Chapter 6: Deadly Counterattack in the Market
1556 Words
Midday on the third day. Over the central marketplace of Silver Moon City, the sun was blotted out by heavy, roiling clouds, the air thick with cloying, humid heat.
It was the busiest quarter of the city, and the place where gossip spread faster than wildfire.
Eira, dressed in a simple grey linen gown and carrying a wicker basket of medicinal herbs, had barely stepped into the market street when the raucous cries of the vendors dropped off, eerily quiet.
Dozens of eyes fixed on her, clinging like sticky cobwebs to her every move.
“That’s her. Heard she lost her mind after the ceremony, snapped from the shock.”“Snapped? I heard from the outpost that after Lord Kaelen rejected her, she’s been colluding with the Dark Blood Clan to get revenge on Black Rock!”“How is this shameless woman still in the clan? She’s a stain on the Moon Goddess’s glory!”
Hushed, vicious whispers drifted to Eira’s ears from behind stalls on every side.
Eira paused at a stall selling moonfruit, reaching out to pick through the fruit. The vendor, a middle-aged werewolf, saw her reach and snatched the wicker basket back as if he’d touched a plague, spitting at her in disgust. “Get out! Scram! I don’t sell my fruit to filth that colludes with the dark ones!”
Eira pulled her hand back, staring at the vendor, and said nothing.
At that moment, the crowd was roughly shoved apart.
Lila stepped through, dressed in a pure white lace gown, flanked by two handmaidens, her face etched with frantic, heartbroken concern, her eyes red-rimmed as if she’d just been crying.
“Stop it, all of you!” Lila stepped up beside Eira, throwing her arms out to shield her, raising her voice to the gathered crowd.
“My sister didn’t mean any of it! She’s just so in love with Lord Kaelen, she wasn’t thinking straight after he rejected her! As for colluding with the Dark Blood Clan… it’s all a terrible misunderstanding! Please, give her a chance to make amends!”
The words sounded like a plea, but in reality, they hammered every last rumor home, nailing them to Eira’s name for good.
The crowd’s anger flared to a fever pitch in an instant.
“Miss Lila, you’re too kind! Why defend this ungrateful wretch?”“Yeah! She pushed you over and hurt you just days ago, and you’re still speaking for her?”“Banish her from Silver Moon City! We don’t want trash like her here!”
Then, from somewhere in the crowd, a half-rotten moonfruit came flying, aimed straight for Eira’s face.
Lila shrank back with a feigned gasp of fear, but the corner of her mouth twitched up into a triumphant smirk.
She’d spent two hundred gold coins hiring every thug and lowlife in the city to spread those rumors. Today, she was going to ruin Eira’s reputation completely, right here in the marketplace.
But the rotten fruit never hit Eira’s face.
A boot clad in tough leather swept out from the side, striking the fruit mid-air with a wet splat. Rotten pulp and juice exploded everywhere, most of it splattering directly across Lila’s pristine white gown.
“Damn, this thing’s rank. Is this what you folks in Silver Moon City eat on the regular?”
A bright, sharp voice rang out, thick with mocking disdain.
Serena stepped out from behind Eira, clad in the pale green fitted leather armor unique to the Windchaser Caravan, a blade of grass between her teeth, swaggering forward with effortless confidence.
Behind her, she dragged three men, trussed up tight with rope, their faces beaten black and blue.
Serena stopped right in front of Lila, and with a flick of her boot, sent the three men tumbling to the ground at her feet like dead dogs.
“C’mon, Miss Lila. Take a good look. These boys look familiar to you?” Serena spat the blade of grass from her mouth, planting her hands on her hips.
Lila’s face drained of color the second she saw the men’s faces. They were the very thug leaders she’d paid to spread the rumors.
“I-I don’t know who they are. Who are you? How dare you cause trouble in Silver Moon City?” Lila stumbled back two steps, clinging to the last of her composure.
“You don’t know them?” Eira finally spoke.
She dropped her wicker basket to the ground, pulling a pinch of fine silver powder from her pocket—ground moon crystal, a pure vessel for her moonlight magic.
“No matter. I’ll help you remember.”
Eira tossed the powder into the air. The newly awakened primal moonlight power within her wolf core surged out through her fingertips, weaving itself into the fine silver dust. In midair, the particles spread and rearranged themselves, forming a glowing screen nearly two meters tall and wide.
Two documents blazed into sharp, unmistakeable clarity on the screen.
On the left was Lila’s sickeningly sappy pink love letter to Kaelen, the line I offer you my pure, untainted soul to follow you blown up several times over, the wax seal perfectly visible for all to see.
On the right was a bank transfer slip from the Windchaser Merchant Bank. The payee was one of the trussed-up men on the ground, the sender’s name printed in clear, unmistakeable script: Lila Silvermoon. Amount: two hundred gold coins. Memo: Public Opinion Manipulation Fee.
“This is the pure, kind, gracious chieftain’s daughter you all praise?”
Eira’s voice rang out over the deathly silent marketplace, heavy with unshakable authority.
“While she slipped me a confession speech to make a fool of me in the square, she was writing love letters of her own to sneak to Kaelen. On top of that, she couldn’t even be bothered to pay the full price upfront to hire thugs to spread lies about me.”
Eira stepped forward until she stood toe to toe with Lila, her ice-blue eyes locking onto hers.
“Lila, you’ve been playing this two-faced, innocent little lamb game for ten years. Are you not sick of it yet?”
The evidence was irrefutable. The black and white text blazed on the moonlight screen, impossible to ignore.
The crowd’s gaze shifted in an instant. What had been rage and hostility toward Eira curdled into disgust and contempt at being played for fools.
“Damn… that love letter is downright pathetic.”“So she was the one who paid to spread the rumors? How vile.”“I actually thought she was a good person. Disgraceful.”
Lila’s face flushed scarlet, then drained to a deathly white. She waved her hands wildly, trying to snatch at the glowing screen, but her fingers passed straight through the nothingness of the dust.
“It’s not true! It’s fake! She forged it!” The tears in her voice were real this time, her perfect makeup streaked and ruined by sobs.
But no one believed her anymore.
A few of the more hot-tempered werewolf women even hurled their leftover rotten vegetables at her.
“Get away! Don’t touch me!” Lila shrieked, hysterical, covering her face as she fled through the crowd, flanked by her two handmaidens, scurrying back toward the clan estate like a whipped dog.
Eira stood where she was, watching Lila’s fleeing back, her expression completely impassive.
She snapped her fingers, and the glowing screen dissolved into a shower of silver sparkles, vanishing into the air.
The crowd looked at Eira now with a newfound awe and wariness. The meek, bullied orphan they’d all known had, somehow, grown fangs sharp enough to tear her prey apart.
The crowd slowly dispersed.
Serena clapped Eira on the shoulder, giving her a thumbs up. “Hell yeah! I’ve been dying to tear that woman’s fake mask off for ages.”
“This is just the beginning.” Eira murmured.
She turned, ready to leave the marketplace with Serena.
At that moment, a violent shiver raced down the back of Eira’s neck. It was the unmistakable feeling of being locked in the sights of an apex predator.
She lifted her head instinctively, her gaze cutting down the long street to the ancient clock tower at the far end of the marketplace.
In the shadows of the tower’s second floor, behind a stone window, stood a tall, imposing figure clad in black.
Kaelen leaned against the rough stone windowsill, his hands braced on the cold rock, wearing that same black leather trench coat.
His cold golden eyes cut through the humid air over the marketplace, locked unblinkingly onto Eira.
She was too far away to make out his expression, but she could feel it clear as day—gone was the contempt and cold indifference he’d fixed her with at the ceremony. In its place was a ravenous, almost unhinged curiosity that made her skin crawl.
Up in the clock tower, Kaelen’s fingers tightened around the stone windowsill. The solid granite crunched beneath his grip, fine cracks spiderwebbing across the rock.
He stared at the silver-haired girl standing straight-backed in the faint sunlight, and felt his heart thunder in his chest, racing with a wild, ungovernable rhythm he had never felt in twenty-four years of life.
- Writer
