Chapter : 1119

A slow, cold, and deeply predatory grin spread across Lloyd's face. The assassins hunting him in the real world. The political enemies who thought he was trapped by distance and duty. The very laws of physics that governed his world. They were all now just suggestions, flimsy rules in a game for which he had just been handed the ultimate cheat code.

He could attend a war council in the morning and assassinate an enemy general across the continent by noon. He could retrieve an ancient artifact from an impenetrable vault without opening the door. He could escape any prison, bypass any army, and appear anywhere he had a clear mental picture of.

He was no longer just a warrior, a lord, or a strategist.

He was now a ghost. An omnipresent, untraceable specter who could be anywhere, at any time. The board had been reset, and the rules no longer applied to him.

The capital market was a living, breathing creature. It was a chaotic, beautiful symphony of commerce and humanity, a place where the entire spectrum of life in the duchy converged. The air was a thick, heady perfume of a thousand competing scents: the sharp, savory tang of grilled meats from a vendor’s cart, the sweet, intoxicating fragrance of exotic flowers imported from the south, the earthy aroma of fresh-turned soil clinging to vegetables, and the ever-present, dusty, human scent of the crowd itself. Sunlight, fractured by colourful awnings and the steam rising from food stalls, painted the cobblestones in shifting patterns of gold and shadow.

For Jasmin, it was a beautiful, overwhelming hell.

She walked a half-step behind Martha Jr., her hands clutching the handles of a woven shopping basket with a white-knuckled grip. Every shout from a merchant, every burst of laughter from a group of children, every time someone jostled past her in the throng, her nerves screamed. The world felt too loud, too fast, too full of unpredictable variables. Since Pia’s death, the quiet, safe corners of her world had been systematically erased. The manufactory, once a haven of purpose, was now a place haunted by a ghost. And the city, once a place of wonder, now felt like a hunting ground where tragedy could erupt from the most mundane of moments.

“Oh, look, Jasmin! Aren’t they beautiful?”

Martha Jr.’s voice, bright and clear as a songbird’s, cut through her dark thoughts. The younger girl, whose own life was a tapestry of quiet hardship, possessed a resilience that Jasmin found both mystifying and deeply admirable. She was pointing at a stall where a craftsman was selling delicate, hand-carved wooden birds, their wings painted in vibrant, impossible colours.

Jasmin forced a small, fragile smile. “They are. Very beautiful.”

“I’ll get one for Pia’s memorial stone,” Martha said, her cheerfulness dimming for only a fraction of a second before reigniting. “She would have loved the blue one. It looks like it’s about to fly away.”

The casual mention of Pia’s name was a fresh, sharp stab of pain. Jasmin’s breath hitched. She could still see it, the memory that played on a loop in the darkness behind her eyes: the spidery black curse mark on Pia’s neck, the violent convulsions, the life draining from her friend’s eyes while she stood there, frozen, helpless, utterly and completely useless. The guilt was a physical thing, a cold, heavy stone in the pit of her stomach. She had been there. She had done nothing.

“Jasmin? Are you alright?” Martha’s face was a mask of concern, her bright eyes searching Jasmin’s. “You’ve gone pale.”

“I’m fine,” Jasmin lied, the words tasting like ash. “Just… the sun is a bit strong today.”

Martha didn’t look convinced, but she let it go. They continued their shopping, purchasing the fresh vegetables and herbs Lloyd had requested for a new experimental scent profile. For a few, precious minutes, the simple, domestic task was a grounding anchor. The weight of the carrots, the crisp scent of the parsley—it was real. It was normal.

The normalcy was obliterated by a voice that was pure, dripping poison.

“Well, well. If it isn’t the little gutter-rat, playing at being a lady.”

Jasmin froze, her blood turning to ice. The voice came from a man who had materialized beside their vegetable stall. He was a large, slovenly man with a florid face, small, mean eyes, and the sour smell of cheap ale clinging to him. His fine, if stained, clothes marked him as a man of some means, but his posture was that of a belligerent thug.

Chapter : 1120

Martha Jr. went rigid, all the light and life draining from her face, replaced by a familiar, weary mask of dread. “Go away, Gregor,” she said, her voice a low, trembling whisper.

“Is that any way to speak to your father?” the man, Gregor, sneered. His eyes roamed over Martha’s simple but clean dress with a look of lecherous contempt. “Look at you. Running around the city, spending money you don’t have on trinkets. Your mother is at home, working her fingers to the bone, and you’re out here, flaunting yourself like a common trollop.”

“I’m buying vegetables for my work,” Martha said, her voice gaining a sliver of defiance. “The money is my own. I earned it.”

Gregor let out a harsh, barking laugh that made people at the nearby stalls turn and stare. “You earned it? Don’t make me laugh. Every coin you have is because I’m generous enough to let your worthless mother keep a roof over your head. A roof I own. A debt she repays every night. Do you understand me, girl?”

The insult was so vile, so brutally and publicly delivered, that the air around them seemed to crackle. Martha’s face, which had been pale with fear, now flushed with a deep, furious crimson. Her small hands were clenched into fists at her sides.

Jasmin felt a surge of cold, protective rage. She stepped forward, instinctively moving to place herself between Martha and the monster. “Sir, that is enough. We will be leaving now.”

Gregor’s piggy eyes shifted to Jasmin, dismissing her with a glance. “And who is this? Another one of your little street-friends? Stay out of family matters, you little waif, before you get hurt.” He turned his attention back to Martha, his voice dropping to a venomous hiss. “You’re coming with me. We’re going to have a long talk about respect. And about your mother’s… outstanding debts.”

He reached out, his thick fingers wrapping around Martha’s arm like a vise. Martha cried out, a small, sharp sound of pain and fear.

And that was the final straw.

With a speed that shocked even herself, Martha twisted and slapped him. It wasn't a tentative tap, but a full-force, open-palmed strike, delivered with all the desperate fury of a cornered animal. The sound was like a gunshot in the bustling market.

CRACK.

The world went silent. The haggling, the laughter, the music—it all ceased. Every eye in a twenty-foot radius was now fixed on their small, terrible drama.

Gregor stood frozen, his head turned to the side, a bright red handprint blooming on his bloated cheek. His small eyes were wide with a kind of stunned, animal disbelief. He slowly turned his head back to face Martha. The shock in his eyes was gone, replaced by something ancient, murderous, and absolutely terrifying.

“You… hit me?” he whispered, the words a low, guttural rumble. He smiled, a slow, ugly stretching of his lips that didn't reach his eyes. “You stupid little bitch. You have no idea what you’ve just done.”

His hand dropped from Martha’s arm to the hilt of the short sword at his belt. The movement was slow, deliberate, a piece of horrifying theatre for the silent, watching crowd. The blade slid from its scabbard with a slick, metallic whisper, the polished steel a slash of cold, deadly light in the warm afternoon sun.

He raised the sword. His eyes were locked on Martha, and in them, Jasmin saw not anger, but a cold, killing intent. He was going to cut her down. Here. In the middle of the market. For the crime of a single, defiant slap.

Time seemed to slow. Jasmin saw the terror on Martha’s face, a mirror of her own. She saw the horrified gasps of the onlookers. She saw the blade, a thing of terrible beauty, begin its short, brutal descent.

And in that frozen, perfect instant of horror, the ghost of Pia screamed in her soul.

No. Not again.

The cold stone of guilt in her stomach didn’t just shatter. It detonated.

The world broke.

It was not a conscious thought, not a decision. It was a reflex, a primal, soul-deep rejection of reality. The image of the descending sword, the glint of steel aimed at the soft, vulnerable flesh of her friend, superimposed itself over the memory of the spidery black curse mark on Pia’s neck. The two moments, separated by weeks, became one. The same terror. The same helplessness. The same chilling certainty of a life about to be extinguished while she stood by and watched.

The universe screamed NO. And Jasmin screamed with it.