Chapter 4 · free to read
One sheet of forgotten paper. Two hands wanting it. And the man holding it had spent his whole life choosing the hand that paid.
He drew the scroll back rather than hand it over, which is not a thing a paid man does twice.
He turned his back on the woman who paid him, in a room where everybody was watching to see whether he would.
The canal had watched the Saovaphak name take from it for a decade. This dawn, it closed ranks like a fist.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.