Marcus was well known in the capital.
He was neither particularly powerful nor was he an expert at clearing trials. Marcus was known the way bad weather was known. You heard about him before you experienced him and you tried to make sure you never experienced him at all.
He was wealthy, well connected, trained well enough to back up whatever his mouth started. He moved through the Capital with two fighters at his back and the absolute unshakeable confidence of a man who had never once been made to face a consequence. Women avoided the streets he frequented. The ones who hadn't learned yet usually learned quickly. He was a womanizer through and through.
The Capital had plenty of people with power and no decency. Marcus was just the most visible one.
In his first life he had been background noise to Arie. A name attached to stories, nothing more. He had never crossed paths with Keisha as he had no reason to.
Arie was going to give him one.
It took two days to set up properly.
Keisha had a predictable pattern. Most people did if you watched long enough. She trained in the eastern yard in the mornings, ran supply errands through the early afternoon and spent her evenings in a small tea house three streets off the main market. Her routine was consistent, predictable and the poor girl had no idea she was being watched.
Marcus had a pattern too. Easier to track because men like Marcus never thought they needed to be careful. Wednesday evenings he moved through the quieter streets north of the market district with his two followers, visiting various establishments in a specific order. He particularly loved to visit a gambling den.
The overlap was a single street which was narrow, poorly lit, the kind of street that was fine during the day and something else entirely after dark. Keisha cut through it on her way back from the tea house. Marcus passed through it on his way to his third stop of the evening.
They would never naturally be there at the same time. The timing was off by almost forty minutes.
Arie had to fix that. Marcus and his guards had a good day in the gambling den. To celebrate their victory they had filled their bellies with expensive booze. This was a perfect opportunity for Arie.They lingered longer than they should have.
Walking the same stretch.
Not noticing for 40minutes.
Arie took up a position in a doorway twenty feet up the street and waited.
Keisha came through first.
She moved quickly, hood up, the specific pace of someone who knew how to travel through a city at night without advertising herself. Capable. Aware. In another life she would have made it through this street without incident because Marcus would have been elsewhere and she would have been home before anything found her.
Marcus came around the corner just in time.
Arie watched him notice her. Watched the assessment happen behind his eyes, the decision forming before he had even finished looking at her. He said something to his followers and they fanned out slightly, casually blocking the street exits without making it obvious.
"Hey." His voice carrying easily in the quiet. "Where are you headed?"
Keisha stopped and panicked a little. Took in the three of them with quick eyes and answered "Home."
"No rush is there?" He smiled the smile of someone who had used it successfully enough times to keep using it. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Marcus."
"I know who you are."
"We're off to a good start." He took a step toward her. "Then you know I'm worth talking to."
Keisha's hand moved toward her weapon with the practiced subtlety of someone who had been in bad situations before. "I'll be leaving now."
"Come on, don't be like that" Another step. The smile was getting less pleasant.
His follower on the left shifted position. Cutting off the cleaner exit.
Keisha assessed the geometry of it quickly. Three trained fighters, narrow street, limited options. Arie saw the exact moment she understood how this was going to go if nothing changed.
Too bad you won't be able to escape without my help.
He then stepped out of the doorway.
"Marcus."
All four of them turned.
Arie walked toward them at a pace that wasn't hurried and wasn't cautious. The pace of someone who had already decided how this ended and was simply crossing the distance. He looked at Marcus with the open expression he had spent months perfecting.
Marcus looked at the young man with modest gear, walking alone into a situation any reasonable person would have walked away from. His expression settled into something dismissive. "This doesn't involve you."
"It does now."
"Insolent fool." The dismissiveness sharpening. "You don't know what you're stepping into."
"Three of you." Arie stopped about eight feet away and tilted his head slightly. "And you still needed to block the exits first." He paused. "What does that say about your confidence?"
Marcus's face changed. He was annoyed.
That was the thing about men like Marcus. They were fine until you named what they were doing out loud. Then the performance cracked and what was underneath was uglier and less controlled.
He drew his weapon.
His followers moved at the same time, which was the professional thing to do and also meant nothing.
Arie reached for Genshi.
It lasted about forty seconds.
The first follower came fast and Arie let him. He stepped inside the reach, redirected the momentum with a precise push through the ground beneath the man's feet and sent him into the wall hard enough to end his participation in the evening.
The second was more careful. He read the first one's failure and came in slower, looking for the opening rather than forcing it.
Arie switched.
The second follower's position and a loose stone three feet to the left folded into each other in the space of a blink. The man was suddenly somewhere he hadn't been, stumbling, processing the wrongness of it for the half second Arie needed.
He was down before he finished processing.
Marcus was better than expected. There was real training behind the entitlement, real capability underneath the performance. He pressed hard and for about fifteen seconds it was a genuine fight, his blade finding angles that required real responses. Arie let it go on long enough for Marcus to understand the gap between them. He wanted the man to know exactly what was happening before it ended.
Then he stepped inside Marcus's guard and put Genshi at his throat.
Marcus went still.
They stood like that for a moment. Arie could see the specific quality of fear arriving in his eyes. It wasn't blind panic. The cold clear understanding of a man intelligent enough to know he had run completely out of road.
"The street is empty and your followers are down". Nobody is coming." He let that sit for exactly one second. "This is the part where you make a decision."
Marcus made the wrong one.
He went for the blade at his hip with his off hand. Fast, committed, the move of someone who had decided that going down swinging was better than whatever came next.
Arie had seen it coming before Marcus had decided to do it.
Genshi moved once. Clean and final and without hesitation.
Marcus hit the ground and did not get up.
"You chose that" Arie shrugged. Well even if Marcus hadn't attacked Arie had planned on ending him.
He turned around to see Keisha leaning against the wall where she had pressed herself when it started, weapon drawn, watching him with wide eyes that were already narrowing into something more analytical. She looked at the three bodies on the ground and then at him and Genshi.
"You good?" he asked.
A beat of silence. "No."
"Good." He checked both ends of the street out of habit. Empty. "You should get home now. Different route."
He started walking.
"Wait." Her voice stopping him. He turned back. She was still watching him with that careful expression he recognized from years away. The same sharpness. Just younger, less worn in. "Who are you?"
"Nobody important."
"You just killed three men with such ease."
She stared at him. "Why did you help me?"
He looked at her for a moment. Open, giving nothing away, the same face he wore for everyone.
"Wrong place, wrong time," he said.
He turned and walked away before she could find her next question. Behind him he heard nothing. Just the specific silence of someone watching something they had not finished thinking about yet.
He turned the corner and walked back toward the inn with his hands in his pockets.
She would remember his face.
That was enough for now.