Chapter 3 — The Serpent’s Scale

The third night after he gave her his name, Kael did not come.

Lira told herself she didn’t notice.

But she laid out the honeylace tray with too much care. She tied the caramel ribbons slower than usual. And she caught herself glancing toward the lane corner between every sale.

Ridiculous, she told herself.

She wasn’t waiting for him.

Not really.

The Night Market was always shifting — but that evening, it felt off. The kind of strange that stuck beneath fingernails and made milk curdle too fast. The city’s heartbeat had a hitch to it. Lira could feel it beneath her stall, like a drum muffled by wet cloth.

She sold two ginger snaps to a polite couple. A coin purse of starfruit taffy to a young girl with storm-colored hair.

Then, for the first time in months, a man came to the stall and didn’t look at the sweets.

He looked at her.

He was thin in that knotted, dangerous way — all elbows and teeth, and eyes that hadn’t slept in days. His cloak was too fine for a thief, but his boots were cracked, and something in the way he leaned screamed: cornered animal.

“You’re Lira,” he said.

She didn’t confirm. Didn’t deny. Just brushed stray sugar dust from her tray.

“They say your candies carry dreams.”

“They say a lot of things,” she replied.

His hand darted out.

Fast.

She reached for the dagger she kept beneath the counter — small, sharp, sugar-stained from years of slicing toffee in a hurry.

But she was too slow.

His fingers curled around her wrist.

“I want the syrup cubes,” he said, voice low and shaking. “The real ones. The kind that make you forget.”

“I don’t sell those.”

“Don’t lie.”

His grip tightened.

The market around her blurred. Voices faded. People passed, unaware or uncaring — the Night Market didn’t intervene unless blood hit the stones.

Lira met his eyes.

“I don’t make forgetfulness,” she said evenly. “Only sweetness.”

“Then give me something sweet enough to kill.”

She stilled.

Not with fear — but anger.

And then the man’s breath hitched.

Because a shadow fell across the stall.

Not a large shadow. Not loud. But it hummed — like something vast had exhaled nearby.

“Let go,” came a voice like silk catching on glass.

The man turned.

And crumpled.

Not from a blow. Not from fire. Just… collapsed. As if gravity had remembered him too suddenly.

Kael stood beside him, one foot pressing lightly into the thief’s back. He looked calm. Almost bored.

But his eyes burned gold.

He said again, “Let. Go.”

The man’s hand released Lira’s wrist. Shaking. Sweating.

Kael leaned in, too close, and whispered something that made the thief sob. Lira didn’t hear the words. She didn’t want to.

Then Kael stepped back.

The thief scrambled to his feet and ran, tripping over cobblestones, disappearing into the alleys like a rat sensing fire.

Kael said nothing for a long moment.

Then: “You need better protection.”

“I had a knife,” Lira muttered, rubbing her wrist.

He turned his head slowly. “You didn’t use it.”

“I didn’t get the chance.”

“You hesitated,” Kael said simply. “Mortals do, even when they believe they won’t.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And I suppose you never hesitate?”

He looked at her then — really looked.

“I did once,” he said. “It cost a city its sky.”

Lira blinked. “That sounds like something poetic or horrifying.”

“Both,” Kael replied. “They’re often the same.”

She was still trying to process what had happened when he stepped forward again.

“Hold out your hand.”

“What?”

“Your left.”

She hesitated — then extended it, palm up, fingers open.

Kael reached beneath his collar, where fabric shimmered like shadows on water, and drew something out.

A single scale.

No larger than her thumbnail, but brilliant. Iridescent. Like opal kissed by starlight. It pulsed faintly in his palm, almost alive.

“This will answer for me,” he said.

“...what does that mean?”

“If you’re in danger again. It will answer. Once.”

Lira stared at it.

“That’s—very specific.”

Kael quirked a corner of his mouth. “I don’t give second favors lightly.”

He dropped the scale into her hand.

It was warm.

Not hot. Not glowing. But like sun-heated stone — familiar, grounding, steady.

It throbbed once, like a heartbeat.

Lira closed her fingers around it.

Kael turned, already beginning to leave.

“Wait,” she said.

He paused.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.”

“But you did.”

“I told you,” he said over his shoulder, “I try not to be dangerous.”

“That was very dangerous.”

Kael smiled without showing his teeth. “I said try.”

And then he was gone — not in a puff of smoke or flash of light. Just walked into the market and vanished, as if the air swallowed him like a secret.

That night, Lira didn’t sleep.

She sat on her loft bed, the scale resting on her table, glowing faintly in the dark.

She stared at it until dawn.

And though she wouldn’t admit it aloud — not yet — she didn’t want to let it go.

Not because it could save her.

But because it meant something.

Not a promise. Not a curse.

A thread.

And threads, she’d learned, had a way of pulling when you least expected.

End of Chapter 3

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