Three days passed.
Kieran stayed moving. No inns. No allies. Varneth's whispers had turned colder. Even beggars avoided him now.
Then the city struck.
The Consequences
It started with a failed delivery. A contact who promised supplies suddenly vanished. The healer he'd visited for a wound? Found unconscious, shop ransacked. By nightfall, a bounty spread through the lower rings.
"Voidborne.""Noctis-marked.""No sanctuary."
Kieran fended off three ambushes in a single day. Not assassins—mercenaries. Paid in coin soaked with warning. Their skills were weak.
But the message was clear.
You refused the spider.
Now the city would starve him.
The Fourth Attack
It came at midnight.
This one was different.
Ten men. Coordinated. Silent. They cornered him in a crumbling bell tower, steel gleaming under moonlight.
Kieran moved.
Silence Slash erupted—faster than shadow, cutting sound and flesh alike. Two fell instantly. The rest followed, sloppy, overconfident.
He dropped to a crouch, invoked Shadow's Murderer Intent, and they slowed.
Their strength cracked under his gaze. Their swords trembled.
He didn't kill them all—just enough to send them crawling.
The Stranger on the Rooftop
As he stepped out, panting, a figure sat on the rooftop above the tower—legs dangling, face hidden beneath a cloak stitched from raven feathers.
They clapped once.
"You made it fun."
Kieran raised a blade. "Another assassin?"
"Not unless they start paying better."
The figure dropped down. Smooth. Effortless.
"You're not the only one Noctis tried to leash. Some of us chose to cut the web… and live in the quiet beneath it."
They stepped forward, revealing a young man—eyes mismatched, one amber, one entirely black.
"Name's Cael. I don't belong to a house. But I know who you are, Kieran. And I know you're going to need help before the dagger's full truth swallows you whole."
Kieran didn't lower his weapon. But he listened.
"I've seen your kind before," Cael said. "Voidborne don't die quietly. They either break the city… or become part of it."
A New Thread
Cael handed him a sealed parchment.
"A different path. A different ally. Read it when you're somewhere safe. If there's such a place left."
Then Cael vanished, leaping between rooftops like a bird given back its wings.
Kieran stood alone again.
But something had changed.
He wasn't just hunted anymore.
He was noticed.