Stand there long enough and everything reveals itself.
A market is a society with its skin peeled off. Every hierarchy exposed. Who sells and who buys, who haggles and who doesn't, who enters from the front and who slips in from the side. The gap between the wealthy and the desperate is never more visible than in the space between two stalls. One sells luxury to those who collect it. The other sells necessity to those who can barely afford it. Both call themselves merchants. Both are right.
I said markets are theater. I meant it precisely. There is the performance visible to everyone—the transaction, the price, the handshake, the exchange. Mortals rehearse these gestures so often they forget it is acting. Pride disguised as fairness. Desperation disguised as negotiation. Power disguised as service.
The market reflects but it also reveals.
Some trade almost exclusively in luxury—perfumes, lacquered trinkets, polished steel meant more for display than for war. Those kingdoms value appearance above endurance.
Some trade only in necessity—grain, salt, oil, livestock. Those places understand survival intimately.
Some sell what was never meant to be sold at all—things that have no price because the cost is paid by something other than coin. Those places already begun to hollow from within.
And then there are markets like Wicker Rows—where all three share the same street.
Bread beside rumor. Carriages beside quiet leverage. Books beside secrets.
Every market performs.
But what it dares to sell, that is where it betrays itself. Strip away the ceremony of courts and councils and what you have left is this: people in an open space, trying.
Some trying to survive. Some trying to rise. Some trying to hold on to what they have. Some trying to acquire what they were never meant to. And some, just passing through— stumbling into all of it at once.
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The Veil trades — 11 months before The Convergence
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After his talk with Grex, Iakob was brimming with restless energy. He could hardly wait to tell the news to Montzy and Loti. Montzy wasn’t in the castle—probably off on a grade A mission, so he decided to visit Loti first.
The Wicker Rows were already stirring when Iakob arrived. The marketplace had earned its name generations ago when basket-weavers lined these streets. Their craft so renowned that even now, many stalls kept woven awnings and wicker lattice facades as a matter of pride.
The market square hummed with morning trade—vendors calling their wares, the ring of a blacksmith's hammer, the sweet char of roasting nuts, freshly baked bread, and the rich aroma of brewing coffee.
Near the center, stood an ancient fountain carved with the seven moons in different sizes, water flowing between them in cascading arcs. A stall beside it offered steaming cups of hot chocolate and bowls of rice porridge, their warmth rising in gentle clouds against the morning chill. Another had noodle soup bubbling in clay pots, the broth fragrant with ginger and garlic. Iakob wanted to try them all the week before, but now he wondered if he'd have the chance before leaving.
Wolfpit's people moved with unhurried confidence of those who knew they withstood the biggest catastrophe in recent history. The walls bore scars from the Sundering Eclipse, yes, but those scars had been turned to monuments. Even the cobblestones seemed to be polished until grief turned into pride. Every store facade maintained as if the meisterdom itself was watching.
Along the market's edge, Pitbite carriages waited in neat rows, lacquer gleaming black. Drivers in crisp uniforms chatted while their horses stamped and snorted, ready to carry passengers at a moment's notice. The family crest—a wheel wreathed in silver—marked each door, along with their slogan painted in bold script:
We Keep Wolfpit in Our Wheels.
Iakob thought whether they would need one going to Magiting. He wasn't sure how they'd travel—spirit gate, conjured bridge, or something else entirely.
He read the slogan again and smirked. Clever.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
But the slogan was more honest than the Pitbites intended: Control disguised as service. Dependence is a quiet leash—and Pitbites held it longer than most could remember. The boy was right, though. It was clever. And the cleverest chain is the one you thank your captor for.
For generations, the wealthy Pitbites family made themselves indispensable. Their network of carriages, couriers, and other businesses thread through every corner of Wolfpit like veins through a body—delivering everything from passengers to news.
Iakob passed The Guiding Page, a bookshop near the square's edge. The proprietor—a thin man with ink-stained fingers—was already arranging volumes in the window display. Stacks of The Chromewick Times sat beside the door, the headlines bold against cream-colored parchment. While a smaller pile of Nareen Daily—the continental paper that arrived through Pitbite courier—leaned against the doorframe.
Iakob had never been inside, though Montzy had mentioned once, in passing, that his parents used to own the property. Now it was leased, the attic kept locked. Whatever history lingered there, Montzy never spoke of it, and Iakob learned not to ask.
At the market's far end, The Cedars Rest Inn rose above the stalls with quiet grandeur. Its timbered walls and ivy-draped balconies carried an elegance in contrast of Wicker Rows' everyday bustles. Yet, it somehow fit perfectly—a jewel that didn't flaunt itself but couldn't help being noticed. The polished glass windows gleamed in the sun, the carved cedar emblem that testified to centuries of craftsmanship, and the strong scent of cedar made it unmistakably noticeable.
At the doorway, Iakob caught sight of Loti in her neatly pinned hair speaking with the village baker. The woman's apron was streaked white with flour, her rattan basket brimming with warm loaves. For a moment, the two women looked out of place against the elegance of the inn—polished lanterns, embroidered cushions, big shiny vases. Yet to Iakob, it only highlighted how Loti lived in two worlds at once: the grounded, gossip-laden Chromewick and the cultivated grace that is expected of Wolfpit's innkeepers. Somehow, she carried both with ease.
The chimes sounded as Iakob pushed through the door. Loti's head snapped up. Her eyes swept over him—no bandage, no escort, walking through the Wicker Rows alone—and something tightened in her expression. "Iakob." Her voice was controlled, but her hands had already moved to dismiss the baker. "Out of bed already? I thought I told you—"
"I'm fine, Loti. Really." Iakob's voice was quiet but insistent. "I just... wanted to see you."
The baker, catching the shift in atmosphere, murmured her farewells and slipped out.
Loti waited until the door closed, the chimes settling into silence, before she moved. She carried the basket of bread toward a corner table draped in deep green cloth.
Iakob followed.
"All right," she said, folding her arms as she sat across from him. "What's happened?"
"I might have to leave Wolfpit," he said abruptly. "Just for few days... to travel. To Magiting."
Loti's brows lifted, her expression sharpening. "Magiting? With Grex?"
"Yes."
"And Dayang Marilag is part of it too?" she pressed.
"I don't know. Maybe," Iakob said hesitantly. He rubbed the back of his neck where the bandage had been. "So much has happened since yesterday. The axe, the infirmary, the Council... and tomorrow morning, I leave."
Loti's lips thinned. She busied her hands by unwrapping one of the loaves, still warm from the stone hearth. With a fingertip, she traced a small sigil into the crust—the kind that old Wolfpit families carved into doorframes and windowsills. She pushed the loaf gently across the table. "For protection," she said simply. "And so you remember where you belong." Her words carried more weight than the bread itself.
Iakob touched the loaf, feeling its heat seep into his palms. "Will you be here when we return?"
"Where else would I go?" Loti's voice was soft, but her eyes still carried the storm she refused to name.
Then she raised her hand and drew a practiced circle in the air. Lights appeared, faint and shimmering. The cloth inside the basket lifted and folded, wrapping the warm bread. The basket shifted, weaving itself into an elegant box with a handle atop.
“Bring this,” she said, sliding it across. “And consume it all before it goes bad on the fifth day."
Iakob took the handle carefully. The basket felt warm still, faintly humming with the protection she’d pressed into it.
“I won’t waste it,” he said.
“You’d better not,” Loti replied.
He stepped back into the Wicker Rows.
The market had grown louder.
Near the fountain with the carved moons, a knot of people had gathered. Voices rose over the usual hum of trade.
“It was reserved,” a man insisted. “Half paid in advance.”
“And I paid in full,” another shot back. “Coin in hand. That makes it mine.”
Between them stood the Wicker Magic merchant wringing his hands, sweat darkening his collar. Suspended in the air above his stall hovered a small bronze charm etched with spiral sigils. It pulsed irregularly, reacting to the anger around it.
Iakob edged closer before he could stop himself.
The father stepped protectively in front of a thin boy clutching his sleeve. “He needs it,” the father said. “His kindling’s weak. This could mean acceptance at the academy.”
"Then train him harder," the buyer said as he thrust his hand toward the charm.
Then magic flared—ragged and directionless, the kind that happens when someone reaches for more power than their kindling can shape cleanly. The charm shrieked with amplified energy and the pulse shot outward in a wild arc, hitting the fountain first. The water exploded sideways.
The crowd shouted in panic as they scattered.
The flare hit the basket.
Iakob felt it rip from his grip before he could react. Loti's basket—still warm, tumbling away from his hand. His stomach dropped as he watched the basket flew.
Then ivy came.
From the cracks in the pavement, came tendrils coiling fast. Impossibly fast. It snatched the basket mid-fall. A coil caught a loaf that almost dropped in the pavement. The ivy held it. Safe. Iakob exhaled in relief.
The basket hung suspended mid-air, wrapped gently, perfectly still.
The square went quiet.
Then came Loti's voice.
"Who."
It wasn't a question. Just that one word—long, loud, and echoing—landed across Wicker Rows like a bell. Onlookers hold their breath. Somehow, they recognized.
And there stood Loti at the edge of the square, neatly pinned hair not a strand out of place. Left hand on her hip. Right slightly raised, glowing faint green. Behind her, ivy spread slowly outward from the pavement cracks—deliberate, watchful, like a wolf waiting for its prey.
The merchant went pale.