The city’s silence was a living thing.
When Kael led them from the ruin of the warehouse, the streets seemed to recoil. Shutters slammed before they passed. Candles were snuffed out. Even the drunks who usually staggered along the alleys were gone, vanished as though the earth itself had swallowed them.
It pleased him. Fear spread faster than fire.
The boy walked in front, head c****d, his movements dreamlike. He moved without hesitation, guiding them through winding streets, down narrow alleys slick with damp, across bridges where the river stank of rot. His bare feet never faltered, never slowed. His whispers, too low to catch, drifted back to them like scraps of a forgotten prayer.
Kael studied him as they walked. Small. Frail. Yet the city’s breath bent around him, as if he alone c
