"It’s real." Vael’s voice was flat, certain. "I saw the way they talked about it. Heard the reverence in their voices. Whatever the Convergence is, they’ve been working toward it for a long time. And they’re close. Very close."
Nacho processed this information, running it through the mental frameworks he’d developed over years of dealing with organizations that operated outside the law. The Consortium wasn’t just a criminal enterprise. It was an army in disguise, positioning itself for a conflict that most people didn’t even know was coming.
"How long do we have?"
Vael closed her eyes, searching her memory for details she’d overheard during months of captivity.
"They mentioned a date. The winter solstice. Something about the barriers being thinnest when the year turns over." She opened her eyes. "That’s less than two months away."
Two months. Sixty days to warn an entire civilization about an invasion they didn’t believe was possible, orchestrated by an enemy they didn’t know existed, using methods that defied conventional understanding of how the planes worked.
Nacho had faced long odds before. But this was something else entirely.
"Alright," he said, pushing off from the wall. "Then we don’t have time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves. Vael needs to recover her strength. Sera needs to get back to Lumen and start preparing for whatever’s coming. And I..."
He paused, considering his options. The smart move would be to disappear. Find some quiet corner of the world where the Consortium couldn’t reach him and wait out whatever storm was approaching. He had the Talents, the abilities, the survival instincts to make it work.
But that wasn’t who he was anymore. Whether he liked it or not.
"I need to find out more about Lady Vex and the Convergence. Figure out exactly what they’re planning and how to stop it."
Sera looked at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read. Surprise, maybe. Or something deeper.
"You don’t have to do that. You’ve already done more than enough."
"Yeah, well." He shrugged, uncomfortable with the weight of her gratitude. "Turns out I’m bad at walking away from things. Character flaw, probably."
Vael laughed. It was a short, sharp sound, rusty from disuse, but genuine.
"I like him," she said to Sera. "Can we keep him?"
"He’s not a pet."
"No. He’s a tentacle monster who runs a massage parlor and fights criminal empires in his spare time." Vael’s eyes found Nacho’s, and there was something like respect in their depths. "That’s much more interesting than a pet."
The bathhouse attendant arrived a few minutes later, announcing that the water was ready. Sera helped Vael to her feet, wrapping an arm around her waist to support her weight as they made their way toward the door.
"We’ll talk more when she’s clean and rested," Sera said over her shoulder. "Figure out the logistics of getting back to Lumen."
Nacho nodded, watching them go. The door closed behind them, leaving him alone with the remnants of breakfast and his own thoughts.
The Convergence. Lady Vex. An invasion force gathering in the shadows while the world went about its business, oblivious to the storm approaching.
He thought about Lizbeth, back at the Old Willow Inn, probably wondering what had happened to her strange tenant. About Captain Rhea, who’d promised to visit the massage parlor next week and would find it empty. About Vanessa, who’d threatened to track him down if he didn’t return within a year.
All of them going about their lives, unaware that the world they knew might be ending in sixty days.
He had to warn them. Had to do something to prepare them for what was coming.
But first, he had to survive long enough to figure out what that something was.
The window overlooked the village’s main street, now filling with people as the morning progressed. Merchants setting up stalls. Children running errands for their parents. A patrol of local guards making their rounds with the bored efficiency of people who’d never seen real trouble.
Normal life. Ordinary existence. The kind of thing Nacho had always taken for granted until a lightning bolt ended his old one and dropped him into a world where nothing was ordinary anymore.
He watched it all, committing the scene to memory. Because he had a feeling that, very soon, normal wouldn’t exist anymore.
Not for any of them.
The bathhouse sat across the muddy street like a squat stone toad, steam curling from vents in its roof. Nacho watched from the tavern window as Sera helped Vael through the entrance, the two of them moving with the careful synchronization of people who’d learned each other’s rhythms long ago.
He should have been thinking about the Convergence. About Lady Vex. About the sixty days standing between now and whatever catastrophe the Consortium had been building toward.
Instead, he found himself thinking about the massage parlor.
Weird priority, I know.
But there was something about the memory of that cramped back room that wouldn’t leave him alone. The broken tables. The blindfolds. The parade of women who’d walked through that door looking for relief and found something they couldn’t quite explain.
He’d built that from nothing. A converted storage room in a slum inn, and within weeks it had become the worst-kept secret in Lumen. Officers. Merchants. Daughters of nobles. They’d all come, and they’d all left changed in ways that had nothing to do with stolen Talents.
Maybe that’s the part that bothers me. I actually liked doing it.
Not just the Talent acquisition. Not just the power growth. He’d liked making them feel good. Liked watching the tension drain out of shoulders that had been carrying too much weight for too long. Liked the sounds they made when his tentacle found exactly the right spot.
The door to the room creaked open behind him.
He turned, expecting Sera or Vael back early from their bath. Instead, he found himself looking at a woman he’d never seen before.
She was short. Compact. Built like someone who’d spent their whole life doing manual labor, with forearms that could probably crack walnuts and a jaw set in a permanent expression of mild irritation. Her hair was cropped close to her skull, iron grey despite a face that suggested she wasn’t much older than forty.
"You the one they call Nacho?"
His tentacles stirred beneath his clothes, ready to manifest at the first sign of trouble. His Mind Fortress brushed against her surface thoughts and found nothing but exhausted determination and a bone-deep wariness that had become second nature.
"Depends on who’s asking."