Pale Lights

Author: ErraticErrata

Chapter 1

Words : 521 Updated : Sep 19th, 2025

None of the skeleton keys were working. The landlord must have sprung for good locks, which was admittedly rather sensible of the man considering that Tristan was currently trying to rob one of his patrons. “You should have started with the lockpicks,” Fortuna said. “Told you, didn’t I?” She was leaning against a dingy wall in the weak light of the sole lantern in the hallway, long red dress sweeping to the ground and her tone openly bored. She’d not lowered her voice in the slightest, which would have risked waking up their friend on the other side of the door if anyone but Tristan could hear her. They couldn’t, anymore than they could see or touch her – Fortuna herself still had the senses, but she had grown far too weak to touch the material world. As far as he knew Tristan Abrascal was the sole contractor to the Lady of Long Odds in all of Vesper, and he knew much. Fortuna was not the kind of goddess that disliked the sound of her own voice. “And to think I was once mistress of queens and emperors. Entire festivals were thrown to earn even a single approving glance from me, Tristan,” Fortuna mourned. “Now all I may call on is a single orphan, one with terribly middling thieving skills.” He rolled his eyes. All the old gods like to claim they had once been the greatest deity to ever crawl out of the ether to make pacts with men – or even rule over them, back in the times of the Old Night – but in his experience most of them were no more glorious than the dusty thieves and beggars of the Murk they made contracts with. “Love you too,” Tristan murmured back as he reached for the lockpicks. Mere possession of that neat leather sheath would be enough to earn him a whipping before he was thrown into a cell, should the Guardia catch him with it. Not that they ever had. He opened it to reveal a well-oiled set of tools, one which he knew to be starkly expensive when crafted with such quality. They’d been a gift of from Abuela, though like all her gifts he’d had to earn it on his own. He slowly inserted the tension wrench into the lock, as not to make enough noise to wake the man on the other side of the door, and then began to work the pick. Quickly he raised an eyebrow. The landlord of the Azulejo was a wealthy man, for the hostel was the largest in all of Estebra District and Estebra was by far the wealthiest of the half-dozen districts known as the Murk. It seemed, however, that in this instance the size of the establishment had worked against the landlord. Almost a hundred rooms meant that it would have cost a king’s ransom to have good locks on every door unless they were bought in bulk from one of the great workshops. Those mass models were identical: even the good ones all had the same weaknesses. Fortuna, resti

Pale Lights

Chapter 1

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