Chapter 3

The arcane message refused to hold its shape.

Dorhan stood before the narrow stone table, one hand suspended above its polished surface. A web of pale runes drifted between his fingers. Each time he drew the final binding mark, the light fractured, scattering into thin strands before fading into the air. He exhaled through his nose.

The connection to the Western Spire was proving more troublesome than it should have been. The disturbance in Zol had unsettled the local channels of magic, and whatever residue remained from the event continued to interfere with the finer workings of the weave.

A knock sounded at the chamber door. Schooling the annoyance of the interruption, he barked, “Enter.”

A soldier stepped inside and bowed. His expression carried the weary resignation of a man who had already delivered news he knew would not be welcomed. “The search has gone cold, Magi.”

Dorhan lowered his hand. The runes above the table dimmed, though he did not dismiss them entirely. “Explain.”

“The canal patrols confirmed that the fugitive escaped by barge through the lower drainage channels. The pursuit followed the vessel out toward the outer waterways, but beyond that, there is nothing reliable. The slips have been searched, as have the banks and the roads leading away from the water. No confirmed sightings. No clear direction.”

“How long since the last confirmed sighting?”

“Several hours, Magi.”

“And the vessel?”

“Nothing we can identify with certainty. The men have found traces of traffic along the waterways, but nothing that establishes which vessel carried the fugitive or where it went.”

Dorhan studied the soldier for a moment. Several hours. A narrow window, but not an impossible one. The search had begun with a clear trail and a known means of escape. Now even that certainty was slipping away.

“Where was the trail last established?”

“At the outer waterways, Magi. The patrols are uncertain beyond that point.”

Dorhan turned his attention back to the table. The unfinished message shimmered faintly above its surface. “Send Prefect Vael to the last confirmed point of the trail. I want him to review every report from the canal patrols and question the men who followed the barge. He is to establish precisely where the search first lost its direction.”

“Yes, Magi.”

“He will examine the waterways and the surrounding ground. I want every trace of residual surge energy accounted for. If the fugitive left anything behind, I want to know what it was and where it led.”

The soldier bowed again. “And the fugitive?”

Dorhan’s eyes hardened. “Leinhal is to be found alive. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Magi.”

“Then go.”

The soldier withdrew, closing the door behind him.

For a moment, Dorhan remained still. The chamber was quiet save for the faint hum of the arcane message, its unstable light crawling across the stone table. The search had gone cold.

That was not the same as saying the fugitive had escaped beyond reach. It meant only that the men assigned to find him had failed to follow the trail beyond Arvel’s waterways. A failure of discipline, perhaps. Or a failure of understanding.

Dorhan had seen the remnants of the disturbance himself. The smith’s escape had not been ordinary. The surge had left a signature unlike anything a village craftsman should have been capable of producing. There had been force behind it, but also something deliberate. Something that suggested the magic had not simply erupted.

It had answered.

His thoughts returned to the Watchers.

The possibility had troubled him since the first reports arrived. Their presence in such matters was rarely announced, and their motives were seldom clear. Yet why would they concern themselves with a village smith? Leinhal was no scholar, no known practitioner, no figure of consequence beyond the disturbance he had caused.

Unless there was something about him that Dorhan had yet to understand. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it had formed. Suspicion was not evidence, and he would not allow conjecture to dictate the direction of his work. The message still waited.

Dorhan raised both hands and began the binding sequence anew. The runes gathered above the table, their pale light stretching into a narrow column. He shaped the first sigil, then the second, drawing the threads together until the unstable strands began to settle.

This time, the connection held.

A faint image formed within the light, little more than a suggestion of distant stone and shadow. Dorhan steadied the weave and began to speak.

“To the Council of the Western Spire. I report a disturbance within Zol, originating in the settlement of Arvel. The individual allegedly responsible has been identified as Leinhal, a smith by trade, whose involvement in the event remains under investigation.”

The image flickered, but the connection endured.

“The subject escaped custody during the initial response. Evidence confirms that he departed by barge through Arvel’s lower drainage channels. Subsequent searches of the outer waterways and adjoining routes have produced no reliable sightings and no confirmed indication of his direction beyond the last established point of pursuit.”

Dorhan paused, watching the light.

“The investigation remains active within Arvel and its surrounding waterways. Prefect Vael has been assigned to review the failed pursuit, examine the available reports, and establish where the trail was lost. Further findings will be transmitted when confirmed.”

He lowered his hands as the final sigil closed, and the message collapsed into a single point of light before vanishing.

For several seconds, Dorhan watched the space where it had been. He had given the Council what it needed: the location of the disturbance, the identity of the fugitive, and the status of the search. Nothing more. The Watchers had no place in the report. Not yet.

He moved away from the table and looked toward the narrow window. Beyond it, Arvel lay beneath the fading light, its towers and rooftops softened by the haze rising from the canals. Somewhere beyond those walls, Leinhal remained beyond the reach of the men searching for him.

The smith had escaped the city, but Dorhan could not shake the feeling that the escape had been made possible by something more than chance. There were too many unanswered questions, too many gaps in the account of what had happened here.

And the possibility that the Watchers had taken an interest in the matter remained.

Why they would do so, he could not yet say.

“Find him, Vael,” he murmured.

His gaze returned to the unfinished traces of light above the stone table.

Whatever had helped the smith escape Arvel, Dorhan intended to discover it. And he intended to do so before the Great Towers began asking why an ordinary craftsman had become so difficult to find.