The Domini saga

Two weeks on, Baldur’s Gate crushes around Kynes in salt air, shouting stalls, and wet stone. No vault hum answers here, only ordinary hunger and coin.

A flash of grey fabric slips into a narrow alley ahead, half-lost in fog and fish stink. The shape matches the redirection trail they have been chasing.

Slaan and Nhal close in beside him, both already reading the alley like a wound in the market wall. Bren angles through the crowd, cutting off the easy escape.

At the alley mouth, a dropped scrap of grey cloth clings to a brass tack, freshly snagged. Beneath it, a chalk-mark points deeper into the fog, then abruptly breaks, as if someone scrubbed the rest away.

Nhal lifts her head, shadow-still, and indicates the turn with a single, sharp gesture. The quarry is still ahead, and the false turn now has a place, a method, and a direction.

Kynes studies the cloth without touching it, following its damp creases and the brass tack's fresh scrape.

The grey thread is ordinary wool, but its salt crust comes from the harbor wall, not the market. Someone dragged it through the fog deliberately.

In the broken mark, Kynes finds three surviving strokes beneath the grime. Read together, they point not deeper into the alley, but upward.

Nhal shifts her gaze to the stacked balconies. Above the alley, a grey-gloved hand withdraws behind a sagging line of laundry.

Kynes keeps his voice level, but the narrow alley carries every word upward. Two market-goers near the butcher's stall glance toward the stairs, then hurry behind a hanging fish rack.

A soft scrape answers from above. Dust sifts from the balcony's underside, and a grey thread slips free, trailing toward a cramped stairwell between the buildings.

The warning has cost them concealment. The trail is clear, but the alley now feels watched from both ends, with the stairwell open like a waiting mouth.

Kynes sends the stun spell along the grey thread, threading force through the trap without touching its waiting shape.

The spell crosses the stairwell and snaps upward. A muffled cry breaks the roofline's silence, followed by the hard clatter of a dropped blade.

The upper balcony jolts. A Grey-Gloved Figure folds against the railing, stunned, while grey cloth spills from one limp hand into the alley.

The stunned figure lies exposed at the balcony's end, cut off from the roofline and the stairwell's mouth. The remaining footsteps fade toward the market.

Kynes crosses the stairwell in a swift, measured rush, testing each stone before committing his weight. The crowded market blurs below him, fish stink and fog pressing close.

He reaches the upper balcony without triggering another snare. The Grey-Gloved Figure remains stunned against the railing, their dropped blade out of reach.

Kynes turns the figure's face toward the grey daylight and pulls back the hood. The stranger is Havel, the courier seized on the road to Leilon, now wearing the same gloves as the watchers.

Below, Nhal reappears at the stairwell mouth, tense and empty-handed. The retreating watcher has vanished among the fishmongers, but a fresh smear of grey chalk marks a narrow service lane.

Kynes advances across the balcony, and his sea of shadows spills around Havel's boots. The darkness reaches for the railing, but the fog and crowded market below give it no purchase. It shudders, then thins.

The calm demand lands, but the failed pressure leaves Havel's courage intact. He jerks awake, twists from the railing, and nearly pitches toward the stairs.

His gloved fingers claw at the fabric. Beneath it, a faint grey line circles his wrist and vanishes beneath his sleeve, a tether rather than a wound.

Kynes reinforces the sea of shadows. It gathers without violence, pooling around Havel's boots and climbing the railing in a dark, steady wall. The grey tether stops drawing toward the service lane.

Havel's knees give way. He catches himself against the balcony stones instead of the stairs, keeping his gloved hand rigidly away from the grey current.

Below, the market's noise thins around the balcony. Two townsfolk near the butcher's stall glance up, then turn away as a fresh smear of grey chalk appears on the service-lane stones.

From beyond the lane, a door slams. Footsteps break into a measured retreat through the fog, while the grey line beneath Havel's glove tightens against Kynes's shadowed boundary.

Therefore, the shadows around Havel rise into jagged rows of teeth. They do not touch him, but their mouths close around every path toward the lane.

The threat lands. Havel points with his bare hand toward the fogged stones, careful not to cross the shadow boundary. His explanation is clear, but the grey glove remains sealed to him.

A shadow peels from Kynes’s feet and folds into a crow, its wings soundless against the fog.

The crow launches over the balcony, veering toward the narrow service lane and vanishing between the roofs.

Kynes turns back. Invisible force takes Havel’s head and wrenches it sharply aside. His body goes slack within the shadow boundary, and the grey glove remains sealed around his hand.

Nhal reaches the fallen courier and checks him, then looks toward the lane as the crow’s distant cry cuts through the market fog.

Kynes's shadows sweep around Nhal, folding her into the same dark veil. The balcony, fog, and market lanes collapse into a single silent step.

They emerge in the service lane below, directly behind the watcher. The figure stops between a shuttered cooper's shop and a stacked fish cart, with the alley mouth blocked by Kynes's arrival.

The Watcher Below turns halfway, grey gloves raised near a concealed blade. Fog presses close around the lane, while the shadow crow circles overhead and the market's distant listeners fall silent.

Nhal shifts to seal the watcher's remaining path, but the figure's gloved hand tightens around a small strip of grey cloth. It is poised to burn the evidence unless Kynes acts.

Kynes's spell snaps across the lane in a silent flash of violet shadow, striking the Watcher Below before the grey cloth can touch the flame.

The watcher stiffens. Their raised hand locks in place, the concealed blade slipping harmlessly against the cobbles as the stun takes hold.

Nhal crosses the narrow lane and plucks the grey strip from the watcher’s rigid fingers. The cloth is cold with harbor damp, but it does not burn.

Beyond the watcher, a squat service door stands ajar beneath the cooper’s shop. From inside comes one muffled scrape, then silence.

Boots strike the wet stones behind him. Slaan reaches the lane with Bren at her shoulder, journal tucked beneath one arm.

Spectral bonds lash from Slaan’s hands and cinch around the watcher’s arms and chest, pinning them against the shutter without touching the fallen blade.

The watcher twists against the bonds, angling their body toward the grey cloth in Nhal’s grasp. Their silence is deliberate, but the service door gives another faint scrape and begins to swing inward.

Kynes turns from the closing door. Invisible force tightens around the restrained watcher, compressing the air and pinning their breath beneath Slaan’s spectral bonds.

The watcher’s defiance fractures. Their gaze darts toward the grey cloth in Nhal’s hand, then toward the narrowing service door.

The pressure releases before the watcher collapses. Slaan keeps the bonds firm, while the service door grinds nearly shut and fog spills through its narrowing gap.

Secure the closing passage