The Cascade
The door shut behind us with the sound of a lock breathing in relief. The rain outside had turned lazy, half-hearted drops that clung to the stone before slipping away. Inside, the air was thick with candle smoke and the faint scent of leather, the kind that clung to the bindings of books older than most living men.
Our personal room was quiet, the kind of quiet that felt like it was waiting for something to happen. The rug beneath my boots muffled my steps, a circular pattern of interlocking metalwork, dark blues and greys like the surface of a lake just before it freezes. The fire had long since died to embers, and the only light came from the desk candle. Its glow painted everything in amber and shadow, the bed, the mirror, the shelves along the wall stacked with ledgers and reports.
He sat at the desk without a word, pulling the record book from his pack. The cover was damp from the rain but still intact. The wax seal on the side had been sliced clean, someone meticulous, professional. The ink on the tag was smudged, but I could still make out the handwriting: Foreign District Records – Pontune, V.
I perched on the edge of the table beside him, tail flicking against the wood, the faint rhythm of impatience that always came when he worked in silence too long.
[Perception Check: d20 + 5 = 18 → Success]
Even from that first page, the paper smelled wrong, too new. It wasn’t the musk of bureaucracy and dust, but the chemical tang of fresh parchment, the kind used for forgery. My claws brushed the corner and felt a faint roughness, like layers glued together.
“She reprinted these,” I murmured, ears twitching toward the sound of rain. “Whoever Pontune was before, she burned it all and started again.”
He didn’t answer, but his eyes moved across the page with that surgical precision that could strip truth out of ink.
Each entry was clean, formal, almost elegant. Lists of shipments from Marshgate, names of artisans, labour schedules, taxes collected, all perfectly balanced. Too perfect. No real work left numbers that neat.
“Accounting’s like a corpse,” he said finally, voice low. “You can tell when someone’s rearranged it.”
[Investigation Check (Master): d20 + 8 = 22 → Success]
His hand stopped halfway down the third page. The entry was faint, an import from Mawmine: Steel-grade ingots for reinforcement work. Signed, stamped, approved by Redstone seal. Only the seal wasn’t quite right. The mark of the serpent around the anvil curved clockwise instead of counter.
A forgery. A good one, but still a forgery.
I felt my tail curl tight around my leg. “That’s Serrean’s forge mark,” I said. “Not Redstone’s. She’s been rerouting shipments. Steel, high-grade.”
He nodded, slow, eyes narrowing. “Enough to arm a regiment. Or buy one.”
My claws traced the edge of the ledger, and my reflection in the mirror across the room caught my eye. I didn’t like the way I looked in that light, too sharp, too alert, like something half-feral crouched in the shape of a woman.
“Want me to find out where the trail ends?” I asked softly.
He closed the book. “Not yet.”
The weight of those two words landed like a stone in my stomach. Not yet meant he was thinking ahead, several steps further than I could see, which was both comforting and terrifying in equal measure.
He leaned back, staring at the closed cover. “She’s not clever enough to run that alone. Someone’s backing her. Someone who wants to be armed but off the books.”
The flicker of the candle caught his eyes, turning them cold and colourless. That was the look that used to make grown men confess before he even opened his mouth.
[Insight Check: d20 + 5 = 17 → Success]
I could feel what he was thinking before he said it. Serrean. It had the stink of their ambition all over it, quiet, bureaucratic war fought with ledgers instead of blades.
He stood, pacing slowly to the wall. Our room didn't actually have a single drop of natural light, only a few candles which were lit.
“She’s a pawn, just like us” he said quietly. “But she’s holding a king’s ransom in secrets.”
I hopped down from the desk, stretching the stiffness out of my shoulders. The movement drew his eyes for half a heartbeat, that instinctive glance that always found me even when he tried to stay detached. I liked that. It reminded me that no matter how cold the world got, I could still melt a corner of it if I wanted.
My tail brushed against his leg as I moved past him toward the bed. “You think she’s working for Serrean?”
He exhaled, slow. “I think she’s trying to survive them. And survival makes people creative.”
The record book lay open again on the table where he’d left it. I could see faint indentations under the ink, marks from heavy pressure. Someone had written over another message, hard enough that it scarred the parchment.
[Investigation Check: d20 + 4 = 19 → Success]
I tilted the page under the candlelight, watching the shadow catch the grooves. The letters formed slow and ugly, but they were there.
Shipment rerouted. Payment due. Harn expects silence.
The room went colder.
“Harn,” I hissed. “He’s alive.”
Master’s hand came down on the book, closing it with finality. “Or someone’s keeping his ghost around for convenience.” The silence after that was thick. Not uncomfortable, just heavy, like something large and patient was sitting between us, waiting. He didn’t speak for a long time. The only sound was the rain, and the faint, soft rasp of my tail brushing the floor. Then, finally, he said, “We’ll deal with it at dawn.”
I smiled faintly, curling onto the bed as he began blowing out the candles one by one. “Then I’ll make sure Pontune doesn’t sleep too soundly.”
He gave a look, half warning, half indulgence, but didn’t stop me. By the time the last light died, the room had sunk into shadow. I listened to the rain, the slow rhythm of his breathing, the faint whisper of the bond that connected us, humming like a heartbeat somewhere deep in my chest.
The fire hadn’t survived the night; just a few weak embers clung to the logs like stubborn memories. I sat at the desk, elbows on the edge, fingertips pressed into my temples as if I could knead the ache of it all into submission. The ledger still lay open before us, that damned book full of ghosts and numbers, whispering names that should’ve stayed buried.
“Looks like me and you,” I said finally, voice low, dry as old parchment, “are going on a little adventure.”
Master didn’t move. He never did, not at first. “Go on,” he murmured. I flicked my tail once, twice, the sound soft against the floor. “We’ll be dragging Pontune with us. Destination’s Driftwood Hollow.”
The name tasted sour. Even saying it felt like stepping into a swamp. “It’s an illegal slum,” I went on, “a half-drowned maze on the steppe–marsh border, just north of Marshgate. Built from wreckage and wishful thinking. It doesn’t show up on any map because the people living there prefer it that way.”
Master’s eyes narrowed slightly. I could tell he was already charting the routes in his head, calculating roads, supplies, escape lines, every miserable possibility between here and there. "Driftwood Hollow,” he said quietly, “that’s Serrean ground.”
“Serrean vassaldom,” I corrected, rubbing my temples again. “They run the marshlands through proxies and threats, never direct rule, just enough rope to hang everyone twice. Grey Hollow’s their hand in the north, but the core’s further south, close to Clan redstones defacto land. We go poking there, we’re trespassing in a noble’s private mud pit.”
[Insight Check: d20 + 5 = 16 → Success]
The thought alone made my fur crawl. The Serrean marshfolk didn’t play by open law; they traded in secrets, debts, and disappearances. A place like Driftwood Hollow was perfect for that, a slum built on denial, owned by no one but controlled by everyone who mattered.
“We’ve got two choices,” I said, straightening in my chair. “Loud, take a contingent of goblins, make a show of it, flag and banner. We’d force the Hollow to open its gates, but Serrean eyes would follow every step. Or…” I paused, letting the word hang like a knife over a throat. “Quiet and underground. Slip through the cattails, use the smugglers’ route along the marsh edge. But if we’re caught, no one will come for us.”
Master’s reflection in the window didn’t change. “You sound almost like you’re afraid,” he said. I grinned faintly, tired. “Not afraid. Just practical.”
The rain had stopped. Outside, Mire Point began to stir, the clang of forges in the cat-tail district, the low murmur of goblin workers already trudging through the mud. I glanced at him again, still half-shadow, half-thought, and said quietly, “So, what’s it going to be, Master? Noise or silence?”
The bond between us hummed, a low, electric thread in the still air. Whatever choice he made, I knew the outcome would be the same: blood, secrets, and the kind of quiet that only came after something broke.
The word quiet hung in the air like smoke. Master didn’t even look up from the map he’d unfolded across the desk, but the tone in his voice had that familiar calm finality, the kind that shut down arguments before they were even born. Quiet. Just us three.
I leaned back in the chair, tail curling lazily across my thigh, eyes flicking between his steady hands and the line of his jaw under the morning light. “Quiet it is then,” I said, letting a smile curl the edge of my mouth. “Me, you, and Pontune. She’s going to love that.”
The sarcasm dripped out like honey laced with poison. I could already picture her, Marshal Pontune, the pure-class queen of clipped words and cold stares, wading through ankle-deep muck with her pristine boots, nose wrinkling like the air itself had insulted her bloodline.
“She was bred for marble floors,” I continued, my voice rolling soft and mocking. “Born into velvet and titles. Imagine the look on her face when the first swamp-leech latches onto her leg.”
Master gave a faint, humourless exhale that might’ve been a laugh if he hadn’t already seen too many worlds rot under rain like this.
I tilted my head, watching him fold the map, that sharp movement of purpose that made every motion of his seem final. He’d already decided everything, route, provisions, risk. He always did. It was what made him him. And what made me want to burn anyone else who thought they could share in that.
I laughed then, low and breathy, the sound slipping out before I could stop it. “Her mess, her leash. Maybe the slums will teach her humility.” My claws drummed softly against the desk, one rhythmic click for every thought I didn’t say aloud. “And who knows, maybe along the way…” I trailed off, eyes half-lidded as I looked at him, “…maybe we’ll form a bond.”
The word left my tongue like venom.
[Willpower Save: d20 + 0 = 11 → Fail]
My tail bristled. My throat tightened, heartbeat quickening like a snare drum too close to fire. The thought, her walking beside him, even breathing the same air too long, made something deep in my chest twist. I hated how easy the image came. Hated that it existed at all.
I could already see it: her trying to talk strategy with him, that polished noble tone pretending to understand his grit. Her eyes pretending to meet his as equals. My claws dug into the wood hard enough to leave dents. “Bond,” I repeated, the word cracking slightly. “Maybe she’ll try. Maybe she’ll think she can.”
He looked at me then, finally, those eyes that stripped me down to thought and nerve. Calm. Controlled. Unmoved.
And I laughed again, sharper this time, a laugh that barely hid the wild rhythm under my skin. “But she won’t. She can’t. You’re mine to follow, to guard, to bleed for and she’s just another pawn crawling through mud she thought was beneath her.”
The silence after was tight as a garrote. I rose, stretching, tail curling slowly back down as I forced my breath to steady. “Let her see what the world looks like from the gutter,” I said, voice smoothing out again. “Maybe then she’ll understand what kind of place she’s chosen to work in.”
Master didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The plan was already written between us, quiet and dangerous as a knife hidden under silk.
The corridor outside Pontune’s quarters was still as a mausoleum. The torches along the stone wall hissed faintly, spitting out tongues of blue flame that made the shadows crawl. I could hear the slow drag of Master’s boots beside me, the kind of rhythm that didn’t rush, didn’t stumble, didn’t ask. The world adjusted its pace to him or got left behind in the mud.
He didn’t knock this time. Just pushed the door open with the kind of calm that had more weight than fury ever could. The room hadn’t changed since last night. Neat. Sterile. A perfect cage dressed up as a guest suite. The bed was still made tight enough to bounce a coin, the shelves lined with precisely ordered books, the scent of old parchment and perfume fighting for dominance.
Pontune sat near the window, all black and red silk and cold posture, her reflection caught in the glass, that sharp, proud face framed by the dull glow of Mire’s evening light. Her eyes flicked to us as we entered, and for a fraction of a second, I saw a flash of uncertainty before she buried it beneath protocol.
Master walked in like he owned the place, and in a way, he did. His calm wasn’t peace; it was the kind of quiet that follows storms and precedes funerals. He crossed the floor, placed the record book gently on her desk, and tapped it once with his gloved finger.
“You’ve caused me paperwork, Pontune,” he said. His tone was flat, but the kind of flat that carried barbed wire beneath it. “And I hate paperwork almost as much as I hate liars.”
Her spine straightened, mouth parting as if to protest, but he cut across her before she found her courage.
“Still,” he went on, voice cooling even further, “better to clean up the mess than leave it rotting. We’re going to Driftwood Hollow, you, me, and my cat here.”
My ears twitched at the word. The ownership in it. The reassurance in it.
He leaned one hand on the desk, close enough that she had to look up at him. “As of now, you’re under my watch, Marshal. You’ll walk when I say walk, breathe when I say breathe, and if anyone comes sniffing around for that pretty Redstone accent of yours, I’ll make sure they remember who you answer to.”
Then, after a pause, quieter, heavier: “I’m still your Lord Protector, whether your lies built this fire or not.”
[Charisma (Intimidation) Check: d20 + 3 = 17 → Success]
The words hung in the air like the aftertaste of gun smoke. Pontune swallowed once, eyes flicking from his face to the ledger on the desk, then to me. “Driftwood Hollow?” she said finally, voice steady but softer than before. “That’s Serrean jurisdiction. We won’t have allies there.”
Master gave a dry laugh, the kind that wasn’t amused. “Never needed them.” He straightened, pulling on his gloves with deliberate calm. “You made the mess. I’ll see it cleaned. You’ll come because it’s your name on those ledgers, and because I’m not about to have another noble’s body floating down a marsh stream without knowing who tied the rope.”
Pontune said nothing for a long time. Her face was a careful mask, but the small things gave her away, the twitch in her jaw, the shift of her weight, the faint tightening of her gloved fingers against her lap.
I leaned against the doorframe, tail swaying lazily, watching her like a predator watching a trapped bird. “Oh, don’t look so pale, Marshal,” I said, smiling sharp enough to cut. “You’ll get to see the world your taxes never reach. Mud, rot, people who don’t care about your noble vowels. Should be educational.”
She shot me a glare, restrained, but it was there. “You think this is amusing?”
I met her eyes and let my grin widen just a fraction. “No. I think it’s necessary.”
Master stepped between us before the air could catch fire. “Enough,” he said, and both our instincts, my hunger, her pride, froze in place like soldiers obeying a silent order.
He turned to her one last time, tone dropping to that low, measured calm that was somehow more dangerous than anger. “Pack light. We leave before dusk. You’ll travel under my protection, Pontune but make no mistake. I’m not dragging your shadow through that swamp to keep you comfortable. I’m bringing you because I want answers, and because you’ll give them.”
Pontune rose from her chair slowly, every movement deliberate, her chin lifting a fraction too high to be mistaken for submission. “Understood, my lord.”
He didn’t correct her. Just gave a short nod, then turned for the door. As we stepped out into the corridor, I glanced back. She was still standing there by the desk, one hand on the ledger, the other clenched tight at her side. A noblewoman choking on humility.
I let my voice drop to a whisper only he could hear. “She won’t last two days in the Hollow.”. He didn’t answer but the corner of his mouth twitched, a half-smile that wasn’t warmth so much as shared amusement at how predictable the world could be.
Master’s voice carried that lazy edge of cynicism that always crawled under my skin and made me want to grin and bite at once. “Well, my dear cat,” he said, leaning against her wall, shadow long and slanted across the stone, “hopefully it’s as easy as going in, tracking down the right people, smashing a few heads in, and finding the top of the turd.”
It was the kind of line that could only come from him, the worn-out poetry of a man who’d seen too many deals go sour and too many bodies sink without bubbles. The kind of man who’d long since stopped believing in luck, only leverage.
Pontune’s face twitched. A subtle thing. Her lips tightened just enough to betray the offence she didn’t dare voice. The idea of him speaking like that, crude, sharp, real, must have scraped against her powdered sense of decorum. I could almost hear the thought grinding in her skull: This isn’t how nobles talk.
That made me like it more.
I moved to stand beside him, brushing close as if staking territory. My tail slid across his thigh, casual, possessive, deliberate. The moment her eyes flicked to it, I smiled, soft, feline, all teeth behind the calm. “Oh, we’ll find them,” I murmured, voice a low purr that filled the room. “Every rat, every whisper, every piece of filth that thinks a marsh is wide enough to hide in.”
[Insight Check: d20 + 5 = 18 → Success]
Her reaction was sweet, that faint shiver she tried to mask as impatience, the way her gaze broke first. Beneath the steel and polish, she was still just a creature who’d never stood this close to something hungry.
Master chuckled once, that deep, dark sound that never quite reached his eyes. “You make it sound poetic, kitten. It’s just animals being animals.”
“Animals suits us,” I said, leaning a little closer, my ears flicking toward his voice, the faint scrape of leather as he shifted. “You deal in law, I deal in loyalty. She...” I let my gaze fall back on Pontune “deals in lies. Between the three of us, Driftwood’s going to learn what kind of story it’s stumbled into.”
Pontune drew in a sharp breath, finally managing to scrape her dignity back together. “If you’re both quite finished posturing,” she said, tone brittle as glass, “perhaps we should focus on our objective instead of our theatrics.”
I tilted my head, snarling like a cat with her fangs wide and if presented with a mouse who still thought it could negotiate. “You’ll have to forgive us, Marshal. Some of us don’t get to hide behind titles. We have to rely on instinct.”
She glared, the faintest crack of temper showing through her composure, and it was worth every second.
Master pushed off the wall, straightening to his full height. “You two can sort out your pecking order later,” he said, his tone somewhere between warning and amusement. “We leave by dusk. Driftwood Hollow’s not going to come find us.”
As he turned for the door, I followed, close enough that my tail brushed the back of his leg again, a subtle reminder of proximity, of belonging. Behind us, Pontune stood silent, her polished world already beginning to crumble. And me? I was smiling.
