Of course, I can help with that. Let's start building this world together.

Title: The Salt-Stained Contract

The ale tasted like rust and regret, a familiar bitterness that coated Kaelen’s tongue. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, the motion gritty with the day's grime. Around her, The Drowned Rat tavern lived up to its name, smelling of damp wood, unwashed bodies, and the cloying sweetness of cheap, spiced liquor used to mask worse things. The floor was sticky under her worn boots, and the low-hanging rafters, black with a century of smoke, seemed to sweat a greasy condensation that dripped intermittently onto the tables. Every sound was dull and sodden, from the slurred shanties of a trio of dockworkers to the wet slap of a fresh fish being gutted in the corner kitchen.

Across the small, scarred table, Rhys sat as still as a stone effigy in a forgotten tomb. He hadn't touched his drink. His sheer size seemed to warp the space around him, a quiet vortex of violence that kept the tavern’s usual scum from drifting too close. His scarred knuckles rested on the table, a breath away from the hilt of the heavy knife she knew was strapped to his thigh. His gaze wasn't fixed on anything, but she knew he saw everything—the whey-faced man by the door trying to palm a loaded die, the nervous twitch of the barkeep's eye, the subtle shift of shadows near the back exit.

"He's late," Kaelen murmured, her voice a low rasp meant only for him. It was a stupid thing to say, an observation so obvious it was practically an insult. But the silence was getting on her nerves, thick and heavy like the Gild-water fog that rolled in off the harbor.

"Punctuality isn't a virtue among his kind," Rhys replied, his voice a low rumble, like stones grinding together deep underground. He didn't look at her. "Patience is."

Right. And patience was what she was currently paying him for, in addition to his talent for making people's insides their outsides. A fucking mountain of zen with a body count. Before she could retort with something suitably sharp, the tavern door swung open, letting in a gust of wind that smelled of brine and coal smoke.

The man who entered was wrong. All wrong for this place. His coat was fine wool, not patched leather, and his boots were clean. He moved with a liquid grace that didn't belong among the stumbling drunks and hard-faced laborers, his eyes scanning the room with an unnerving, analytical calm. Rhys shifted, a barely perceptible tightening of his shoulders, and Kaelen felt the hairs on her arms stand up. The newcomer’s gaze landed on their table, and a smile that held no warmth, only sharp edges, touched his lips. He began to walk toward them, his steps silent on the filthy floorboards.

He stopped at their table, his shadow falling over them. He smelled faintly of expensive soap and something metallic, like fresh blood.

"You must be the talent," the man said, his voice smooth and cultured. He looked directly at Kaelen, dismissing Rhys entirely. "I am Silas. And I have a proposition that will require your very specific, and I'm told, very discreet, skills."