The Beastbinder's Ascension

Chapter 113: The Glass-Eyed Witness


Linna stepped back into the herbal shop just past midnight.

The wards whispered to her the moment the door shut. Not in words—but in sensation. A slight dissonance in the smoke-runes above the entrance, a tremor in the balance of the ash ward threaded through the rafters.

Something had shifted.

She stood still in the dark for a full ten seconds, letting her senses reach. The flame in the lantern hadn't guttered. The bindings on the rear room were intact. No outright alarm had triggered.

And yet…

She moved behind the counter, her fingers trailing over the wooden shelf where bundles of sleeproot bark rested. It was cold to the touch—too cold.

The boy was gone, of course. Sent home hours ago. She kept no night staff. There was no need. No one had ever breached this place. Not since she carved her first ward seal into the foundation stone by hand.

Linna inhaled once, deep and measured.

The air was faintly wrong. No foreign scent lingered, but something in the weight of the spirit around her had changed—as if the house had exhaled a second too late.

Her right hand shifted under her sleeve, brushing a narrow ribbon tied around her wrist.

"Awaken, my dear," she whispered.

Moments after, a slit—as if space had been sliced—appeared a few centimeters from her right hand. It turned into an opening of a contract space and a small being emerged—a pale, doll-like figure that hovered above her palm, then to her shoulder. Its glassy eyes were closed, its porcelain arms folded across its chest.

Then they opened—one eye after the other.

If Aston was here, he would ask Nova if it was a spirit beast or a construct created by a spirit engineer. And if Nova was here, it would reply with a yes. Everything contains spirit energy—even rocks, so a construct made of spirit-enriched materials being a spirit beast is, although rare, possible.

The doll-like spirit beast pulsed once.

Tiny rings of spiritual resonance radiated outward, nearly invisible—like breath on glass.

It moved toward the shelves, hovering past the jars, its eyes flicking from ward to ward. Linna watched it carefully.

The back room.

A low, vibrating chime rang in her ear—too low for humans to hear, but not for her.

The crate.

Still sealed. Still untouched. Still woven with silver thread along the edges—but something about it had changed.

Not visually. Not physically. Spiritually.

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The doll floated toward it and extended a small, chalky hand.

A shimmer flared against the crate's edge—brief and erratic.

Disruption.

Linna crouched beside it and pressed a finger to the seal.

No reactive glyphs. No tethered signature.

But…

"It's humming," she whispered.

The resonance field had shifted. The way spirit energy flowed around the crate—it was faster, more turbulent. As if it were drawing in minute pulses of intent.

The doll rotated slowly, then faced Linna. Its expression remained blank—but its gaze remained fixed on the space behind the crate.

"Anomaly?" she asked it softly.

The doll bowed once. No words. But its hands moved again—forming an outline in the air of a figure that had once stood there.

Not male. Not female.

Just... intent.

Clever. Cautious.

Gone.

Linna's lips thinned. She stood slowly, her hand brushing across her inner belt pocket where three flare-beads rested. She selected one—pale green—and slipped it into her palm.

A quiet signal.

Not for alarm, not yet.

But a change of schedule.

She would move the product tonight. The buyer was already waiting three ridges west, by the broken aqueduct.

They would not meet here.

She flicked her hand again, and the doll returned to her contract space.

The crate hovered upward with a whisper of displaced air.

Her hand hovered over the top—just to feel the change. This wasn't tampered with by an amateur. It was precise. Measured.

Someone trained.

Which meant they knew her name.

Or were about to.

Her mouth twisted into a grim smile.

"Then I'll leave before the sun does."

She turned back to the main room, pausing only to extinguish the lantern.

The smoke curled upward like a sigh.

And behind it, in the dark, Linna slipped a thin, silver-marked envelope into the base drawer—sealed with wax that bore no crest.

She would not return for it.

No one ever did.

Not in her line of work.

Outside, Westridge Hollow still slept. But it was stirring too early, and the wind carried a scent that didn't belong.

Linna flicked the flare-bead into the air.

It popped once—no sound, just a brief green light—and vanished above the rooftops like a fading firefly.

A signal to her contact.

Change of plan.

Departure: within the hour.

She left through the rear passageway, walking with even, precise steps.

Tomorrow, someone would come looking.

They would find herbs, dust, and silence.

And perhaps… a crate they could no longer trace.

But they wouldn't find Linna Veydran.

Not this time.

And not until she wanted to be found.

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