The Steel Lead
I wake before the sun even bothers to pull itself over the marsh horizon. My eyes snap open the way they always do in unfamiliar places, pupils thin in the dim grey light. The room is a hollow shell of an abandoned house, its bones long picked clean by wind and thieves. Dust hangs in the air like old breath. The walls are warped timber, faintly mouldy at the edges, and a collapsed shutter rattles with every sigh of the forest outside.
And I am exactly where instinct demands I be. Curled against my master. Not near him. Not beside him. Wrapped around him like he is the single warm star left in a dying universe.
Our deer leather bedroll is barely big enough for one adult. I made sure there was no space left at all. My legs hooked over his, my chest pressed to his side, my tail coiled low across his waist, possessive and protective all at once. His breathing is slow, steady, calm. The calm he only drops into when he knows I am awake and watching.
I stay still just long enough to enjoy the shape of his warmth beneath my cheek. Then my ears lift, twitching toward the rest of the room. Pontune lies across from us, in her own bedroll, arms folded over her chest like she is lying in state rather than sleeping. Her red dyed eyes are closed, but the tension in her shoulders says she never truly lets herself fall fully unconscious.
I study her for a long moment. Her breathing is steady. Her posture unmoving. Her hair perfectly arranged even in sleep. Annoying. Satisfied she is unconscious enough not to cause trouble, I shift my attention to the room itself.
The ceiling sags where rot ate through the beams, though not enough to collapse. The stone floor beneath us is cold, cracked, dust settling in the fractures. A dead fireplace sits in the far wall with a bird’s nest half-built inside it. The smell is old wood, damp fibre, faint traces of marsh water that seeped through unseen gaps overnight.
Two windows. One boarded. One shattered. Both potential entry points. My ears angle toward the ruin of the left window. The marsh inlet whispers outside, wind brushing reeds. No footsteps. No armour. No patrols. No predators. The house is forgotten enough to be safe, at least for now.
I lift myself slightly, careful not to wake him, and scan the discarded bags, our armour stacked in the corner, the faint glint of the copper-iron spear lying by the door. Everything is untouched. Nothing stolen. No signs of disturbance.
Still, something in my chest tugs, that low protective instinct purring under my ribs.
I lower my head again, pressing my forehead against my master’s shoulder.
His warmth steadies the last of the tension in my muscles. The room may be abandoned. The walls may be weak. The night may be full of unseen jaws. But he is here. And I am awake.
Everything else can rot.
My master shifts beneath me, just a subtle rise of his chest and a change in the angle of his shoulders, but it hits my senses like a drumbeat. My ears flick instantly. My tail tightens around his waist. My head lifts from his chest in a slow, feline arc, pupils widening as sleep dissolves into instinct.
A soft rustle escapes our shared bedroll. Enough noise to stir the dead, apparently, because Pontune groans from her side of the room like someone being forced to wake in a different class of existence entirely.
She drags herself upright with all the grace of a noblewoman denied her morning ritual. “Seriously,” she mutters, rubbing her temples, red eyes half-lidded and miserable. “How do people live like this? Wooden floors, drafty walls, sleeping with… animals under the same roof. It’s barbaric.”
I stare at her. My ears flatten. My tail flicks once. But I do not lunge. Only because my master moves again, and every cell in my body redirects to him.
He gives Pontune a tired, dark-eyed look. His voice rolls out, low and cynical in the way that always sounds like it was born from alleyway smoke and hard truths carved into cold nights. “Some people don’t have the luxury of complaining,” he says. “Some people survive with whatever roof is left over their heads. Comfort’s a privilege, not a guarantee.”
Pontune’s mouth shuts with a tiny click of teeth. Good. My master turns toward me, and my spine straightens instantly, shoulders up, ears high, tail curling with eager anticipation just from the attention.
“You hungry? Huh?” he says, voice dipping toward something that hits my instincts like fire poured into my veins. “Are you, girl?”
I light up. It isn’t subtle. It isn’t dignified. It isn’t civilised. My whole body reacts like it has its own mind. I press up to him with a rush of movement, tail whipping, pupils blown wide, a rumbling purr bursting out too loud for a room this small. My claws knead the edge of the bedroll. My breath hitches with pure, simple excitement.
Food. Food from him. Food given by his hands. I uncoil from around him in a series of quick, needy shifts, freeing him just enough for him to reach his pack. My tail still loops loosely around his hip, refusing to let go entirely, but giving him space to work. My knees bounce. I lean forward, eyes locked on his hands as if his fingers alone summon meals.
Pontune watches, eyebrows lifting in disbelief. “This is… normal for you two?”
Neither of us answer. I barely hear her. The world has narrowed to the familiar scrape of leather straps and the faint scent of smoked meat. He pulls out a strip of dried venison and a water ration. My breath catches. A little excited sound, embarrassingly animal, slips out of me. My ears perk so sharply they almost fold. My tail thumps against his thigh, rhythm quickening.
He breaks off a piece of the venison. My entire body goes still. Then a shiver runs down my spine, purr growing deeper, vibrating through my chest like it is trying to escape my ribs. Travel food. Hard, salty, smoked. The kind we eat every day outside Mire. And still, because it comes from him, it tastes like a reward.
I lean closer, mouth parting slightly, breath warm against his wrist. My voice comes out low, trembling with anticipation.
“Master…”
My claws press gently into the bedroll. My tail curls tighter. Hungry. Ready. Eager in that raw, instinctive way that only he ever gets from me. Pontune sighs dramatically behind us. “Unbelievable.”
But even she does not move closer. Not when my ears are this forward. Not when my tail is this alert. Not when my whole body has fallen into that focused, unblinking hunger curled around my master. He has the food. I have him. The morning begins exactly the way it should.
My master’s voice slides across the room with that dry, sandpaper edge he gets when he’s already three steps ahead of everyone else. “You should eat as well,” he says to Pontune, not looking at her, not needing to. “We’re looking for people who could’ve rerouted steel.”
Pontune tenses, then stiffly lifts another piece of dried venison to her mouth, chewing like she resents the very concept of nourishment coming from a bedroll instead of a banquet table. She is finished within minutes, posture perfect, hands folded, waiting for him to lead.
But my master… He isn’t here anymore. Not fully. He goes still. Not quiet stillness. Detective stillness. Noir stillness.
His eyes sharpen, narrowing with that thousand-yard stare he gets when his brain starts flipping every stone in the world at once. I feel him thinking, not in words but in shifting pressure. A storm of logic tightening into a point. His breathing slows. His posture changes. His pupils tighten.
Pontune notices. She glances between us.“What is he ?” She gets no further. My master’s mind hits mine like a blade driven straight into the bond.
Bond Trait: Bonded Soul – Level II
The bond allows my master to probe my thoughts and perceptions freely. For me to probe his, I must pass a contested saving throw. But he… He needs no permission. No roll. No request.
The moment he reaches, the world inside my head shreds open for him. My vision, my senses, my memories of the arrival, all are his. I gasp as it happens, ears flattening, claws gripping the bedroll, breath stuttering. The bond tears into every detail I saw without me resisting, because resisting my master feels like pulling against gravity.
He drags up every micro-detail my brain recorded since we stepped off the canoe:
• The shape of the Order banners
• The layout geometry of the temple square
• The rotation frequency of the gatehouse guards
• The number of ships on the mainland docks
• Embercrack insignia direction
• The spacing of patrols
• The kinds of crates unloaded overnight
• The composition of the armour worn by dock workers
• The tone of the soldier formations
• The subtle absence of any steel crates
• The ferry patterns
• The abnormal quiet on the Embercrack island
• The gatehouse placements
• The number of supply carts crossing between the islands
• The fact that the mainland, where the criminals cluster, had the largest ships
• The way the Order soldiers avoided looking at Embercrack’s banners
Every sensory scrap. Every pattern. Every instinct. All of it streams straight into him. It feels invasive. It feels consuming. It feels like my very bones are being read line by line.
It feels like belonging.
When he finally pulls back, the room snaps into focus again. My breath shakes. My tail is wound so tightly around his leg it almost hurts. My ears throb from how sharply they pressed back during the link.
Pontune stares at us, halfway horrified, halfway confused, her red eyes widening as she sees the aftermath without understanding the cause. “What?” she says sharply. “What happened? Where? What did you see? What are you two doing?”
She gets nothing. My master gives her nothing. He has been staring past us the whole time. Silent. Thinking. Threads weaving behind his eyes.
Pontune realises she’s been talking into a void. She huffs. “Are you even listening?”
He does not answer. I swallow, chest tight from the bond’s intensity, then croak softly, “He is… analysing.” And he is. Minutes pass. Pontune finishes her breakfast. Then packs away her roll. Then adjusts her coat. My master does none of it.
He stands there, still leaning against that half-collapsed wall, eyes slowly narrowing as the full puzzle begins to align inside him. His voice cuts through the silence like a shard. “They’re surprising Pontune.” She blinks. “What? Who ?”
He doesn’t look at her. He speaks to the room, to the pattern, to the conclusion forming like frost on glass. “Large ships on the mainland island.” Another piece. “Embercrack to the right, but quiet. Too quiet. If they aren’t involved, they’ll know who is. They’re a Kratocracy. They rule through strength and knowledge of threats. They monitor rivals.”
Pontune looks lost. Truly lost. “Where? Who? What are you ?” He keeps going. “Gatehouses guarded at each bridge between islands.” Another thread spun. “All movement controlled. Which means someone rerouted steel through one of three points… and only one has the capacity to hide ships of that size.”
Pontune stares at him as though he’s speaking another language. He isn’t. He’s speaking truth she isn’t fast enough to grasp. I lean in close, my voice soft in my master’s ear. “You’ve found a lead.” He does not confirm. He does not deny. But the gleam in his eyes tells me everything.
My master moves. No warning. No sound. Just that sudden, decisive shift of weight that snaps my entire body into motion before thought can catch up. He stands.
I rise with him in the same heartbeat, tail uncoiling from his leg, ears forward, every instinct wired taut and ready. Pontune scrambles up more slowly, gathering her cloak, trying to pretend she is composed when she can barely keep pace with the pace of his thoughts.
My master walks out of the abandoned house without a word. I follow at his heel like shadow stitched to flesh.
Pontune follows because she has to, because losing him for even a moment here would be political suicide. Her boots crunch softly across the cracked stone floor as she tries to mask her uncertainty with Pure Class posture.
The morning light hits us as we step outside, thin and grey and damp. Marsh mist clings low to the ground, brushing our ankles. The Order of Oak square opens ahead like a carved military diagram. Soldiers march, disciplined and stone faced. The temple’s pale stone glows with early frost. It looks like righteousness carved into a fortress, but it smells like arrogance and old blood.
And standing dead centre, shackles removed, looking annoyed and relieved all at once, The goblin rower. He spots us instantly. “Oi. There y’are.” He scratches the side of his face, glancing back at the knight who waves him off like a stray dog being returned to the wild. “Told ’em I dun know nothin’. ’Cause I dun know nothin’. They got bored o’ askin’.”
His eyes flick between my master, Pontune, then me. When he sees how tightly I hover at my master’s side, he wisely avoids stepping closer than two paces.
Pontune exhales, relief disguised beneath disdain. “At least one thing has gone according to plan.” I ignore her.
My attention stays on my master, following the tension in his shoulders, the line of his jaw, the rhythm of his steps. His mind is still in that investigative haze, weaving through patterns faster than anyone else here can grasp.
The Order knights at the temple doors watch us leave. But none step forward. None lift a hand. None call out. Because the bridge ahead is something else. A thin stone line suspended over marsh water, connecting the Order’s island to the next. A boundary. A nothing-place. A strip of land that belongs to no one. No banners hang across it. No patrol stands on it. No travellers walk it. Not because of bloodshed and not because of danger.
Simply because it is a line everyone avoids, a political dead zone carved by overlapping jurisdictions. No man’s land. Not a war front. Not a battlefield. Just… empty.
My ears twist at the eerie stillness. The wind drags cold air across the water. The wood plank beneath the start of the bridge creaks faintly beneath my master’s boot. I stay pressed to him, hip brushing his, tail curling around his side with slow possessiveness as we approach the threshold.
Pontune pauses beside us, eyes narrowing at the emptiness ahead. “This bridge should be travelled,” she murmurs. “Merchants. Pilgrims. Supply runners. There should be traffic.”
The goblin snorts. “Traffic dun cross here no more. Not unless they wanna vanish.”
Pontune stiffens. “Vanish?”
“Mm,” he grunts. “Hollow folk take what they find. Or the marsh eats ’em. Or Embercrack scouts grab ’em for trespassin’. Or the Order blames ’em for crimes they didn’t do. No one crosses unless they got to.”
My tail flicks. My eyes narrow. My master steps forward. Onto the bridge. Into the quiet. Into the thin air between factions where only predators or fools willingly walk. I move with him, shoulder brushing his arm, claws flexing softly inside my gloves. Pontune reluctantly follows. The goblin brings up the rear, muttering curses under his breath.
The bridge groans under our boots as we cross, the marsh wind cutting sideways, cold and thin. My master’s voice slices into the quiet with that blunt, practical tone of his. “Right. Who has the best charisma stats?”
I blink, ears twitching, tail curling once around his waist as I slip closer, because any question he asks pulls me like gravity. But his meaning is obvious. Social pressure. Negotiation. Whatever waits ahead… someone will have to talk.
So I answer the only way that makes sense.
I go through the numbers
My master:
Charisma: 12 +1 Persuasion: +3He has presence. He has authority. He has that cold detective quiet that unnerves people. But he is not socially charming, not in the way nobles or predators are. He wins arguments through logic, not smiles.
Me:
Charisma: 20
Modifier: +5
Persuasion: +8
Intimidation: +9
I have the highest raw presence. Not grace. Not gentleness. Presence. I can break a room with my voice. I can cow a guard with a stare. I can make weak men reconsider their choices with one step toward them. For pure persuasion, I bury everyone else by instinct alone.
My tail flicks smugly.
Pontune:
She is Pure Class Alderian. Nobles are shaped for politics.
Her charisma would sit around 14, maybe +2, with trained etiquette and noble pressure. She talks with authority, but not force. She persuades through logic and prestige, not intimidation. And right now, here, far from her world, her influence means less.
She knows it too.
Goblin:
Charisma: probably 8
Modifier: –1
He has the charm of a sack of damp potatoes. No insult. Just fact.
I glance over my shoulder. “Not you,” I tell him flatly. “Didn’t say it were,” he grumbles.
Pontune finally speaks, voice clipped. “I assume the answer is obvious.” She glances at me with all the distaste of someone forced to acknowledge a truth she does not like. I smile. Too wide. Too sharp. “It is,” I purr. My head leans against my master’s shoulder. My voice lowers so only he feels the vibration of it. “I have the highest charisma, my master.”
The moment my master looks at me with that half suspicious, half assessing stare, my ears tilt forward, my tail curls higher around his hip, and a slow, wicked little smile curls across my mouth. The kind of smile that says I would burn a town down if he asked and enjoy the warmth on my fur.
He studies me, trying to decide if I’m exaggerating my charisma score or if I’m actually that unnervingly persuasive. Then his voice lands, dry as cracked pavement. “You also have the instincts of a sociopath.”
It hits me like praise. My spine straightens. My pupils bloom. My tail coils tighter. Not offended. Not even slightly. A soft purr starts in my chest, low and pleased, because when my master names my darkness, he is acknowledging exactly what he has at his side. Exactly what will protect him. Exactly what will tear apart anything that threatens him.
Pontune glares, tugging her cloak tighter around her shoulders. “Well,” she snaps, “Clan Embercrack are survivalists. They won’t respond to manipulation. They won’t respond to authority. They respect competence, nothing else.”
My master shrugs as if the entire political puzzle of Embercrack is as trivial as tracking footprints through mud. “Oh well.” We reach the far end of the bridge. A sharp shift of atmosphere hits like a dropped blade.
The great wooden structure that marks the entrance to their island rises ahead, built from mismatched timber, half-rotted planks, strange carvings, fragments of old ships and abandoned scaffolds all nailed together into a gate that looks more grown than built.
The moment we step off the bridge, a barked command slams down from above, loud enough to echo across the inlet.
“IDENTIFY YOURSELVES!”
Boots scrape against the wood as Embercrack scouts appear on the battlements, angular silhouettes against the rising sun. Their armour is battered iron and hardened leather patched with green dye, exactly as the memory in my skull described.
Four of them. All armed. Two with spears. Two with crossbows. All eyes locked on us. My ears flatten instantly. My tail lashes behind me, every muscle in my body ready to hurl itself in front of my master. I shift closer to him, shoulder brushing his arm, stance low and ready.
“STATE YOUR BUSINESS OR BE DETAINED!”
My master stands steady and still, noir calm, the centre of gravity around which the world spins. But me… I lean in close, claws flexing. "I think they are very nervous.” Above, one of the scouts shifts, voice cracking with uneasy authority.
“This is Embercrack territory! Speak or be shot!”
Pontune swallows. The goblin mutters a curse. My tail tightens. My smile grows sharper. And my master has not yet spoken. The marsh holds its breath. The wind stops. And Embercrack waits for his answer.
My master’s voice cuts through the marsh air like a cleaver through rope. “I have dirt on the Order.” No lift. No threat. No rise in tone. Just flat, cold, uncoloured truth spoken like a man identifying a corpse at midnight.
The effect is immediate.
The Embercrack scouts stiffen. Crossbow strings creak. Boots scrape. One of them actually loses his grip on the railing for half a heartbeat.
“Accounts,” Master says. “Smugglers’ routes.” “Ways they get around your clan’s island.” Flat. Emotionless. Like he is listing ingredients for bread rather than treason. I feel the shift in the bond. His thoughts detach. Noir detective at full cold clarity. Mind and body separate. A consciousness slipping deep into the analytic void where emotion cannot follow.
I press closer to him without meaning to, my tail sliding around his waist in a soft, instinctive coil. He is ice. But he is my ice.
Pontune looks sideways at him, colour draining from her face. Even she can sense it: the complete emotional dissociation that only appears when he has stepped past fear and into the dark calculus of survival.
One Embercrack scout leans over the railing, voice cracking despite armour and training. “What do you mean… around our island?” Master does not even blink. “The Order uses you,” he says. “Same way they use Driftwood Hollow.” “Same way they use the West Forest.” “Blind spots they think no one has noticed.”
A ripple goes through the battlements. They flinch. All of them. Not at the content. At the tone. Because Embercrack recognises something most clans never see: A man telling the truth with complete emotional detachment. That is the voice of someone who already walked through hell and took notes on the way down.
Silence stretches. Crackling. Tense. Watching. Then I step forward just enough for them to see the full curve of my lips, the glint in my eyes, the unhinged stillness behind my smile. “And if we had meant you harm,” I say softly, “your corpses would already be floating in the inlet.”
No emotion. Same hollow void as him. Two blades aligned.
Pontune inhales sharply. The goblin mutters. The scouts freeze. Then the one with the crossbow raises a hand and shouts down to the gate-guards below: “Let them in!” Boots thunder. Chains rattle. The wooden gate groans open.
