A Knight's Shadow

The air in the tavern hung thick with the smell of cheap ale and stale sweat, a far cry from the hushed reverence of my archives. I clutched the worn leather satchel tighter, the weight of the prophecy pressing down on me like a physical burden. Every shadowed corner seemed to hold a lurking threat, every gruff voice a potential whisper of the Obsidian Hand. I’d expected to be followed, to be hunted, but the sheer anonymity of this bustling port town was a different kind of danger, a sea of faces where I could drown without a trace.

My contact, a merchant with eyes that darted like trapped birds, had given me the name of a man. “Kael,” he’d rasped, pushing a folded parchment across a sticky table. “He’ll help you. He owes… a debt.” The man had refused to elaborate, his fear a palpable thing. A debt. To whom? And for what? The parchment simply bore a crude drawing of a raven’s claw and a time: midnight. Here.

Midnight had come and gone, leaving me nursing a tepid cup of something that vaguely resembled tea. The merchant was long gone, swallowed by the night. I was about to concede defeat, to admit that my quest for an ally had led me to a dead end, when a shadow detached itself from the deeper gloom near the back wall.