Chapter 356: Ancestral Right
The black-bordered image remained on Martin’s phone.
[Restricted Recovery Request]
[Target: One living Sairren route-keeper.]
[Claim Basis: Ancestral right.]
[Buyer Identity: Broker Protected.]
Alexandra was still resting against his chest. Neither of them spoke.
The rain tapped against the studio window, and somewhere outside, a car rolled through the wet street below. A few seconds ago, the evening had felt small in the best possible way. Now Martin could almost hear the dark market again. Chains against stone. Contract seals opening beneath his boots. Black hands closing around him while the Sairren route collapsed.
His eyes moved toward the virtual reality headset across the room, and Alexandra noticed immediately. "You want to log in."
"I want to know whether they’re already in danger."
"So do I." She sat up but stayed beside him. "Rias sent us evidence, not an alarm. If Mireva needs us right now, she’ll say so."
Martin knew that. His body had simply reached the conclusion before his head did. The phone vibrated again.
[Rias: Before either of you asks, no. The Contact Seal is quarantined and inactive.]
[Rias: I found no active route attached to the delayed listing.]
[Rias: Mireva has been warned. Do not reconnect to the market.]
Alexandra read the messages over his shoulder. "She knows you too well."
"Why me?"
"You looked at the headset first."
"You looked too."
"I was checking whether you were about to do something stupid."
Martin gave her a look, but Alexandra simply leaned back against him, satisfied. Another message arrived.
[Rias: And finish your date.]
Alexandra immediately reached for his phone. Martin moved it away before she could take it.
"No."
"I only wanted to thank her."
"That is exactly why you’re not getting it."
Alexandra tried once more, failed, then settled against him with an offended noise. Martin put the phone facedown. The request would still exist tomorrow, and if the situation changed, Rias knew how to reach him. He had spent too much of the last few weeks allowing every new problem to decide what happened next. He was not going to turn the promise he had just made Alexandra into bullshit within the same hour.
They stayed together until it was actually time for her to leave. The market did not interrupt them again.
—
The Sunken Belfry felt different when Martin returned the next evening. Nothing had been destroyed. No monsters roamed the inhabited plazas, and silver resonance still traveled through the restored Upper Belfry. The bridges were intact, Sairren families still crossed between homes, and children still appeared between adults whenever they thought nobody important was looking.
Still, the city was waiting.
Every inhabited bridge had twice as many wardens. Bronze shutters covered narrower residential routes that had been open during Martin’s previous visit, while small tuning forks hung beside doorways, positioned low enough for even young Sairren to reach. Couriers traveled in pairs, and nobody ran when Martin’s party appeared. They watched instead, which Martin preferred far less.
Mireva waited beside one of the restored upper relays. The feathers along the edges of her folded wings had been bound close to her body, leaving nothing loose to catch if she had to move quickly. Rias stood beside her with several evidence windows already open.
Martin was the last of the party to arrive. Alexandra and Kumoe occupied one side of the platform, with Kumoe’s curious head inspecting the nearest rack of tools while the right head watched the Sairren wardens watching them. The middle slept against Alexandra’s leg.
Katherine had summoned Kinnami, though the golden spirit remained curled near her boots. Elisebeth leaned against a bronze support with her staff beside her, while Cassandra stood closest to the route map.
Angel remained inside Martin’s pocket dimension. There were plenty of places inside the Belfry where summoning a nearly building-sized Dragon Turtle would create more problems than it solved. Mireva waited until Martin reached the table.
"The request Rias sent me. Is it genuine?"
Rias answered. "The image is genuine. That is all I can certify."
Mireva’s jaw tightened slightly, but she did not interrupt.
"I cannot confirm the request is still active," Rias continued. "I cannot identify the buyer, and I cannot prove the market expected us to recover the listing."
Mireva nodded. "Show me." Rias enlarged the captured panel.
[Target: One living Sairren route-keeper.]
[Claim Basis: Ancestral right.]
Mireva barely looked at the first line. Her attention settled on the second.
"I know that language."
Martin stepped closer. "From where?"
"Old disputes."
Mireva placed one claw against the bronze route map. "Before the Belfry became hidden, some human houses maintained roads beside our ancestors. Their soldiers guarded settlements and caravans. Our route-keepers warned them when Dark Force migrations changed or when ordinary roads became unsafe."
A thin silver path appeared as she traced one of the ancient routes. "For a time, both sides benefited."
Elisebeth adjusted her grip on her staff. "That sounds surprisingly normal."
"Sometimes history is."
Mireva’s claw stopped where the route split in two. "Some settlements were built under agreements between Sairren clans and human houses. Then those agreements changed. Or ended. Or were broken. It depends on whose account survived."
Alexandra looked down at the map. "What happened?"
"Some human houses began saying that because they had protected the roads, the land around those roads owed them service."
Mireva pressed harder against the bronze.
"And the people living there?" Cassandra asked.
"The same."
Mireva’s voice remained controlled. "Our records say those demands came after the agreements had already ended. Some surviving human accounts say Sairren clans abandoned settlements during war after accepting protection for generations."
Katherine frowned. "Do you know which version is true?"
"No." Mireva answered without hesitation. "I know what my people preserved. That does not mean every frightened Sairren writing after a war understood everything that happened."
Her eyes shifted to Rias. "I assume you appreciate that answer."
Rias had already begun recording. "I appreciate answers I don’t have to downgrade from fact later." Mireva’s ears twitched, but she let that pass.
Rias enlarged the words Ancestral right. "This phrase tells us what kind of claim someone wants to make. It does not identify the claimant. It also does not prove whoever submitted the request believes the history behind it."
Cassandra finally spoke again. "They may only need a buyer who does."
Rias nodded. "Or the wording was chosen for someone specific."
Elisebeth pushed herself away from the bronze support. "So the useful part is simple. Someone wants one of Mireva’s people alive, and they wrapped the request in an old ownership dispute."
Rias considered it. "That is fair."
"Wonderful. I hate it."
Katherine opened her tome on the table. "What changed here after the listing appeared?" Mireva touched the lower section of the route map, and a dark region illuminated beneath the restored network.
[Lower Belfry: Unresolved.]
"The lower bells started answering more often."
The mood around the table changed immediately.