade.
But I have been provoked, and watched agents trespass within my sovereign holdings.
I have not struck back. Not yet.
Instead, I inform.
Seven names. Seven actions. All violations of Civic.
I name: Tamlith Eorren, for smuggling powdered dreamglass into the underwarrens.
I name: Velis Korr, for deploying bonded familiars into restricted Temple vaults.
I name: Shipmaster Alquinn Deft, for reflagging slaver vessels beneath Voolnishart colors.
I name: The Silk Traders Guild, for price-fixing under a false cartel.
I name: Magistrate Lho Tenbar, for suppression of sanctioned bids by foreign agents.
I name: Eiven Harla, for scribing unauthorized extradimensional contracts.
I name: ‘Merchant-Lord Harker,’ for laundering funds through the drowned mills and blackglass churches of the Lower Ring.
I have broken no law. I seek no war.
But if my silence is mistaken for weakness,
Know this: The web will tighten.
, S.”**
Alder’s Judgement
Alder Manse stood in the outer port gallery of Voolnishart’s water patrol offices. News had reached him before the sun finished rising.
He held a fresh wax-stamped copy of Shinazazi’s proclamation in his clawed hand. Keshari stood behind him, saying nothing.
The silence was approval.
“Harker’s in a panic,” Alder rumbled, “and Ashanti’s biting his own tongue trying not to act.”
He tapped a claw against the line naming the Silk Traders Guild.
“That’s two rivals tangled, and a slaver’s mask torn off for good.”
Keshari raised a brow ridge.
“So the Drow Matron does your work?”
Alder’s mouth flexed in what passed for a smile.
“No. She does hers. But I’ll be there when the next one falls.”
He turned and gestured to the squad sergeant behind them.
“Quiet raids. One at a time. No noise. We move before they move.”
“Under what pretense?”
Alder held up the letter again.
“The law.”
And for the first time since he took his post, the Lizard King walked back into the city with the wind at his back, and the eyes of shadows turned toward him in approval.
The Day the Web Was Seen
By midday, the corridors of Voolnishart’s civic spire were choked with breathless aides and frantic scribes. The Council of the Deepwater Ring, normally a slow-moving and self-serving beast, was suddenly ablaze with motion. Of the 41 councilors, twenty-two called for emergency assemblies in private chambers. Some shouted for investigation, others for retaliation. A few whispered of resignation.
The lanterns burned violet still.
The names on Shinazazi’s silk-letter were real. The crimes were true. Worse still, many of them were known, just never spoken aloud. But now they were pinned to the Forum’s registry like carcasses on a butcher’s rack.
And then came the first fall.
Eiven Harla, chartered sigilist of the Outer Bond Hall, was found dead in the center of his scribing sanctum, a chamber known for its runic defenses and alarm glyphs, now utterly scorched. His throat had been torn out, not with a blade, but something more jagged, organic. Stuffed into his mouth was a strip of magically treated parchment, a blank scroll bearing a single rune burned deep into its face:
“Bound.”
No signature. No trace of forced entry. No magical residue.
The message was clear: Even the binders are bound.
The Raven Comes to Kangga
Far from the panic of Voolnishart, on the southern cliffs of Kangga Island, Asmith Ashanti reclined in the open-air marble alcove of his private quarters. The sea-wind blew hot and salt-thick, rustling the gold-laced curtains that hemmed the space.
There was no sound but the gulls and the ocean.
Until the raven came.
It did not caw. It did not flutter. It glided into the alcove with unnatural grace, landing with a subtle scrape of lacquered talons on the edge of Asmith’s obsidian drinks table. It bore no satchel. The message was folded neatly into the space between its wings, held beneath the feather-line, as if the bird grew it.
Asmith did not move at first.
Then he reached out, slowly, drawing the missive free. It was the silk letter. Identical. Undisturbed. Unopened by any hand but his own.
He read it once. Then again. Then closed his eyes.
And for the first time in over a decade, the King of the Mithrin Underworld felt cold.
“She’s lawful,” he whispered.
The raven watched.
“And she’s listening… How does she know our every move?!”
His voice rose, sharper than thunder and far more dangerous.
He stood so abruptly that his golden chair cracked underfoot. Rage, true rage, not the performative kind, bloomed in his chest like fire. He drew the golden-hued scimitar from his hip, not to strike, but because his hand could not be still. It needed a weapon to make the moment real.
“ALL OF YOU!” he roared, his voice echoing across marble, through silk, down into the servant quarters.
“SCORE every nook and cranny! EVERY vault, every hollow wall, EVERY spy-glyph, EVERY wardstone! I want the names of EVERY arcane servant, EVERY stray pigeon, EVERY fleck of dust that wasn’t there YESTERDAY!”
The sudden bellow broke the haze of mid-afternoon leisure.
His entire household, a hundred servants, spies, bonded sorcerers, and silent-watch guards, fled. They did not respond. They ran. Not out of confusion, but fear. For the first time, their master had been outmaneuvered, and if the balance of power tilted too far… heads would roll.
They searched. All through the day. All through the night. They scoured kitchens, pried loose floor tiles, dispelled old sigils and rewove scryward barriers long considered unbreachable. But they found nothing. No trace. No link. No thread.
What could they find? What does one look for when the web is invisible?
A King’s Uneasy Dreams
By the fall of night, Asmith stood alone again, shoulders heavy beneath a robe he had never before worn in defeat. He drank not from goblets, but from a black-capped flask, something stronger, something older.
He retired late.
The moon over Kangga hung fat and copper-red, casting shadows like knife scars on the stone walls of his manse.
And Asmith dreamed, uneasy, fitful visions soaked in violet and silk. In his dream, spiders crawled not across the floor, but across his memory, tying knots in secrets he had never spoken aloud. His tongue turned to parchment. His teeth to quills. And everywhere around him, eyes.
Eyes that did not blink.
Eyes that knew.
The Weight of the Unseen
A week passed.
Not in silence, no such thing existed in Asmith’s world, but in fruitless motion. His agents combed through the weave of Kangga’s networks, shook informants from Voolnishart’s gutter-holes, and even bribed minor priests of half-forgotten gods. All they returned with were whispers. Hints. Fragments of rumors spiraling around one improbable truth:
Shinazazi was a divine agent.
That word, divine, landed on Asmith like a stone on silk. It explained much. Her silence. Her reach. Her impossible foresight. Her calm.
But it shouldn’t be true. Not in this world. Not here.
And yet…
He stood in the high chamber of his Kangga manse, the wind carrying incense from the sea temples, thick with salt and myrrh. In his hand, he held the latest report, five pages of meticulous notations, coded and sealed. At the end, circled in red wax: “Her domain is named in temple records. She is recognized by the Court of Veil and Thorn.”
Asmith lowered the report, eyes narrowed.
“Divine?”
He let the word hang in the air like smoke. He hated it. Hated the helplessness it invoked.
But he knew better than to scoff.
His mother, back in the red basalt houses of western Mithrin, had been a priestess once, before she fled that life with him in her arms. She had taught him truths others dismissed as quaint superstition.
“Superstition,” she used to say, “is just fact hidden in fable. Mind the old ones. They are jealous. They are exacting. They are not to be challenged. Not ever.”
“Never cross the old ones, boy. Never.”
Asmith exhaled long and slow. Then, for the first time in many years, he bowed his head.
Not in shame. Not in fear.
In calculation.
He would not be drawn into a losing war, not against a figure cloaked in divine authority and righteous mandate. No amount of wealth or informants could shift the tide of heaven’s favor. Pride was a sharp blade, but it was brittle against wrath that burned across realms.
So he made his decision.
Placate.
Acquiesce.
Survive.
He would yield, not in truth, but in posture. He would recognize her claim, her dominion over the market. Not aloud, not in public. But enough. Just enough to avert the storm.
And when the air had cleared, he would go on as he always had, using the market, carefully, respectfully. No visible offense. A shadow among shadows.
It was bitter.
It was vile.
And it burned him to the bone.
But he knew better than to spit at the gods.
“Pride in the face of righteous fury is nothing,” he muttered, echoing another of his mother’s many hard-won phrases.
He summoned his steward, Velzhan, an old man with cracked fingers and a spine like braided steel, the only servant Asmith trusted without reservation.
“Fetch parchment. And a quill of spiderbristle. I will dictate.”
And he did. A masterwork of subtle language and humbled grace, an elegantly-phrased apology, requesting pardon for past missteps, and affirming his intent to honor her guidance and maintain peace within her province. Every word was a calculated concession. Every sentence bowed without kneeling.
The letter was sealed with gold wax, stamped with the sun-and-key crest of the Ashanti line.
Velzhan was given the scroll, a ring of safe passage, and a warning:
“If you see even a flicker of her displeasure… run. Don’t speak. Just run.”
The servant nodded. And left.
Asmith watched the sea long after the door had closed. The waves struck the cliffside with unrelenting rhythm.
“Let it end there,” he said aloud.
But in his heart, he knew: nothing truly ends when the divine are involved.
Only the terms change.
The Response of the Silk Hand
Shinazazi had always known too much.
The unseen, the unspoken, the unsent, she could see the shape of them all long before they came into bloom. It was not omniscience, not prophecy, but a weaving, a dance of whispers and patterns, cause and effect dressed in silk. Knowing dulled surprise. And surprise was a rare and precious delight.
So when she stood that evening in the Shrouded Gallery, her sanctum above the Voolnishart market, veiled in folds of spell-treated gossamer that softened the stars and swallowed sound, she expected another plea. Another trembling servant bearing another veiled threat or pitiful bribe.
But what came was different.
Velzhan, Asmith’s steward, stepped silently through her warded threshold. The guards did not stop him. She had already permitted his path. He bowed, not deeply, but properly, and extended the sealed scroll with both hands.
Shinazazi took it in gloved fingers, her eyes narrowing at the seal.
The sun-and-key.
She turned and paced slowly to the low marble dais at the gallery’s heart. There, amid cushions and a softly humming crystal lantern, she broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. No magic laced the letter. No poison. Just ink, paper, and words.
And intention.
She read it once.
Then again.
By the end of the second reading, her lips, usually still and unreadable, had curled into the faintest smile. Not of mockery. Not condescension.
But pleasure. Satisfaction.
“Ah,” she murmured, folding the letter with delicate care, “He listened.”
More than that.
He had understood.
When he quoted his mother’s teachings, about reverence, about the danger of pride in the face of righteous fury, Shinazazi had actually stopped. Just for a heartbeat.
Unexpected.
Unusual.
Wise.
And wisdom, in men like Asmith Ashanti, was a rare bloom. Rare, and dangerous.
But also… useful.
She turned to Velzhan and approached, robes trailing like shadows pinned with stars. The old steward looked up only when she was within arm’s reach.
“We are pleased,” she said. Her voice was smooth, precise. Not cold, measured. Real.
“And we accept.”
Her gloved hand rested on the letter for a moment before she continued.
“You may return to your lord knowing we will trouble him no more… if he keeps his word.”
Velzhan bowed, relief evident in the gentle slackening of his shoulders.
Then, just as he began to turn,
“Wait,” she said.
He froze.
Shinazazi’s head tilted slightly, and her eyes gleamed like polished obsidian. What passed for humor in her voice was like heat behind silk.
“Tell King Asmith, his mother is wise. And her wisdom shows in him.”
Velzhan dared a glance upward, searching her for mockery. But she gave none.
Only a nod of dismissal, and then she vanished into the folds of the Gallery
The Return
When Velzhan returned to Kangga, the sea was stormless but the air felt charged. He said nothing of his journey until Asmith summoned him personally.
“Well?” Asmith asked, reclining with a goblet of bluefruit wine, his tone sharp but strained by weeks of disquiet.
Velzhan offered a slow bow.
“She is pleased. She accepts. And she will trouble you no more, so long as your word remains intact.”
Asmith exhaled, slow, deliberate.
But Velzhan continued, his voice measured, quiet:
“She also said… to tell you this: ‘Your mother is wise. And her wisdom shows in you.’”
The silence that followed was heavier than lead.
Asmith froze. The goblet did not fall, but his grip on it loosened, just slightly. He stared past his steward, past the curtains, past the horizon.
“She heard that?”
Velzhan did not answer.
Asmith did not repeat the question.
The Quiet Mind of Shinazazi
No pen scratched across paper.
No runes shimmered to life.
No name was etched into her ledgers or crystal-bound records.
Shinazazi simply stood in silence.
The light of the moons filtered through the silk-curtained windows of her private chambers, casting pale blue shadows across the stonework floor. Her robes lay still, untouched by breeze, and her hands rested loosely before her. Her body was still, but her mind wandered wide and deep.
Asmith Ashanti.
A name weighted with vice. With violence. With velvet threats and wine-slick lies. The so-called “King” of Mithrin’s underworld, an empire built on coercion and charm, on pain dressed in perfume and gold.
She had expected resistance. Arrogance. Perhaps even a last, doomed attempt to retaliate.
But what came instead had surprised her.
Clarity. Humility. Reverence.
Not the sort born of weakness, but of calculation. And deeper still, of faith.
That was the piece that caught in her mind like a seed under the skin. He had listened to the voice of his mother. Remembered it. Spoke it aloud. Not in groveling fear, but as a mantra. As an anchor.
And in that moment, he chose not to fight her.
A wolf who knows when to bow is rarer than one who bares fangs.
She would not record this. There was no need. She did not need lists to remember what mattered.
Shinazazi never forgot.
She catalogued him now not as an enemy, not as prey, nor yet as an ally, but as something far more interesting:
A man with boundaries.
A man with lines he would not cross.
A man who could bend without breaking.
A man whose strength came from restraint.
And, most curiously, a man who had allowed her to see the shadow of the woman who raised him. That was no accident. That was a move.
One she respected.
“There is wisdom in this King of Salt and Smoke,” she mused silently.
Not a fool. Not a zealot. And not beyond reason. These were rare qualities, rarer still when paired with power and pride. Even Harker, in all his polish, was more predictable than Asmith. Shinazazi could sense the malleability in Harker. The easy compliance disguised as strategy.
But Asmith… he thought first. He measured.
He would never serve her. But he might, in time, understand her.
And understanding, in her world, was far more valuable than loyalty.
She turned slightly, facing the scrying mirror that reflected nothing at all.
“Keep your word, King of Smoke,” she thought.
“And I will not bury you. Not yet.”
A flicker passed through her eyes, a glint of amusement or curiosity, it was hard to tell. Then the moment passed, like breath vanishing in cold air.
She stepped away, vanishing once again into the veils of her domain.
The thought remained.
Tucked neatly beside others.
A place in her memory, carved in stone.
Asmith’s Vigil: The Lion and the Hyena
The chamber was dark.
Not with the deep shadows of sleep, nor the protective stillness of magical silence, but with the quiet churn of a mind awake, weighing, turning.
Asmith Ashanti, King of the Salt Circles, Lord of Kangga’s smoke-veiled manse, did not rest well.
The words the steward had brought back were few, but they had sunk deep.
“Tell King Asmith… his mother is wise. And her wisdom shows in him.”
It was no idle compliment. It was a message, veiled and precise.
She had seen him.
Not just his empire, not just his movements, him. His core. His foundation. The teachings passed down in whispers over cracked stone steps and long nights in shuttered temples. His mother’s warnings, once dismissed by his peers as peasant superstition, now reaffirmed by something old and watching.
That disturbed him more than any threat could.
He sat now in his high chamber, wine untouched, scimitar across his knees, not drawn for defense, but presence. Its golden sheen caught the starlight through the open arches, faintly humming in rhythm with his thoughts.
He was not afraid. He was wary.
“She sees. She remembers. She speaks with meaning.”
Not like Harker, who played games of coin and paper and could be buried under bureaucracy. Shinazazi played ritual, memory, and truth. Her power was not in numbers, but in understanding, in the bone-deep truths that couldn’t be bribed or blackmailed. She was a priestess without a church, a judge without court.
She was the hyena matron, circling in silence, never quite striking, but always there, always watching the lion’s pride, waiting for misstep. Nipping at the edge of power.
And so Asmith adjusted.
His worldview did not shatter, it shifted, like a ship on new tides.
Where once he considered Shinazazi a rival to overcome, now he saw her for what she truly was:
A territorial force, not to be challenged directly, but navigated around with care and calculation.
He would not encroach on her domain again, not directly, not even unknowingly. He would instruct his agents to mark her sphere in their ledgers, not with an “X” but with a halo. Not forbidden, but consecrated. Sacred ground.
Not for fear.
For wisdom.
A lion does not fear the hyena, but it watches the pack.
It knows when to stand its ground.
And when to give way, with dignity and the weight of knowing it still rules elsewhere.
“She is not mine to tame,” Asmith whispered, eyes on the sea.
“But she will not find me unaware again.”
And in that moment, a new rule joined the silent codes of Kangga:
“Let the Silk Queen walk her web. Let her feast in peace. But never let her shadow fall across your den unguarded.”
Asmith rose.
The wine remained untouched.
He walked to the balcony where the sea met the stars and whispered something only the salt wind would hear.
“The next move is mine.”
Law and Lineage: The Silk and the Scale
Location: The Lantern Gallery Overlook, Voolnishart
The city hummed far below, the muffled bustle of trade, the clatter of rigging, the echo of canal barges passing under carved bridges. From the Lantern Gallery, one could see all of Voolnishart’s divided glory: the merchant towers, the drowned markets, the silk quarter, and the blackstone harbormaster’s halls.
It was a place where meetings were seen, not hidden, a message in and of itself.
Alder Manse stood with arms crossed, back straight, tail curling idly near a stone urn of burning sage. His scales caught the light like ancient bronze, scarred but proud. He said nothing as Shinazazi approached, her silhouette almost imperceptible until the sun caught the gleam of her obsidian skin and violet-threaded robes.
She joined him without ceremony. The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. It was assessment.
Finally, Alder spoke, voice deep and slow.
“Harker’s been quiet.”
Shinazazi nodded slightly, not looking at him.
“He makes too much noise when he speaks. The quiet is better.”
A beat passed.
“And Asmith?” Alder asked.
“He listens.” She almost smiled.
“That alone sets him apart.”
Alder grunted, a rumble that might have been agreement. Or amusement.
“Two kings,” he said. “One with clean hands who poisons wells. The other with bloodied fingers who won’t touch a cup he hasn’t blessed himself.”
“Yes,” she replied. “And both pretending the other does not exist.”
Alder’s gaze shifted to her finally.
“You favor Ashanti.”
She turned, slowly. Her voice was soft, but exacting.
“No. I understand him. There’s a difference.”
She let that hang in the air like incense.
Shinazazi’s Thoughts of Alder:
He is not like the others. He does not flinch at truth, nor does he relish cruelty. He is the edge of a blade meant to cauterize, not mutilate. And yet… he lacks subtlety. There is beauty in law unbent, but law must flex in the storm. He does not bend. He endures. One day, that will break him.
Alder’s Thoughts of Shinazazi:
She smells of hidden truths. Her laws are silk cords, not iron bars. She binds people, not chains. She speaks of justice, but she enforces it in the shadows. I cannot trust her. But I do not need to. She enforces balance. And balance is rare. Useful. Dangerous. She will never fight beside me. But she will never fight against me… unless I force her hand.
A gust of sea wind drifted through the overlook. Below, a barge was offloaded in the Southern Canal, merchandise marked in both Harker’s script and Asmith’s private seal. Neither of them present, of course. Only their symbols. Their shadows.
“They’re alike, you know,” Shinazazi said, voice almost musing.
Alder’s brow lifted.
“No. They’re not.”
“Not in method,” she agreed. “But in appetite. One feeds on order so he can rule without threat. The other on chaos, so he can hide his roots.”
“I’ve hunted both,” Alder said. “Harker greases judges. Asmith outwits them. One lies with parchment, the other with poetry.”
“And both believe they are beyond reach.”
She glanced sideways at him.
“Neither are.”
Alder’s teeth showed briefly, not a smile, but an agreement. Their minds were aligned in purpose. Their tools, however, could not be more opposed.
“You’d web a criminal until he thought the trap was home,” he said, “while I would drag him out by the spine and toss him before the court.”
“And yet,” she replied, voice silken and steady, “we often find ourselves standing over the same corpse.”
He nodded, once.
“True.”
“So long as they fear justice,” she said, “it doesn’t matter if it comes with silk gloves or scaled fists.”
“Let them fear both,” Alder agreed.
They stood in silence once more, two forces aligned in outcome, but divided in spirit, a priestess of the hidden law, and a warden of the written one. Watching their two prey move far below.
The King and the Coin: A Dangerous Dialogue
Location: The House of Voiced Glass, a private salon above the drowned archives of Voolnishart*
Few dared book the House of Voiced Glass, an old, forgotten forum carved into a dome of translucent mineral grown by ancient mages and hollowed beneath the old city’s crust. The walls hummed faintly, recording echoes of spoken conversation, but sealing them inside unless unwound with the right phrase.
It was a room built for truth. Or lies cloaked in ritual.
Tonight, two men sat alone in it.
Asmith Ashanti, draped in tailored indigo silk, each finger heavy with rings, golden-hued scimitar resting beside him like a sleeping serpent. Composed. Amused. Dangerous in stillness.
Harker Villenci, his doublet a masterwork of copper-threaded cloth, hands ever twitching as if holding invisible contracts. His smile was thin, practiced, and smug enough to wrinkle the air.
Between them, a low obsidian table, empty save for two crystal glasses of chilled plum spirit, untouched.
“So,” Harker began, his voice casual, “the silk spider coos to the salt lion, and he purrs in return. Curious times.”
Asmith smiled, slightly, never too much.
“Curious indeed. You’ve been quiet, Harker. I thought you’d have railed by now. She struck your ledgers quite… surgically.”
“Mm.” Harker sipped but did not swallow, letting the drink cool on his tongue. “She announced violations, not crimes. Violations have margins. And margins are for merchants.”
“Is that what we’re calling slavers now?” Asmith said smoothly, crossing one leg over the other.
“Careful,” Harker replied, sharper now. “You pretend civility. But I know your little kingdom is bleeding.”
“Bled. Past tense.” Asmith nodded toward the ceiling. “I survived my judgment. You? You’re still under inquiry, last I heard.”
Harker leaned forward, predatory.
“And what happens when you end up in her black ledger again? Do you kneel again, King Asmith? Or does the lion roar this time?”
Asmith gave a slow chuckle, not mirthful, but measured.
“Tell me, friend, what do you gain from poking a being that sees in every direction at once? Do you think she’s deaf now? Or just patient?”
That landed. Harker’s lips pressed thin, but he masked it well.
“She is a parasite on trade.”
“She is the ward of the Undermarket,” Asmith countered, voice calm. “Without her, chaos. With her, order. Costly, yes. But better than blind flames. You know what chaos smells like, Harker?”
“Opportunity,” Harker snapped.
“Burnt flesh,” Asmith replied.
There was silence. The walls of the dome trembled faintly with the echo of those words, never loud, but resonant.
Then Harker leaned back, eyes narrowing.
“And Alder? How long before the lizard decides your docks are too… perfumed? The Council listens to him now. He speaks the law. Not veiled warnings and spidersilk judgments. Real law.”
Asmith’s eyes narrowed a fraction, but his voice remained gentle.
“Alder is lawful. Rigid. Predictable. That makes him easy to respect, and easier to avoid. Just don’t lie to him. You? You lie for sport.”
“And you murder for silence,” Harker said, lips curling.
“Ah, but I never brag about it,” Asmith murmured, lifting his glass but not drinking.
They sat, poised like duelists, neither daring to rise first.
Asmith’s Inner Thoughts:
Harker is too proud. He believes everyone plays his game of ink and silver. But he doesn’t understand predators who hunt in silence. He will bait Shinazazi out of pride. And she will strike, not because she must, but because she warned him. And I will not mourn him when she does.
Harker’s Inner Thoughts:
Asmith acts the sage now. Pretending fear is wisdom. He’s coiled too tightly. When he snaps, it’ll be ugly, and loud. He speaks of caution, but he bleeds ambition. All he needs is a nudge. Let Shinazazi tighten the leash. Let Alder bark louder. Then we’ll see if the lion bows again, or bares teeth.
As the meeting neared its end, Harker stood first.
“I look forward to watching your compliance, my lord.”
Asmith rose more slowly.
“And I’ll enjoy watching your funeral. It will be very well attended.”
Neither smiled.
Far below, in the deepest gallery of the city’s buried vaults, a single spider watched through a thread-thin scrying mirror, no incantation, no visible light. A weave only she knew.
Shinazazi blinked once.
“Fools sharpening knives in a temple.”
She did not move.
She did not intervene.
But she had heard everything.
And she would remember.
Shermans fantasy world 