“Ye don’t look local,” he said, voice thick with the riverfolk drawl. “Where’ve ye come from? Where’re ye bound? Here for the festival, are ye?” 

Drayce didn’t answer. He only picked up one of the wares, weighing it lightly in his hand, gaze trailing along its edge with a detached boredom.

The shopkeeper’s eyes flicked over him, the cut of his shoulders, a sculpted breadth that spoke of strength, the elegant lines of his arms, the way the fine cloth draped yet failed to conceal the strength beneath. The lines of muscle that shifted with each subtle movement of a body that was more weapon than ornament. His chest muscle  although hidden, were evident. His waist tapering with a precision that made every motion fluid, controlled. Even standing still, he seems unearthly. And even as a man, he couldn’t deny it: there was something magnetic about the stranger. Something that pulled the eye, whether one wanted it to or not, that left him half-mesmerised by the stranger’s presence. The shopkeeper swallowed before he realized it, unsettled by the way his gaze lingered.

Perhaps, he thought, this was no mere merchant at all. A knight? A bodyguard in disguise? Who knows.

His gaze lingered too long on the man’s face, sharp beneath the lamplight, only to meet the cool disinterest etched there a bored expression that seemed to make mockery of the wares before him.

“Man wi’ yer build, cloak stitched like that… don’t fool me. Ye’ve walked far roads, I reckon. Roads that bite back. For them paths, ye’ll be wantin’ top-notch steel, proper guard for a man who don’t travel light.”

He flipped open a velvet-lined case, revealing a row of gleaming daggers.

“Go on, take a look. Finest steel ye’ll find in all Aurelia. Balanced like song, folded in mountain flame, sharp enough t’ cut silk or bone wi’ no difference.”

There was laughter in the man’s tone, harmless bluster but the irony wasn't lost on Drayce.

He stepped closer, eyes scanning the velvet-lined case. Without a word, he picked up one of the daggers  a slender blade with an ornate hilt and a wickedly curved edge. The metal caught the warm flicker of lanternlight, glowing like a snake’s scale in the dark.

He turned it in his hand, testing weight, testing silence, testing death.  His smile deepened.

 A ceremonial dagger, perhaps… but enough to kill, if aimed right.

He lifted the blade in front of him and looked up, not at the shopkeeper, but through him, as if already seeing the blade at work.

"Clean work.” he murmured.

The shopkeeper puffed with pride.

“Aye, ser. Elarion steel. Folds like silk, cuts like flame. Sharp enough t’split silk threads an’ strong enough t’gut any intruder fool enough t’linger where he don’t belong.””

This time Drayce didn’t smile back. His voice cut instead.

“But…"

Before the merchant could blink, Drayce’s hand slipped beneath his chestpeice. Steel flashed, his own dagger, drawn in a white arc of firelight, halted a hair’s breadth from the shopkeeper’s cheek.

The shopkeeper flinched hard, stumbling back with a startled gasp, hand half-raising in defense. He looked at Drayce, still pale from the flash of steel, and forced out a shaky laugh.

“Ahh..Saints alive, ye near carved a wrinkle deeper than me wife’s naggin’. Warn a man afore ye pull tricks like that!”

Drayce held the blade steady, then calmly lowered it, turning the hilt toward the man.

“This,” he said flatly, smirking now “is what sharpness feels like.”

The shopkeeper, his hands trembling, took the dagger as if it were holy. He ran his eyes along the edge, awe dawning in his face.

“By th’ stars… what forge birthed this beauty?”

The shopkeeper swallowed hard and slowly reached out to return the blade.

Drayce took it back without ceremony, tucking it beneath his cloth with the ease of someone who’d drawn it a thousand times before.

He began to turn away and said over his shoulder

“Blades don’ earn their bite sittin’ on velvet. They learn it sunk deep… in somethin’ that bleeds.”

But shopkeeper, still blinking from the encounter, chased him with his voice, half nervous, half curious.

“Wait now! Ain’t seen ye ‘round afore. Not guild, not guard… Who are ye, stranger? What’s yer name?”

Drayce paused. Lanternlight kissed the sharp line of his cheek. He turned his head, smile curling like a blade in its scabbard. He leaned in, close enough the man could smell the leather and steel clinging to him

“If I told you I was an emperor,” he whispered, smooth as poison, “what would you do with that name?”

The shopkeeper blinked, then barked out a laugh, wagging a thick finger.

“Emperor? Ha! Ha! Ha. Then I’m the king o’ Elanor meself! What a pair we’d be, eh?”

The crowd chuckled. Drayce chuckled once, too.

But as the Drayce turned back, the shopkeeper muttering with amusement —

“Emperor alone, eh? Ha! Ye’ve a wild tongue on ye, friend" He scoffed to himself "full o’ fancy tales. Only emperor I’ve seen travel alone’s peelin’ onions in a palace kitchen…” 

Drayce turned his head just slightly, that glint in his eye catching again.

"Why? Can't th’ emperor not travel alone?"

The shopkeeper leaned back on his stool, a slow smile spreading across his weathered face. He assumed Drayce was playing him. So he also played along 

"Oh, he can! Ye’re a clever one, stranger — I’ll gie ye that. But an emperor without a throne be no more than a beggar wi’ fine clothes. But if ye be truly an emperor, then I’m a dragon in disguise, waitin’ for me wings."

Drayce’s smile shifted. Something darker flickered behind his golden eyes. As if the dragon had noticed the ant pretending to roar. That same unnerving smile returned. He took a single step back towards the shopkeeper, leaned in slightly close enough so that his voice didn’t have to rise above the crowd. A gloved hand fell on the shopkeeper’s shoulder. And he wispered

“A dragon needs no crown… no army… no throne. Only fire. An' this place........”

He leaned closer still, his words barely more than breath

“It’s already marked by ’im.”

The shopkeeper froze with laughter still on his lips but now stranded mid-breath. And just like that, Drayce was gone swallowed by the procession’s music, the crowd’s celebration, and the illusion that the kingdom was still safe.