Hey, Beautiful!
Author: Cindy Chen
last update2025-03-13 21:20:12

The streets near the palace were cloaked in deepening darkness, the air thick with the distant scent of damp stone and burning oil. The flickering lanterns along the roads cast long, wavering shadows, stretching like ghostly fingers across the uneven cobblestones. Their weak glow failed to reach the narrow alleyways, where silence reigned and the city's filth clung to the walls like forgotten whispers.

Calen moved with measured grace, his disguise flowing around him like the delicate robe of a noblewoman slipping through the city on some clandestine errand. He kept his steps unhurried, his posture demure, careful to let his movements betray uncertainty—the hesitation of someone out of place, someone who had wandered too far from safety.

It was a calculated performance. A lure.

But he was not alone.

"Hey, beautiful! Where are you going?"

The voice came from the shadows to his left, slurred yet confident, thick with the lazy arrogance of a man who knew his authority granted him a certai
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