He felt Liri’s fury, a silent roar in his mind, echoing his own dawning suspicion. “Everything’s fine, Marek,” Zoryan said, his voice a flat, controlled monotone. “Just… a rather enthusiastic rat. Made a mess of some old furniture.” He heard a soft, disbelieving snort from Liri, a ghost of a sound that only he could perceive. The lie tasted like ash. “A rat, you say? How quaint,” Marek chuckled, a sound that grated on Zoryan’s nerves. “Well, do be careful, old man. These ancient estates are full of surprises. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.” “Don’t bother.” Zoryan cut him off, then softened his tone slightly, remembering the act. “I’m fine. Just tired. Goodbye, Marek.” He hung up before Marek could reply, the click of the connection severing the illusion of normalcy. He dropped the phone onto the dusty floor beside him, his gaze fixed on the dagger. The strange sigils etched into the blade seemed to pulse faintly in the dim light filtering through the broken windows. He pushed himself to his feet, a grunt escaping his lips as a sharp pain lanced through his side. The acolyte’s kick had landed harder than he’d initially thought. “Are you… alright?” Liri’s voice, usually brimming with a sharp, playful edge, was hushed, almost hesitant. He saw her then, a shimmering outline coalescing near him, her usual vibrant presence muted. Her eyes, usually so bright, held a rare, unsettling worry. The adrenaline that had carried him through the fight was fading, leaving behind a dull ache in his muscles and a throbbing in his head. “Peachy,” he rasped, pressing a hand to his ribs. He walked stiffly towards the grand, ornate console table in the foyer, where he’d seen a first-aid kit in a drawer during his initial sweep of the manor. He pulled it out, the old wood groaning softly, and began to unbutton his shirt. Liri floated closer, her translucent form seeming to absorb the light rather than reflect it. “You’re… bleeding.” Her voice was barely a whisper, imbued with a foreign guilt. He glanced at her, saw her gaze fixed on the darkening bruise blooming across his side, a thin line of blood trickling from a shallow cut near his waistline. “Just a scratch,” Zoryan muttered, wincing as he peeled back the fabric of his shirt. The cut was deeper than he’d expected, an angry red slash. He pulled out antiseptic and gauze, his movements slow and deliberate. “Comes with the territory. Especially when you’re tangling with… well, whatever that was.” “It was my fault,” she said, her voice small. “I shouldn’t have pushed you. I shouldn’t have… let you fight my battles.” He paused, the antiseptic bottle poised. He looked at her properly this time, really looked. The usual fierce light in her eyes was dimmed, replaced by a vulnerability he hadn’t seen before. Her spectral hands hovered uselessly, as if she wanted to help but couldn’t. The guilt radiating from her was suffocating. “Listen, Liri,” he said, his voice softer than he intended. “Nobody ‘lets’ me do anything. I made a deal. I knew what I was getting into.” He dabbed the antiseptic on the wound, a sharp sting making him suck in a breath. “And it’s not your ‘battle’. It’s *our* battle now.” She drifted closer still, her ethereal form brushing against him, a phantom chill that raised goosebumps on his arm. “But you almost… you could have been…” She trailed off, the silence hanging heavy in the air. *Killed. Like me.* He finished bandaging his side, then sank onto a dusty armchair, exhaling slowly. “I’ve faced worse. Trust me.” He leaned his head back, closing his eyes for a moment. “I used to think ghosts were stories for children. Until my little sister… she got mixed up with the wrong crowd. A cult. Tried some rite to ‘see beyond the veil’. Ended up dead in a field, eyes wide open, empty.” Liri was silent for a long moment, her form shimmering. “I… I’m sorry, Zoryan.” He opened his eyes, meeting her gaze. “Made me cynical. Made me see the shadows in Revensk, even before I could actually *see* them. So, when you popped up, a glowing, furious ghost… well, it just fit the pattern.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “My world was… different,” Liri confessed, her voice a fragile whisper. “Gilded cages, expensive silks, endless parties. Everyone smiling, everyone wanting something. My father, always busy with his ‘investments’, as he called them. I had everything, materially. But I was alone. Always alone. He tried to protect me, in his own way. From the… from the ‘shady dealings’ he swore were just business. Turns out, they weren’t just business, were they?” She gestured vaguely around the decaying grandeur of the manor. “This place… it was supposed to be my sanctuary. My legacy. Instead, it became my tomb.” Their eyes locked, a shared understanding passing between them. Two souls, bound by tragedy and a decaying manor, finding a strange, impossible intimacy in the quiet aftermath of violence. The air between them, despite Liri’s ethereal nature, felt thick, charged with sudden intimacy. The line between host and ghost, detective and victim, blurred with each shared confession. “The weapon,” Zoryan said, breaking the spell, his voice rougher now, practical. He picked up the curved knife from the floor, careful to avoid the blade. “We need to find out where this came from. It’s too specific to be random.” He hobbled over to the antique writing desk, pulling out his battered laptop. It groaned to life, the screen flickering before settling on a search engine. Liri leaned over his shoulder, her transparency giving her a unique vantage point. “Velesh cult sigils,” she murmured, pointing to the etchings. “And that wavy blade… it’s peculiar. Not standard steel.” Zoryan typed in ‘Velesh ceremonial curved knife wavy blade bone hilt’. The results were sparse at first, mostly academic papers on ancient cults. Then, an obscure forum for occult artifacts. He clicked on a link. The forum discussed rare, high-end occult implements, often exchanged in clandestine circles. “‘The Serpent’s Coil’,” Liri read aloud, her voice tightening. “It’s a black-market auction house. Not physical. It moves. Pops up in different cities, holds auctions, then vanishes. They specialize in… powerful, dangerous artifacts. The kind my father warned me about.” “A digital ghost,” Zoryan mused, his fingers flying across the keyboard. He found a recent listing, dated two weeks prior, for a “Serpent’s Tooth Ritual Blade” with a nearly identical description. The bidding had been fierce. The final price – astronomical. “This isn’t just some back-alley weapon. This is serious money, serious power.” “Which means whoever sent that acolyte has both,” Liri finished, her spectral brow furrowed in thought. “Marek… he’s rich, connected. But would he really send someone to kill us, then call to check in?” “It’s a classic move,” Zoryan grunted. “Establish alibi, appear concerned. Distract from the real agenda.” He continued to dig, cross-referencing names from the forum with the coded ledger, but found no immediate matches. The digital breadcrumbs were too fresh, too vague. He leaned back, frustrated. “Wait,” Liri said, her voice sharper now, a spark of her old energy returning. She pointed to a corner of the screen where Zoryan had left a window open – the original police report on her murder, with the limited security footage stills attached. “Go back to the manor’s exterior cameras. The night I died.” Zoryan navigated back to the grainy images. The footage was poor quality, recorded by old, neglected cameras that had long since been disconnected. It showed the desolate approach to the manor, obscured by a perpetual Revensk fog. He scrolled through the timestamps, his gaze sweeping the frames. “There!” Liri exclaimed, her voice a sudden, triumphant gasp. She pointed to a blurry figure, half-shrouded by the mist, lurking just at the edge of the Voronin property line, near a stand of ancient, twisted elms. The figure was too indistinct to make out clear features, but the silhouette was undeniably male, and the cut of the expensive coat, the lean posture… “It can’t be,” Zoryan murmured, zooming in as best he could. The image pixelated further, but the unmistakable outline of a familiar face, even through the digital distortion, seemed to coalesce from the gloom. The police had dismissed it as a trick of the light, a stray animal. But Liri, who had lived her life observing the subtle nuances of the wealthy, knew better. The figure was not a stranger. It was Marek Belinsky. And he was watching the manor, hours before her body was found.

The Gilded Cage