Chapter 233: Name Above the Door
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Two days later, far from the quiet corridors of Dawn House, a letter was being torn apart inside a palace that pretended to be a tent.
From the outside, the camp did not look particularly impressive at first glance. That was the trick. It stood in an open stretch of guarded land beyond the city’s noisier trade roads, shaped like a luxury expedition pavilion made for nobles who enjoyed pretending hardship was fashionable. Its exterior was built from layered silver-gray fabric reinforced with thin plates of chaos-thread metal, its lines elegant and restrained, its crest banners stitched with old symbols that spoke of wealth so old it no longer felt a need to shout. To ordinary eyes it looked like an expensive field residence.
To anyone with proper senses, it was an insult.
The space around the camp folded subtly at its edges. The interior volume did not match the outer dimensions. Chaos arrays were hidden beneath the anchoring poles, under the carpets laid at the entrance, and inside the gold-fastened ropes that held the structure in place. It was not a mere tent. It was a space-type luxury residence, one of those portable abominations created for people too rich to accept the inconvenience of distance.
Outside the camp, a small private army waited.
Guards stood in layered formation around the perimeter, dressed in polished armor with the mark of the main Dawn family hidden on the inner side rather than displayed openly. Some were beast tamers with calm, dangerous mounts resting near them. A horned black lizard the size of a wagon lay under one lantern post with one eye half open, all scales and lazy murder. Two silver-feathered hunting birds watched from a carved perch. A heavy, plated bull-beast snorted near the supply line, its breath fogging in the cool evening air like something that had opinions about everyone present.
A little farther off stood several carriages too luxurious to pretend otherwise. Their wheels were reinforced with soft-run chaos metal. Their frames were lacquered dark and edged with silver trim. One had curtains embroidered so finely they looked like moonlight caught in cloth. Another was clearly built not for travel but for being seen while traveling, which was its own kind of vulgarity.
Inside the camp, the false modesty disappeared.
The interior opened into a vast residence with enough space to embarrass a noble manor. High ceilings arched above polished beams carved from pale wood that did not exist in this region. Soft layered carpets covered the floor. Lanterns floated in slow circles near the ceiling, their light warm and expensive. There were separate receiving rooms, private sleeping chambers, a dining area, a beast-feeding alcove, two bathing suites, a strategy room, and an indoor garden corner where a uselessly delicate tree had been installed because apparently some people could not survive a trip unless they brought decorative nature with them.
At the center of the main sitting chamber, a young man sat alone in a carved chair, reading a letter with a face that had already begun to harden by the third line.
He was handsome in the way people often meant when they said noble, though the word was doing half the work. His face was sharply cut. His skin was pale and clean. His jawline held that particular arrogance that came from being praised correctly as a child and never challenged enough as a young man. His hair was dark gold, combed back with more care than he would ever admit, and his eyes were a bright cold brown that always seemed to be examining whether the world around him was arranged to his liking.
He wore soft black travel robes lined with inner silver, with a Dawn insignia stitched so subtly near the collar that only people trained to notice noble marks would catch it. A signet rested on his finger. Another one sat on the table beside him. Both were real. Both were costly. Both existed to remind everyone near him that his bloodline was not a rumor.
The seal on the letter had already been broken, but the wax scrap still lay on the table.
Iron House.
He read the final section once more.
Dickoff Iron’s words were frantic even through formal script. He had written everything. The failed pressure at the auction. The unexpected protection around Sekhmet. The strange strength of Elena. The disastrous confrontation. His suspicion that Sekhmet had more hidden support than expected. His claim that Dawn House in the lower district was not as weak as rumors suggested. His insistence that Sekhmet was dangerous. That he was protected. That he could not be handled cheaply. That pushing further without stronger backing would be foolish.
By the end of the letter, the handwriting itself seemed to bend under emotion. Dickoff had tried to make the whole thing sound practical, but fear had a scent even on paper.
The young man read the last line, then slowly lowered the letter.
His mouth moved once.
Then he crushed the page in one hand.
"You useless worm," he said.
The paper wrinkled with a dry crackle under his fingers.
He read the opening again in his memory and his expression turned uglier. Dickoff had not simply failed. He had written like a man preparing excuses in advance.
That offended Mihos Dawn almost as much as the failure itself.
He stood up in one fluid motion and ripped the letter straight down the middle.
Then again.
Then again.
The pieces fell onto the carpet like dead white leaves.
"I send one trembling merchant with a little pressure and he comes back writing me poetry about danger," he said coldly. "Pathetic."
Near the edge of the room, an older man stood waiting with the stillness of someone who had served very difficult people long enough to master invisibility without actually leaving. He was the camp’s butler, steward, and quiet manager of unpleasant details. Tall, lean, and immaculately dressed, he wore dark formal service robes with silver fastenings and carried a posture so perfectly measured that he looked like he had been ironed this morning.