Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign

Kenzo had the man by the collar, one arm straight, eyes hot. The stall owner stood frozen behind a steam pot, chopsticks hanging in the air. People looked for a second, judged it wasn't their problem, and went back to their noodles. Underworks logic.

"Kenzo" Raizen said, voice low. "Let him go."

"You don't know who this is" Kenzo answered without looking.

"I'll never find out if you strangle him!"

Obi slid between them with both hands up. "Hey hey! Public strangling is bad for business. Mine and his"

Kenzo held a breath that sounded like it might turn into a punch. He didn't throw it. He opened his hand. The man dropped to his feet and caught himself on the edge of a table. He coughed twice, short and rough, then straightened his glasses. One lens had a hairline crack that caught the lights.

"You alright?" Raizen asked.

"I've had worse" the man said. His voice was tired, not scared.

A few heads turned, then lost interest. Someone called for two more dumplings. Oil hissed. The market has seen too many conflicts to be bothered anymore.

"Not here" Raizen said. "Too many eyes."

"My shop's close" Obi said, already waving them toward the tight lane. "Quiet. No witnesses. No strangling discounts either"

Kenzo gave the man a last look that could have cut steel. Then he moved.

The man followed without arguing. Raizen fell in beside him, watching the way he walked. Not a fighter. Not soft either. Coat worn. Hands nicked. The smell of metal clung to him.

They slipped off the main row. The noise thinned. Lantern strings hummed over the pipes. The Spire was a thin ghost between the buildings when they turned the last corner.

Obi unlocked the side door and shouldered it open. The smithy was asleep. Forge black. Coals dead.

Cinderette's plants climbed the ceiling beams and trailed leaves like flags. Tools hung in rows that only Obi could ever understand.

"Seats, we need seats" Obi told himself. He flipped a crate for Raizen, dragged a stool for the stranger, and leaned on the anvil himself. Kenzo didn't want to sit. He stood near the wall with his arms folded, jaw set.

Obi pushed a bottle of water across the floor with his boot. The stranger picked it up, unscrewed the cap, and took a careful sip.

"Start from the simple thing" Raizen said. "Why did you try to choke him in a market"

"Let him tell you" Kenzo said. It came out hard.

"Alright" the man said. He rubbed at the mark on his neck with two fingers, then dropped his hand. "I was eating. There's a stall I like. Dumplings. They don't ask questions."

Obi squinted. "You almost got folded for dumplings?"

Kenzo's voice cut clean. "No. because of the history this man has behind.

"What crime could he have possibly commited?"

"He was here then. Years ago. A North Expedition."

"Classified" Obi answered for Raizen, tone turning flat. "We saw a file. Fifteen went out. Fourteen didn't come back. One scientist unnamed"

The stranger's eyes changed on that word. Not surprise. Not quite relief either. He was measuring something.

"How did you…?" he said.

"Don't ask any questions. We don't know much. Just enough to be angry" Obi said. "But not enough to know why"

Kenzo still didn't sit. "He knows why"

Raizen looked from one to the other. He kept his voice even. "Were you there?"

"Yes" the man said.

"You survived"

"As you can see"

Silence pressed along the walls. Obi tried to fold the anger into a question. "So who are you, stranger, who gets premium strangling from Kenzo on sight?"

The man stared at the bottle cap in his hand for a beat, then set it on the stool. "Eiden"

Raizen blinked. "Eiden like... professor Eiden? The engineer? Academy contracts. Kestrel-X inventor? Arashi's board?"

"I guess so" Eiden said. He wasn't showing pride and he wasn't hiding. He said it like a simple fact in a long list of them.

Kenzo's voice got thinner. "He's more than that. He's the reason fourteen never walked back"

Eiden met Kenzo's eyes and didn't look away. "I'm the one who walked back. That's true"

Raizen let the line sit. Then: "The Council called it recon. The file said nothing. What was it really?"

"Research" Eiden admitted. The word was small and heavier than it should have been. "Field test. New approach. We were gathering readings and... trying something"

"Then why was it listed as "recon" if it was simply a study?"

"It wasn't listed the way it should have been. It never is, with this stupid Council"

Obi exhaled. "And after that... Nobody talked. Because the stamp said classified"

Eiden gave a laugh with no humor inside it. "The stamp means forgotten. It always did."

Kenzo's hands flexed once. "You should have told people. Anyone. The Council. The Wardens. The Heart"

"To do what? Write me a permit to make it worse"

Raizen held up a hand. "Enough. We didn't bring you here to finish the fight. We brought you to answer"

Eiden's gaze moved to Raizen. He studied him like a problem he already knew would hurt to solve. "You're… The fast guy, the one with high Eon frequency, almost like thunder, right?"

"Uh… I wouldn't really call myself that, but I guess it's me. Why?"

"Who told you about that file?"

Obi scratched his jaw. "As I said earlier. Don't ask questions"

"Fifteen" Raizen said. "Six Wardens. Five Gravers. Three rookies for carry. One scientist unnamed. That last one is you"

"Yes" Eiden said.

"And Kenzo wanted to kill you for it"

Eiden's eyes dropped to the floor. The room went quiet again. Somewhere outside a cart rattled overhead and faded away.

Raizen leaned forward on the crate. "We don't know what happened. Only the numbers and the silence. You said research. You said field test. That makes you the only one who can explain the part the file didn't care about"

Eiden looked at the three of them in turn. The soldier without rank sitting on a crate. The smith who joked to keep things human. The ex-phalanx who looked like he had been carrying a weight for years and had finally found a place to throw it into someone's face.

Eiden set the bottle on the floor, gently so it wouldn't fall. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose until the crack caught the light again.

He took one breath. Not deep. Steady. "Alright, then…"

"Let me tell you what really happened"