MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

The knock came at four in the afternoon, sharp and authoritative. Three measured strikes that echoed through the shop like a judge's gavel.

Cressa knew who it was before she opened the door.

Lord Riven filled the doorway with silver armor and cold authority. Up close, he was more dangerous than she had imagined. Tall enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. Built like a weapon, all sharp edges and controlled power. His silver hair was pulled back in that same severe braid, emphasizing the angular planes of his face and the gray eyes that seemed to catalog every detail of her appearance in a single glance.

Two guards flanked him, hands resting on sword hilts.

"I am conducting routine inspections of businesses in the fairy district." His voice was deep and precise, each word delivered with the weight of absolute certainty. "You will allow me entry."

It was not a request.

Cressa stepped aside, and he entered her shop with the confidence of someone who had never been denied anything in his life. His gaze swept the space with methodical efficiency, noting the shelves of labeled jars, the workbench cluttered with mortar and pestle, the front window with its drawn curtains.

He moved to the counter and picked up a jar of dried starwort. "You are Cressa."

"Yes."

"The herbalist who sponsored the illegal fairy musician this morning."

"The musician was not illegal. She had a permit. There was an administrative error."

"There was no error." Riven set the jar down with careful precision. "She is an unregistered fairy operating without proper documentation. You lied to my guards."

Cressa's pulse jumped, but she kept her voice steady. "I corrected a misunderstanding."

"You obstructed justice." He turned to face her fully, and the weight of his attention made her want to step back. She held her ground. "Tell me what you are hiding. Every secret. Every lie."

The words hit like a physical blow. He could not possibly know. Her human appearance was perfect, her wings long gone, her magic suppressed for twenty years. There was nothing to see. Nothing to find.

But he was looking at her as if he could see through skin and bone to the truth beneath.

"I am hiding nothing," she said.

"Everyone is hiding something." Riven moved closer, and she forced herself not to retreat. "You intervened in a Guard matter. You claimed responsibility for someone you do not know. That is not the behavior of an innocent shopkeeper trying to avoid attention."

"It is the behavior of someone who believes in basic decency."

"Decency." He said the word like it was a foreign concept. "In Atheria, decency is a luxury afforded only to those with power. You have no power. You are human, unremarkable, and operating a failing business in a district that will soon be purged of its criminal element."

Heat flooded her face despite her anger. "If you have come to threaten me, my lord, you have made your point. If you have come to inspect my shop, then inspect it. Otherwise, I have work to do."

Something flickered in his eyes. Surprise, perhaps, that she had dared to push back. The moment passed quickly, replaced by that same cold assessment.

"Show me your plants."

"Which ones?"

"All of them."

Cressa led him through the shop, pointing out the various herbs and their uses with the calm professionalism she used for legitimate customers. Riven listened in silence, occasionally picking up a jar or cutting to examine it more closely. His hands were steady, his movements efficient, and she noticed he wore only one gauntlet. The other hand was bare, long fingers stained with what looked like ink or perhaps something darker.

They reached the back room where she kept her most valuable stock. Cressa hesitated at the threshold, suddenly aware of the dead plants she had not yet cleared away, the corruption that still tainted the air.

"In here," Riven said.

It was not a question.

She opened the door, and he stepped into the small space that served as both workroom and greenhouse. His gaze went immediately to the dying plants, to the black veins and withered stems, to the unmistakable signs of blight spreading through her carefully maintained garden.

"How long?" he asked.

"The first plant died last night. The rest today."

"You should have reported this immediately." He crouched beside a collapsed moonvine, examining the blackened roots with careful attention. "Unreported blight contamination is a crime."

"I planned to report it."

"When? After it spread to the entire district?" He stood, and his gray eyes fixed on her with renewed intensity. "You are either incredibly foolish or deliberately concealing the source of the infection."

"I am neither. I am a shopkeeper trying to understand what killed my plants before I cause a panic."

"Understanding requires investigation. Investigation requires authority. You have no authority."

"Then investigate," she said, exhaustion making her reckless. "Find your answers, my lord. Arrest me if you must. But do not stand in my shop and accuse me of crimes I have not committed."

Silence fell between them, heavy and dangerous. Cressa's heart hammered against her ribs as she waited for his response. She had pushed too far. Spoken too freely. Given him exactly the excuse he needed to drag her to the tower cells and leave her there until she confessed to whatever crime he wanted to believe.

Instead, he walked to the door.

"I will return tomorrow," he said without looking back. "You will have answers prepared. Where you purchased these plants. Who tends them. What contact you have had with other infected locations."

"I purchased them from registered vendors. I tend them myself. I have had no contact with infected locations because I did not know there were infected locations."

"Then you are dangerously uninformed." He paused at the threshold and glanced over his shoulder. "Or you are lying. I will determine which."

The guards followed him out. Cressa stood frozen in the back room, listening to their footsteps fade down the street. When she was certain they were gone, she moved to the nearest dead plant with hands that would not stop shaking.

The shadowbloom Calix had brought her. The cutting that had been thriving just yesterday.

She needed to clear them away. Burn them, perhaps, or bury them deep where the corruption could not spread. But something made her reach out instead, made her touch the blackened stem despite twenty years of careful control screaming at her to stop.

Her magic stirred.

Golden light bloomed from her fingertips before she could stop it, warm and pure and utterly unmistakable. The shadowbloom responded instantly. Stems straightened. Leaves unfurled. Black veins faded as if they had never existed.

The plant grew.

Not slowly. Not naturally. It exploded upward with impossible speed, vines reaching for the ceiling, flowers bursting into bloom, filling the entire room with growth that no human should be able to command.

Cressa yanked her hand back, but the damage was done. The shop was filled with impossible evidence. With magic no human should possess. With proof of exactly what she had spent two decades hiding.

And Lord Riven had promised he would return tomorrow.