Chapter 6, Kaelenna Mireclaw
The wooden doors creaked open and the moment we crossed the threshold, the air changed. It became thicker, warmer, swollen with tension and woodsmoke, with the weight of authority carved by hands that had bled to earn it.
The Vigilance Headquarters in the Market District was no polished fortress, no clean noble hall. It was a barn turned citadel, a skeleton of timber reinforced by steel filched from a dozen collapsed tunnels, beams darkened by lamps and years of desperate rebuilding.
My tail coiled tighter round Master’s thigh the instant my boots crossed the threshold, a reflex older than instinct, older than thought. My muscles surged with protectiveness, with jealousy, with an electric hunger to remind anyone breathing inside this space that he walked in alive only because I allowed it. The guards flanking the door stiffened, when my claws clicked across the wood, their swords catching lamplight, their ears flicking with startled recognition.
Their eyes trailed him, not me. Of course they did. My tail cinched tighter, a slow bruising spiral of ownership.
The lieutenant who escorted us walked ahead, spine rigid, doing her best to pretend she wasn’t rattled by the presence behind her, of him, steady as mountain stone, or me, the shadow ready to tear a throat out if someone blinked wrong. Her boots beat a nervous tempo on the planks as she led us through the entrance hall, a long corridor lined with makeshift notice boards plastered with parchment. Patrol rosters. Trade complaints. Missing persons reports. Tax postings. Emergency rations. The Vigilance had become bureaucrats with swords.
Master walked with the same calm stride he always did, as if the world rearranged itself around him rather than the other way around. His coat swayed lightly, his steps precise, his attention controlled in that noir detective way of his, seeing everything, revealing nothing. I matched him step for step, tail wrapped round him like a harness forged from bone and claim.
We entered the main chamber. And the world narrowed. The barn’s interior opened into a broad hall with long tables shoved together, crates stacked in precarious towers, maps pinned to the walls with daggers, and lanterns hung high from rafters so their shadows slashed the ground in sharp, disciplined lines. The air hummed with the faint scent of penned cats, leather armour, metal, old adrenaline. It was a den remade into a courtroom.
At the far end of the hall, sitting behind a long table as if it were a throne of splintered planks, was Kaelenna Mireclaw. She looked smaller than her reputation suggested. But authority coiled around her like a second skin. Not physical height. Not brute force. Something else, a cold, cunning gravity that pulled every eye in the room toward her whether they wanted to or not.
Long dark hair. Sharp green eyes, cloak draped, fingers interlaced on the table, posture still as a hunting cat biding its time. She watched us enter without rising. Without shifting. Without even flicking an ear.
The lieutenant bowed slightly at the edge of the table. “High Watcher. They arrived as requested.” Requested. I choked a laugh in my throat.
Master didn’t slow. Didn’t speak. Didn’t alter his gait. He simply walked further into the hall, steps echoing against old beams. My tail uncoiled from his thigh only to slide up around his hip, binding him closer as I prowled at his side. Every catgirl guard in the room watched the movement, instinct screaming inside their bones.
Kaelenna’s eyes finally moved. But not to me. To him. Her expression didn’t shift, but her pulse did, a tiny flutter I heard from across the hall, a betrayal of perfect control. I leaned into Master with a low growl curling warm against his ribs. “She’s staring.” He didn’t react. He didn’t need to. The stillness of his jaw answered for him.
Kaelenna’s voice, when it came, slid through the room like the edge of a blade polished to a mirror. “You return to my doorstep after times of silence,” she said, each word placed with surgical care. “After the council collapse. After the fishing district. After the… changes.”
Not everyone in the Vigilance knew the truth. Not everyone understood why their Council of Three suddenly became a Council of One. Not everyone knew that two votes against Master’s plans meant two corpses against the stone. But Kaelenna knew. She’d watched one die by his hand. She’d assumed credit for finishing the second. And she owed her throne to his shadow.
She leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowing just enough to show she was thinking faster than she wanted anyone to notice. “And now,” she continued, “you bring the Cat back into my hall.” The way she said “the Cat” tasted like respect. And fear. And subtle resentment that she needed me. My claws flexed. My tail tightened. My ears angled forward, catching every shift in her breathing.
The lieutenant stepped back, not daring to stand between us and Kaelenna.
Good kitten. Master came to a halt three steps from the table, the distance of a man who knew any closer and he would be treated like an equal. He wasn’t here for that. He stood like someone arriving at a crime scene, not answering a summons.
Kaelenna’s gaze flicked between him and me. And then, A single ear-twitch. She was rattled. I smiled. Slow. Sharp. Delighted. Master didn’t smile. He simply slid one gloved hand behind his back and stood with the posture of a man prepared to pass sentence.
The silence thickened. Kaelenna exhaled quietly and folded her hands again. “Before anything else,” she said softly, “I want to know why you’ve returned.”
My tail bristled with predatory glee, the tip curling up behind Master as if preparing to strike anyone who didn’t like his answer. Master didn’t speak yet. He never rushed. He never bowed. He never let anyone else set the rhythm. And Kaelenna Mireclaw, High Watcher of the Vigilance, survivor of bloodshed, architect of authoritarian order, waited for his words like a novice waiting for confession.
The barn’s air tightened, thick as wet coal dust, when Master finally stepped into the silence Kaelenna had stretched out before him like a trap waiting to be sprung. He did not sit. He did not bow. He did not ease his stance. He simply let the weight of his presence settle into the timber bones of the headquarters until even the guards shifted in their boots like the floor itself had tilted.
He raised his chin a fraction, shadows from the lantern rack catching the long angles of his jaw. When he spoke, his voice slipped into the room like cigarette smoke drifting across the scene of a murder.
“I’m looking for the Crimson Swarm,” he said, tone dry. “They’re operating outside the Maw now. Smugglers, slavers, and every kind of bottom feeder that thinks a cloak of organisation makes them less pathetic than they are. I’ve dealt with them before in Marshgate.” His eyes narrowed slightly, a detective reading the guilt etched into the dust itself. “I’m not here for politics. I’m here because someone out there thinks they can work with a syndicate I already met.”
The hall froze around him. Kaelenna blinked once. Just once. A crack in the armour she didn’t want anyone to see. Then she leaned forward, fingers steepled, voice smooth as glass rubbed against steel. “Crimson Swarm.” A tiny shake of her head. “I know nothing of them operating. Nothing within Vigilance territory. Nothing within the Market District or the Fishing District.”
And that was when I moved. A slow, deliberate step closer to Master so my hip brushed his, my tail wrapping once more round his thigh, tighter than before, possessive enough that the guards stiffened instinctively.
My claws scraped the floor as I leaned into the lamplight, eyes fixed on Kaelenna with the kind of stare that could peel the skin off someone’s confidence. “Not your knowledge” I murmured, voice soft as a blade slipping under ribs. “But your districts are leaking, High Watcher. If Crimson Swarm dogs got outside these tunnels, they had a door. A guide. Someone who knew when that door was unguarded.”
Kaelenna straightened. I didn’t break eye contact. My instincts flared, the need to protect, the hunger to dominate, the rising taste of jealousy every time her gaze slid toward Master even for half a heartbeat. My tail tightened like a vice, my pupils sharpening to slits. “If they’re out there,” I continued, “they didn’t crawl past Vigilance watchmen by accident. They had help. Your help or someone under you.”
I saw her breath falter. Barely. But enough. And I felt the room shift. Like the whole barn had taken a step back.
perception check 14, Enhanced Senses +2 = 16
I smelled it. Fear. Not fear of us, she’d learned that long ago. Fear of what she didn’t know. Fear of the truth Master had just dragged into her throne room. I tilted my head, smile sharp, manic. Kaelenna’s jaw tightened. Master didn’t even blink. And I felt the tension ripple across the floorboards like a warning tremor before a collapse.
The room tightened again as Kaelenna let out a slow breath and tried to reassemble her composure. Her cloak shifted as she leaned forward, voice cold but no longer flawless. “I am unaware of any obvious issues,” she said, and even with her careful tone I heard the subtle quiver under the words. Not fear. Not guilt. Uncertainty. A High Watcher who’d built her power on knowledge suddenly faced a knife-shape in the dark she’d never seen coming.
Master didn’t nod. Didn’t frown. Didn’t blink. He simply stared at her with a blank, emotionless stillness that could’ve frozen molten iron. Kaelenna swallowed. She tried to move the conversation. Tried to retake footing. “Last time you were here,” she continued carefully, “you gave your word that we would continue the push against the Black Fang Gang. And we would, if we could. But recruitment only surged after the fishing district fell. We don’t have the bodies for a push. Not yet.”
My tail snapped against Master’s leg, an instinctive band of tension. Her words weren’t disrespectful, not exactly, but she was leaning too close to excuses. I stepped forward, pupils tightening, voice dripping sweet venom. “Do you think Master doesn’t know the state of your forces? Or do you simply enjoy stating the obvious to hear your own voice echo in your little barn throne room?”
Kaelenna’s ears twitched, a crack of irritation she couldn’t hide. And that was when Master moved. Not much. Just a tilt of his head. Enough to shift the entire atmosphere like a blade pressed to a throat. His voice drifted out low, cold, noir to the bone, the sound of cigarette ash falling onto old murder scene photographs. “I gave my word,” he murmured, tone so perfectly flat it scraped the air. “And I am present, am I not.”
The guards stiffened. Kaelenna inhaled sharply. Even the lieutenant at the doorway froze as if someone had iced her spine. Master’s words hit the table like a verdict. No emotion. No embellishment. Just the plain, hard truth of a man who treats promises the same way he treats bodies. If he says something ends, it ends. If he says he’ll return, he returns. If he stands here, it’s because he meant to be here.
Kaelenna opened her mouth to speak again, something between desperate and determined. “Master… I must ask again. Do you intend to...”
Master cut her off with the same words, delivered in the same dead, noir monotone. “I gave my word,” he repeated softly, “and I am present.”
Kaelenna’s throat bobbed. She understood. That was all she would get. And more than she deserved. The silence afterwards was so dense it pressed into my ears. Then Master turned. No flourish. No declaration. Just the quiet, weighty decision of a man who had no more time for theatre. His cloak shifted. Bootsteps hit the boards. He moved for the exit with the confidence of someone who owned the ground beneath every step.
And I ? I moved with him instantly, tail coiling round his thigh in a tight, serpentine pull as if I feared the room itself would try to steal him. My claws clicked a warning across the wood, my eyes never leaving Kaelenna even as we retreated.
Her ears lowered. Her posture slumped. Her breath stopped for a moment, caught somewhere between relief and dread. The lieutenant stepped aside so fast she nearly stumbled.
Master crossed the threshold without a backward glance. And I followed him into the corridor, tail wrapped around him like a chain, a growl humming at the base of my throat for everyone still watching. Behind us, Kaelenna’s headquarters fell silent.
