Episode-202

Words : 1478 Updated : Sep 27th, 2025

Chapter: 403 He passed a stall run by a wizened, sun-darkened man from the scorched southern deserts, selling strange, dried fruits and twisted, gnarled roots that promised all manner of medicinal and alchemical wonders. He saw another, run by a pale, stoic northerner, selling carved walrus-ivory trinkets and thick, lustrous furs from beasts Lloyd couldn't even name. The craftsmanship was on a level that far surpassed anything he had seen in his own, more martial, duchy. He watched, fascinated, as a master woodcarver, his hands gnarled but impossibly deft, transformed a simple block of wood into a lifelike sculpture of a leaping griffin, its feathers so finely detailed they seemed to stir in the breeze. He saw a glassblower, his face illuminated by the fiery glow of his furnace, coaxing molten glass into the shape of a delicate, impossibly thin wine goblet, its stem a twisting serpent of pure, clear crystal. This was a world of artisans, of masters, of a deep, ingrained tradition of beauty and quality that was both humbling and deeply inspiring. His own oak-and-bronze dispensers, which had seemed so revolutionary, so elegant, back at the manufactory, now felt... simple. Rustic. He made a mental note: he needed to find craftsmen of this caliber. He needed to elevate the physical form of his brand to match the quality of its contents. He wandered into one ofall the covered arcades, the a brilliant sunlight giving way to a dim, mysterious gloom, lit by enchanted lanterns that cast a soft, shifting, multi-hued glow. This was the magical quarter, the place where the strange, the esoteric, and the potentially very dangerous, were bought and sold. The air here was different, thick with the scent of strange herbs, of burning incense, of the faint, almost metallic, tang of raw, untamed magic. He saw alchemists in their stained robes haggling over beakers of glowing, bubbling liquids. He saw enchanters examining ancient, rune-covered scrolls, their fingers tracing the lines of forgotten power. He saw stalls selling Spirit Stones, raw and uncut, each one a cloudy, crystalline prison holding a spark of potential, a promise of a future companion. He passed a stall where a wizened old woman with eyes like polished jet was selling charms and talismans. A young, hopeful-looking knight-aspirant was excitedly purchasing a small, silver hawk charm that the old woman promised would “guide his blade and grant him the eye of a predator.” Lloyd, the cynic, suspected it would do little more than look rather nice dangling from his belt, but the boy’s belief, his hope, was a palpable force. He saw a cart laden with what looked like junk—rusted bits of metal, broken shards of pottery, strange, twisted pieces of dark, petrified wood. But the small, intense crowd gathered around it, their faces a mixture of greed and reverence, told him this was no ordinary junk pile. These were artifacts, relics salvaged from the forgotten ruins of the north, each one potentially holding a fragment of ancient, lost magic. A man who looked like a powerful, high-ranking mage was examining a single, blackened cog from some long-dead automaton with an intensity that suggested it was more precious to him than all the diamonds in the jewelers’ quarter. It was a world of wonders, of possibilities, of a magic that was far wilder, far more diverse, than the disciplined, bloodline-based powers he was used to. He was a man from three worlds, a traveler through time and dimensions, and yet, here, in this teeming, chaotic, magical marketplace, he felt like a child seeing the world for the first time. The engineer in him wanted to dismantle the magical artifacts to understand their mechanics. The soldier in him assessed the enchanted weapons with a professional, wary eye. And the simple, nineteen-year-old boy he now inhabited... he was just... dazzled. He spent hours wandering, a ghost in the crowd, observing, learning, absorbing. He felt a profound sense of humility. He had thought himself clever, innovative, with his soap and his marketing. But this city, this kingdom... it was a vast, ancient, and incredibly sophisticated machine. He had not invented a revolution; he had simply introduced a single, new, and surprisingly popular, gear into its already complex workings. As the afternoon sun began to dip lower, painting the sky in softer hues, he found himself drifting away from the chaotic heart of the market, towards a quieter, more open-air section on the periphery. The scents of exotic spices and arcane reagents gave way to the clean, earthy smells of the countryside. This was the farmers’ market, the place where produce from the rich, fertile lands surrounding the capital was sold. Chapter: 404 The stalls here were simpler, the merchants less sharp, their faces open and weathered from the sun. He saw pyramids of gleaming red apples, baskets overflowing with dark green lettuces, heaps of golden-orange carrots still dusted with the rich, black soil they had been pulled from that morning. The air was filled with the honest, wholesome smells of the earth, a welcome respite after the dizzying sensory assault of the main market. He walked slowly down the aisle of stalls, a faint, nostalgic smile on his lips. This, he thought, felt... real. Grounded. A world away from the high-stakes games of kings and the dangerous whispers of assassins. It was just... people. Selling the fruits of their labor. He was passing a simple, unassuming vegetable stall, its offerings modest but fresh—neat piles of purple turnips, bunches of crisp, white radishes, a basket of small, sweet-smelling herbs—when his gaze fell upon the young woman standing behind it. And his world, which had just begun to feel solid, real, and wonderfully, refreshingly, simple, stopped. Utterly. Completely. The air rushed from his lungs. His heart, which had been beating with a slow, contented rhythm, gave a single, brutal, agonizing lurch, then seemed to stop altogether. The sounds of the market—the chatter, the laughter, the distant clang of a blacksmith’s hammer—all faded into a sudden, roaring silence. All he could see, all he could perceive, was her. She was arranging a pile of radishes into a neat, white-and-red pyramid, her movements deft, practical. Her hair was a simple, light brown, tied back in a loose, slightly messy braid, a few stray strands escaping to frame her face. She wore a simple, patched linen dress, the color of faded cornflowers. Her hands, though stained with a bit of earth, were slender, graceful. And her face... Gods. Her face. It was the face that had been seared into his memory, into his very soul, for fifty long, lonely years. The face he had loved with the fierce, desperate, all-consuming passion of a young man. The face he had lost, so suddenly, so tragically, to a soldier’s senseless, random death. The face he had mourned, silently, for more than half a century, a private, sacred grief he had never shared with anyone, not even his second wife, not even his own children. The high cheekbones. The gentle curve of her jaw. The small, stubborn tilt of her chin. The spray of faint freckles across the bridge of her nose. And her smile... as she looked up, catching the eye of a passing customer, a small, shy, but genuinely warm smile touched her lips, and it was like the sun breaking through a lifetime of clouds. It was her. It was Anastasia. His first wife. His lost love. Here. In Riverio. Selling radishes. The world tilted, dissolved, re-formed around that single, impossible, heart-stopping reality. It wasn’t just a resemblance. It wasn’t a trick of the light. It was her. The same eyes. The same smile. The same soul, shining out from a face he thought he would never see again outside of his own fading, cherished memories. A ghost. He was seeing a ghost. And the sight of her, so real, so solid, so impossibly, beautifully, alive, shattered him completely. The carefully constructed walls around Lloyd Ferrum’s heart, walls built from eighty years of logic, of cynicism, of the hard, practical necessities of two lifetimes of survival, did not just crack; they vaporized. The man who had faced down assassins, negotiated with kings, and commanded armies was gone, replaced in an instant by the raw, wounded soul of KM Evan, the young soldier who had lost the love of his life far, far too soon. Grief, a vast, powerful, and long-slumbering beast, erupted from the depths of his being. It was a grief he had thought tamed, a sorrow he had believed packed away, insulated by the passage of decades, by the love of his second family, by the simple, relentless march of time. But seeing her now, so real, so impossibly present, tore open the old wound, and it was as raw, as agonizing, as if it had been inflicted only yesterday.

Episode-202

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