Chapter 159. Morwyn's Malice

The boys moved down the stairs without discussion, their new silk robes literally whispering against the wooden steps. The voices below had gotten louder, more irritated, and whatever was happening wasn't improving.

What they found at the bottom made Adom pause on the last step.

Master Lǐ stood behind his counter, hands flat on the jade-inlaid surface, facing three young elves in what appeared to be academy robes. His posture was perfectly correct—respectful but not servile—but there was a tightness around his eyes that hadn't been there before.

"The silk consortium delayed the shipment by two weeks," Master Lǐ was saying, his voice level. "I sent word immediately, but perhaps it didn't reach you."

The elf in the center—maybe twenty-five, with soft features that suggested he'd never missed a meal—tapped his fingers against his thigh in rapid succession. "Word. Yes. We received your word. Do you know what we did with your word?"

"I assume you read it, Young Master Liú."

"We threw it away." The elf's voice carried frustration laced with something sharper. "Because words don't help us when we're standing in front of the Selection Committee without our ceremonial robes."

Master Lǐ's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "The ceremony was postponed—"

"That's not the point!" The second elf—this one thinner, nervous energy radiating off him—stepped forward. "The point is that we ordered these robes three months ago. Three months. And you've given us nothing but delays and excuses."

"Young Master Qián," Master Lǐ said carefully, "if you'd like to cancel the order and seek another tailor—"

"Another tailor?" The third elf laughed, but there wasn't any humor in it. "Do you think we're stupid? Do you think we don't know you're the only one in the district who works with Celestial Silk?"

"Then perhaps," Master Lǐ said, and Adom caught the edge in his voice now, "you might consider that quality work takes time."

The temperature in the room shifted.

Sam shifted beside Adom, and Adom caught his wrist without looking away from the scene below.

"We should—" Sam whispered.

Adom shook his head once. Sharp. Final.

Sam's mouth pressed into a thin line, but he stayed put.

Young Master Liú's fingers stopped tapping. "Time. Yes. Let's talk about time." He moved around the counter with deliberate slowness. "Time is what we've given you. Patience is what we've shown you. And respect..." He stopped directly in front of Master Lǐ. "Respect is what you seem to have forgotten you owe us."

"I have shown you every courtesy—"

"Every courtesy?" The nervous elf—Qián—practically vibrated with indignation. "You sent a servant to deliver your last message. A servant. To the Liú family."

Master Lǐ's hands pressed harder against the counter. "My apprentice delivered the message because I was working on your robes."

"Your apprentice," Liú said slowly, "is not qualified to speak to us. Your apprentice should not even be allowed to look at us. And yet you sent him to our family compound like we were common merchants."

"That was not my intention—"

"Your intentions," the third elf said, speaking for the first time, "are irrelevant. What matters is what you did. What you continue to do."

This one was different from the other two. Older, maybe thirty by human standards. When he spoke, the other two deferred to him automatically.

"Senior Brother Wáng," Liú said, his voice immediately more respectful.

Wáng moved past his companions to stand directly in front of Master Lǐ. "We had preliminary interviews. Preliminary interviews where appearance matters." Wáng's voice never changed tone, never got louder, but somehow it filled the room. "Do you understand what that means for our chances at selection?"

"Answer him," Qián snapped.

"I do not, young master Wáng."

"We were marked down. Penalized. Because our appearance was deemed 'inappropriate for candidates of our standing.'" Wáng's voice never changed tone, never got louder, but somehow it filled the room. "Because we showed up in training robes instead of ceremonial silk."

"I understand your frustration—"

"Do you?" Wáng stepped closer. "Do you understand that Young Master Liú's family has been working toward this selection for three years? Do you understand that Young Master Qián sold family heirlooms to afford your fees? Do you understand what it means when we fail because of your negligence?"

The silence stretched out like a held breath.

Then Wáng looked up.

His eyes found Adom and his friends on the stairs, and the casual authority in his gaze was like being weighed and measured by something predatory. Not angry. Just... evaluating.

Liú and Qián followed his gaze, and suddenly the four friends were the center of attention.

Nobody moved.

Nobody spoke.

Adom met Wáng's stare directly. Beside him, Sam had gone very still. Karion's hand had drifted toward his belt without him seeming to realize it. Damus was watching with cold focus, memorizing faces.

The moment stretched out, taut as a bowstring.

Then Wáng smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.

"Customers," he said, never looking away from Adom. "How fortunate for you, Master Lǐ. More people to disappoint."

He turned back to the tailor, dismissing the foreigners.

"You have until tomorrow evening," Wáng said conversationally. "The robes will be perfect. The embroidery will be flawless. The fit will be exact. Because if they're not..."

He let the sentence hang.

"Senior Brother," Liú said, his voice carrying excitement, "perhaps we should explain to Master Lǐ what happens when respected families are embarrassed by tradesman incompetence."

"That won't be necessary," Wáng said, still watching Master Lǐ. "I'm sure Master Lǐ understands the consequences of continued failure."

Master Lǐ bowed. Just a slight inclination of his head, but it was acknowledgment.

"Excellent." Wáng stepped back, straightening his academy robes. "Tomorrow evening, then. Don't make us return to discuss this further."

He moved toward the door, and his companions fell in behind him like ducklings following their mother.

At the threshold, Wáng paused and looked back at Master Lǐ.

"Oh, and Master Lǐ? The shame you've brought to our families today... don't let it happen again. Some mistakes can't be forgiven twice."

The door closed behind them with a soft click that somehow sounded final. For a moment, nobody moved.

Then Sam exploded.

"How is that legal?" His voice cracked on the last word. "Is there no protection for merchants here? They assaulted him!"

Karion stepped down the remaining stairs, his face flushed. "We should have done something. That was—"

"No." Adom said calmly. "We shouldn't have."

Sam whirled on him. "Are you serious? Did you see what just happened? They threatened him. They—"

"I saw." Adom descended the stairs slowly, his expression neutral. "We're not home, guys. Laws aren't the same. Customs aren't the same. And however unfair it might seem, we don't meddle in other people's business unless our interests align."

"Our interests?" Karion's voice climbed higher. "What about basic human decency?"

"Basic human decency doesn't pay for our passage to Silvandros." Adom reached the shop floor and stopped in front of his friends. "It doesn't keep us from drawing unwanted attention. As humans, we already stand out enough without starting fights with locals."

Sam's hands clenched into fists. "So we just stand there and watch?"

"Yes."

The single word landed like a stone in still water.

Damus nodded slowly. "He's right. We're guests here. Unwelcome guests, if those three are any indication."

Zuni squeaked agreement from Adom's shoulder.

"That's—" Sam started.

"Practical." Master Lǐ's voice came from behind the counter, calm and measured. He was straightening bolts of fabric that had been knocked askew. "Your friend speaks wisdom."

Sam turned toward the old elf, his anger shifting targets. "How can you say that? They humiliated you in your own shop!"

Master Lǐ paused in his work, looking up with eyes that held no anger, no resentment. Just tired acceptance. "Young man, I have been in business for five hundred years. Do you think this is the first time someone has been... difficult?"

"Difficult?" Karion stepped forward. "They threatened you!"

"They expressed frustration with delayed orders." Master Lǐ's tone remained perfectly level. "Rather emotionally, perhaps, but understandably so."

"You're defending them?"

"I'm stating facts." Master Lǐ moved to another section of his inventory, checking each item. "They placed orders three months ago. Those orders were delayed due to circumstances beyond my control. They are understandably upset."

Sam stared at him. "They slapped you."

"Young Master Liú has always been... expressive when agitated." Master Lǐ touched his lip briefly, checking for blood. "The mark will fade."

"This is insane," Sam muttered.

"This is business," Master Lǐ corrected gently. "And I thank you for your concern on my behalf. It speaks well of your character. But I assure you, the situation is well in hand."

"How is it in hand?" Karion demanded. "They want those robes by tomorrow evening. You said yourself the silk was delayed."

Master Lǐ smiled, and for the first time since they'd entered his shop, it reached his eyes. "Ah, but I didn't say I didn't have the silk. I said it was delayed. Two very different things."

Adom raised an eyebrow. "You already have their robes?"

"Nearly finished, actually. I completed them yesterday." Master Lǐ moved behind his counter and pulled out a wrapped bundle. "Celestial Silk, hand-embroidered, fitted to their exact measurements."

The silence stretched out.

"Then why didn't you just give them to them?" Sam asked slowly.

Master Lǐ's smile turned slightly wicked. "Because Young Master Liú insulted my apprentice last month. Called him 'worthless peasant stock' and suggested I replace him with someone more... appropriate."

"So you made them sweat," Damus said, understanding dawning in his voice.

"I made them wait. There's a difference." Master Lǐ rewrapped the bundle carefully. "My apprentice is my sister's grandson. A good boy who works hard and shows respect to everyone who enters this shop. The young masters could learn from his example."

Karion laughed suddenly. "You magnificent bastard."

"Language, young lord." But Master Lǐ was still smiling. "I prefer 'experienced businessman.'"

"Will you deliver them tonight?" Adom asked.

"Tomorrow evening. Exactly as requested." Master Lǐ tucked the bundle back under his counter. "They specified the timing, after all. It would be rude of me to deliver early."

Sam shook his head slowly. "I don't understand anything about this place."

"You will," Master Lǐ said kindly. "Or you'll leave. Both are acceptable outcomes."

"Comforting," Sam muttered.

"Now then," Master Lǐ clapped his hands together, the sound sharp in the quiet shop. "I believe we were in the middle of fitting you gentlemen for proper attire. Shall we continue?"

*****

The afternoon sun felt good on their faces after the dim interior of Master Lǐ's shop. Sam adjusted his new robes, running his fingers over the fine silk with obvious appreciation.

"Maybe we should have gotten the same artifact as Zuni," he said, watching a group of elves cross the street without sparing them a glance. "Look like locals instead of standing out like sore thumbs."

Zuni chittered from Adom's shoulder, flicking his tail in what might have been amusement.

"Those artifacts don't scale well," Adom said. "The bigger the person, the less stable the illusion becomes. Works fine on something Zuni's size, but a full human? Anyone with half a brain would spot the inconsistencies."

Sam tilted his head. "What kind of inconsistencies?"

"Look at him closely." Adom gestured toward the squirrel. "The proportions are slightly off. His tail's too thick. His ears sit wrong. On a quick glance, he passes, but if you actually study him..."

Sam leaned closer to Zuni, who obligingly turned his head to show off his profile. After a moment, Sam blinked. "Huh. You're right. His face is too... structured? For a squirrel."

"Exactly. Now imagine that effect on a six-foot human trying to pass for an elf. Every movement would scream 'disguise.'"

Karion pulled at his collar, which was still slightly too tight despite Master Lǐ's adjustments. "Still getting stares anyway."

"Fewer than before," Damus pointed out. "At least now they're just curious looks instead of outright hostility."

They walked in silence for a few minutes, navigating the streets. The city around them buzzed with activity—merchants hawking wares, children running between market stalls, elves conducting business.

"So," Damus said eventually, "where do we go now?"

Adom stopped at a street corner, letting a cart loaded with exotic fruits pass before answering. "According to my information, Morgana was last seen in Silvandros. That's our next destination."

"How do we get there?" Karion asked.

"Portal. It's the only reliable way from here to there." Adom checked the position of the sun, calculating time. "Opens in two days."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Two days? That's pretty specific."

"The portal network runs on a schedule. Silvandros portal opens every five days, stays active for six hours, then closes again." Adom started walking again, leading them toward what looked like an inn district. "We don't want to miss it."

"What happens if we do?" Damus asked.

"We wait five more days. Or we find another way, which would involve traveling through some very unpleasant territory on foot."

"How unpleasant?" Sam's voice carried a note of concern.

"The kind where people don't come back."

They walked another block in contemplative silence.

"Two days," Karion mused. "What do we do until then?"

"Find a place to sleep," Adom said. "Stay out of trouble. Try not to draw any more attention than we already have."

"Define 'trouble,'" Sam said.

"Anything that involves students, city guards, or people who look like they have more money than sense."

"So basically everyone we've met so far."

"You're learning."

They turned down a street lined with buildings that had the distinctive look of inns and boarding houses—multiple stories, wide doors, and the slightly worn appearance that came from hosting travelers.

"This looks promising," Damus said, pointing to a three-story building with a painted sign depicting a crescent moon over a bed.

"The Lunar Rest," Karion read. "Subtle."

"Subtle works," Adom said. "Let's see if they have rooms."

*****

In his past life, Adom had known a man named Garrett Voss.

Voss had been a Farmusian soldier—captured during the Siege of Redwall, both legs taken by a Sundarian mage's lightning bolt that had split him from hip to ankle. The field surgeons had done what they could, which wasn't much. What remained of Garrett Voss came to the military hospital in a wheelchair that squeaked with every turn of its iron wheels.

The war had a use for broken soldiers.

The mage corps needed test subjects for their experimental healing magic, volunteers who were already damaged and had nothing left to lose.

They'd given Voss a choice: submit to the experiments, or face execution as a prisoner of war. He'd chosen the experiments, of course. He was terrified of death—had admitted as much during one of their late-night conversations, his voice shaking as he described nightmares about the void that waited beyond.

Adom had been one of the head researchers then, studying Lifedrain Syndrome and using live patients like Voss for his experiments. He'd spent years in his own wheelchair, rolling between laboratory tables and hospital beds, his body already ravaged by the same condition he was trying to cure.

At first, their interactions had been purely professional.

Adom would explain the procedures, Voss would nod and submit to whatever was required. But somewhere between the third failed attempt at regenerating nerve tissue and the fifteenth experimental pain relief potion, the formality had cracked. Maybe it was the shared experience of watching their bodies betray them. Maybe it was the way other people looked at them—with pity, discomfort, the careful avoidance that healthy people showed the irreparably broken.

They'd started talking during the long hours between procedures.

Voss had been a scholar before the war, drafted into service when Farmus ran out of willing bodies. He spoke four languages, could recite poetry from memory, and knew more about ancient folklore than most academy professors. Adom found himself lingering after each session, discussing everything from ancient texts to the philosophical implications of magical healing.

It had been almost companionable, in its way. Two broken men finding something like friendship in the sterile halls of military medicine.

Then one evening, after a particularly brutal day of failed experiments and mounting frustration, Voss had said something that lodged itself in Adom's memory like a splinter.

"There's an old Fae legend," Voss had said, while rain drummed against the hospital windows and Adom adjusted the monitoring crystals around his bed. "About a principle they called Morwyn's Malice. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong, and always at the worst possible moment."

Adom had laughed, though it hurt his ribs. "Sounds about right."

"The trick," Voss continued, his voice getting softer as the pain medication took hold, "is to convince yourself so completely that something will work, that it actually does. Belief so absolute it becomes reality. It's the only way to fight the malice."

That was the last conversation they'd had. The next morning, Adom had wheeled himself into the laboratory to find Voss's bed empty and cleaned. The other researchers said the treatment had been "concluded." They'd brought in a new subject by afternoon.

They'd moved Voss to the terminal ward—the place where subjects went when the experiments had extracted all they could and the body had nothing left to give. It was a quiet corridor lined with narrow beds, where broken test subjects waited for death to claim what the war and magic had already destroyed.

Adom had found him there three days later, panicked and crying, his breathing shallow and labored. The healing experiments had left his body unable to sustain itself—organs failing one by one, systems shutting down in a cascade of biological collapse. The medical staff had done what little they could for comfort, but there was no reversing what had been done.

Voss had grabbed Adom's hand with fingers that felt like brittle twigs, his eyes wide with the terror that had always haunted him. "Don't forget me," he'd whispered, tears streaming down his gaunt cheeks. "Please. I'm the last one left of my family. Don't let me just be a number when I'm gone."

Adom had stayed with him through those final hours, watching as fear gave way to exhaustion, as the desperate gasping slowed to stillness. He'd closed Voss's eyes himself, and when the orderlies came to remove the body, he'd made sure they wrote the name in the ledger.

Adom had remembered. Remembered Garrett Voss, not Subject 0956.

Now, years later and a lifetime away from those sterile hospital corridors, Adom found himself thinking of Voss's words again. The Fae legend had stayed with him through death and rebirth, a piece of wisdom that felt more relevant with each passing day.

If Morwyn's Malice truly governed the world, if everything that could go wrong would go wrong at the worst possible moment, then perhaps absolute belief that it wouldn't really was the only defense.

For the first day in Lì Shān, this strategy worked perfectly.

They'd spent their time like proper tourists—visiting the Jade Gardens where Sam had gotten into a heated discussion with a gardener about soil composition, browsing the artifact markets where Karion had nearly bought a flying sword, and sampling street food that made Damus nostalgic for his grandmother's cooking. Zuni had attracted more attention than the rest of them combined, with several elven children following them around just to watch the "exotic foreign squirrel" perform tricks.

It had been, against all odds, fun.

Then Morwyn's Malice decided to show its teeth.

The first sign was the newsboys.

Adom noticed them on the second morning—young elves running through the streets shouting headlines in voices that carried farther than they should have. He caught fragments as they hurried past the Lunar Rest.

"—Emperor's declaration expected by week's end—"

"—Qínglóng considers alliance—"

"—Farmusian delegation arrives tomorrow—"

Adom bought a broadsheet from one of them and spread it on the table in their shared room while the others finished breakfast. The headline was written in the flowing script of formal Elvish, but the meaning was clear enough.

"Problem?" Damus asked, noting Adom's expression.

"Maybe." Adom folded the paper carefully. "The Qínglóng Empire is considering an alliance with Farmus."

Farmus had been at war with Sundar for five years.

"Oh." Karion set down his spoon. "That's bad."

"If Qínglóng declares for Farmus, we go from foreign tourists to enemy nationals." Adom tucked the broadsheet into his travel pack. "Overnight."

"How likely is that to happen?" Damus asked.

"Depends on what the Farmusian delegation is offering. And what they're threatening."

They'd spent the rest of the day indoors, playing cards and pretending to read books from the inn's collection while Adom listened to every conversation in the common room. The news wasn't encouraging. The Farmusians had brought gold, trade agreements, and promises of military support against something called the "Eastern Incursion." In exchange, they wanted Qínglóng's formal alliance and access to their portal network.

It was a good offer. Too good.

"They're scared," Adom had murmured to Damus while Sam and Karion argued over whether three sevens beat a pair of dragons. "Farmus wouldn't offer this much unless they were desperate."

But Morwyn's Malice had another weakness.

It only struck when you were committed to a course of action you couldn't change. The solution was simple: don't commit. Stay flexible. Keep your options open.

So when the innkeeper mentioned that the portal schedule might be "subject to governmental review" starting next week, Adom made sure they were first in line the next morning.

When rumors started circulating about new restrictions on foreign travel, Adom had their packs ready and their bills paid.

When the newsboys started shouting about "emergency sessions" and "immediate declarations," Adom led his friends through the pre-dawn streets to the portal district.

The portal platform stood in the center of a circular plaza, surrounded by carved pillars that hummed with contained energy. A queue had already formed despite the early hour—mostly merchants and travelers who'd heard the same rumors Adom had. The portal itself was nothing impressive to look at, just a circular archway of black stone with runes carved around its edges. But every five days, for exactly six hours, it would shimmer and open onto somewhere else entirely.

They took their place at the front of the line. Adom checked their travel documents one more time while Zuni perched on his shoulder, tail twitching with nervous energy.

"Portal opens in a minute," the queue supervisor announced in accented Common. "Have your papers ready. No contraband, no animals larger than a squirrel."

Zuni squeaked indignantly.

"Present company excepted," the supervisor added with a small smile.

Adom settled in to wait. Around them, the city was waking up. Smoke rose from chimneys, shops opened their doors, and the first newsboys appeared with what were probably the morning's final headlines before everything changed.

But they'd be gone before any of that mattered. Morwyn's Malice could go find someone else to torment.