The town of Greywick squatted at the edge of the wilderness like a mongrel dog—scarred, filthy, and always hungry. Its wooden palisade leaned in places where rot had gnawed through the beams, patched here and there with mismatched stone blocks dragged from ruins older than the kingdom itself. The gate was nothing more than a yawning hole between towers where bored guards slouched with spears. One scratched at a lice-ridden beard while the other chewed on something that might once have been jerky.
Blaze Carter studied it from the crest of the hill, the sun bleeding behind him in a haze of dull crimson. His cloak was little more than a ragged black length he'd torn from temple tapestries. His spawn, Kael, waited a step behind, broad shoulders hunched, golden eyes faintly gleaming with a predatory light.
"This is it?" Kael asked, his voice a gravelly murmur. "Looks more like a dump than a town."
Blaze's gaze lingered on the crooked rooftops beyond the wall, the curling threads of smoke, the faint clamor of voices rising above the din of carts. "Perfect," he said simply.
Kael grunted. "You like garbage, master?"
"I like places where order has already failed," Blaze replied. "They're easier to claim. Easier to twist."
He started down the hill without waiting, boots crunching over gravel. Kael followed, expression unreadable.
By the time they reached the gates, twilight had spread across the land like spilled ink. Torches sputtered in their sconces. The guards barely straightened when Blaze approached. One, a man with missing teeth, lifted a hand.
"Toll," he grunted. "Five coppers to enter Greywick. Each."
Kael's lip curled. His hand twitched toward the hilt of the chipped axe strapped across his back. Blaze shifted slightly, just enough that the spawn froze. He placed a calm hand on Kael's arm, then reached into the pouch at his belt. Two small coins clinked against the guard's palm.
"Keep the change," Blaze said.
The guard blinked. He hadn't given change. He looked at Blaze's pale eyes, something sharp and unreadable glinting behind them. He swallowed, stepped aside without another word.
Inside the gates, Greywick opened itself like a wound.
The streets were narrow veins of mud and stone, slick with runoff from rain and chamber pots alike. Huts and crooked timber houses pressed in on either side, leaning as though drunk. The air was a stew of smells—roasting meat from skewers sold at smoky stalls, unwashed bodies pressed too close together, the sour tang of ale spilled in the dirt, and something acrid and metallic: blood. Somewhere down the street, a woman screamed, high and sharp, followed by laughter. No one hurried to help.
Kael sniffed the air, nostrils flaring. "This place stinks worse than the canyon."
"It stinks of opportunity," Blaze said softly. His eyes tracked every corner, every shadow. A man in patched armor shouted drunkenly at a peddler. A group of children darted into an alley with stolen fruit. A woman leaned against a doorway, eyes flat and calculating as she sized Blaze up for coin or knife.
Corruption was everywhere. And corruption meant weakness.
They moved deeper. Blaze did not walk like a man who feared ambush, yet every step was deliberate. His gaze flicked constantly—counting exits, memorizing the rhythm of the streets, tasting the undercurrent of desperation that ran through Greywick. Kael shadowed him, restless, his fingers brushing the haft of his axe as though eager for a throat to test it on.
They passed a tavern spilling raucous laughter into the street. A fight broke out just inside the doorway—a chair cracked, someone roared, and glass shattered. No guards came. No priest stepped forward. Only the sound of coins being slapped onto tables as bets were placed.
Blaze stopped, just for a moment. His eyes narrowed.
The church here was weak. He had already seen their symbol above a stone chapel near the center of town, but it was faded, neglected. No patrols, no gleaming paladins in silver. Just a hollow presence.
Kael followed his gaze. "You going to burn it down?"
"Not yet." Blaze's lips curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "A candle that weak isn't worth snuffing. Better to bend it until it breaks."
They continued on.
Night fell quickly in Greywick. Torches flared in iron brackets along the streets, but shadows gathered thicker in the alleys. Eyes followed them—hungry, curious, predatory. Kael growled low in his throat more than once, but Blaze silenced him with a glance.
Finally, they reached a quieter quarter near the edge of town where a crumbling inn slouched between two shuttered warehouses. Its sign was little more than a plank with a faded handprint painted in crimson. The Handprint Inn.
Inside, the air was thick with pipe smoke and sweat. A few mercenaries lounged at tables, dice clattering between them. The innkeeper, a balding man with a squint, looked up as Blaze entered. His eyes flicked to Kael's axe, then back to Blaze.
"Room?" the man rasped.
"Two beds," Blaze said.
"Two silvers a night."
Kael's jaw tightened. "That's robbery."
Blaze dropped two silvers onto the counter without flinching. He leaned closer to the innkeeper, voice soft, almost conversational. "And for that price, no one asks questions. Not about me. Not about him. Understood?"
The innkeeper swallowed, nodded quickly. "Understood."
Blaze turned, gesturing for Kael to follow up the narrow stairs. Their room was small, the walls warped, but the door had a lock and the window looked out over a deserted alley. Blaze set his pack down and stood at the window for a long while, watching Greywick's chaos writhe below.
Kael shifted behind him, restless. "This place… I don't like it."
"That's because you only see the filth," Blaze murmured. "Look harder." He turned, eyes faintly gleaming in the dim light. "What do you see?"
Kael hesitated, frowning. "Drunks. Thieves. Weaklings."
"Good. And what do you think men like that want?"
"Coin."
"And what are they willing to do for it?"
Kael's mouth twisted into a slow, savage smile. "Anything."
Blaze nodded once, turning back to the window. The streets crawled like veins. The town was already bleeding. All he had to do was drink deep.
The next morning, Greywick revealed its true face.
From the window of their cramped room, Blaze watched the market street stir to life. Merchants raised their awnings with weary arms, revealing tables stacked with dried meats, rough cloth, and cheap charms carved from bone. Beggars claimed their corners early, some missing limbs, others with eyes clouded white. A group of mercenaries swaggered down the road in dented armor, blades clinking at their hips, voices loud enough to drown the chatter of the sellers they shoved aside.
The guards, thin and bored, did nothing.
"Pathetic," Kael muttered behind him. The spawn had already stripped down his axe to polish the blade with a rag. His golden eyes tracked the mercenaries like a predator watching game cross a clearing.
Blaze didn't respond. His focus lingered on the merchants, the gangs of barefoot children, the drunk priest stumbling from a tavern with his robes stained and his purse jingling too loudly. Each detail painted a picture. Each weakness sang like a note only he could hear.
"This town is divided," Blaze murmured at last.
Kael glanced up. "Divided how?"
Blaze turned from the window. He pulled a crude charcoal stick from his pack and began sketching across the warped wood of the table. His hand was steady, movements precise. He marked four circles and connected them with faint lines.
"Mercenaries," he said, tapping the first circle. "Plenty of them. Half-drunken thugs who sell their blades for coin. Unruly, but they hold numbers."
His charcoal moved to the next circle. "Gangs. At least three large ones, and smaller packs orbiting around them. Petty extortionists. Killers if needed."
A third circle. "Nobles—if you can call them that. Minor lords who fled here after losing power in the empire. They clutch at influence, buying mercenaries and bribing gangs to fight their little wars."
The final circle, drawn faintly. "And the church. Weak, but present. A single priest with no paladins at his back. He stumbles, but the gods whisper through his lips. Even a dying flame can burn, if struck."
Kael leaned over the table, eyes gleaming. "So… we kill them all?"
Blaze looked at him for a long, measured moment. "If we killed them all, the void would only be filled by more of the same. No. To control Greywick, we must understand its pulse. Its fears. Its hunger. Then we squeeze."
Kael frowned, restless. "I don't care about fears. I just want blood."
"You'll get it," Blaze said softly, his voice carrying the weight of certainty. "But not yet. Every beast knows to wait for the perfect moment to strike. A wolf doesn't lunge at the herd. It waits for the weakest calf."
Kael subsided with a grunt, though his fingers still drummed against the haft of his axe.
Later that day, they descended into the streets. Blaze moved like a shadow among the crowds—never hurried, never loud, yet always present. Kael followed half a step behind, scowling at anyone who looked too long.
Blaze bought nothing. He spoke to no one. Instead, he watched.
At the smithy, he saw mercenaries argue with the blacksmith over unpaid debts. At the well, women whispered about a gang called the Crimson Hand, their voices low with both fear and anger. At the tavern, two drunken nobles shouted at one another, spilling secrets about coin they funneled to "their" men. And everywhere, the church was absent. The chapel doors stayed closed, its bell silent.
The longer Blaze walked, the more the map in his mind sharpened. Threads formed. Patterns aligned.
"Master," Kael growled suddenly.
Blaze followed his gaze. Three men lounged in an alley mouth ahead, scarred and dirty, their eyes sharp with calculation. As Blaze and Kael approached, the tallest stepped forward, a knife spinning idly in his fingers.
"Evening, strangers," the man drawled. His smile was full of gaps where teeth should be. "New in Greywick, ain't you? See, there's a little toll for walking these streets safe. One silver'll do."
Kael's hand tightened on his axe, but Blaze lifted a finger. He stepped forward, calm as still water, and met the man's gaze.
"What if I don't pay?" Blaze asked softly.
The thug chuckled. "Then we make an example. Nothing personal."
The other two shifted closer, blades glinting in the torchlight. Kael's teeth bared, low growl rumbling in his chest.
But Blaze's eyes never left the leader's. Pale, cold, unblinking. The thug faltered just slightly under that gaze, a bead of sweat sliding down his temple.
"You've made many examples, haven't you?" Blaze murmured. His voice was low, almost soothing. "You corner the weak. You spill blood in alleys and think yourself feared. But deep down, you know the truth."
The man's grin wavered. "The hell are you—"
"You know," Blaze pressed, his voice threading into the man's skull like a whisper of steel. "That you're nothing more than prey playing at predator. That the moment you meet something real, something stronger, you'll break."
The thug's knife trembled in his hand. His companions shifted uncertainly, glancing at him.
Blaze stepped closer, his pale gaze filling the man's world. "And you've met me."
The knife clattered to the ground. The man staggered back, chest heaving, eyes wide with a fear he couldn't name. His companions cursed and tried to grab him, but he wrenched away, fleeing down the alley. The other two looked between Blaze and Kael once, then bolted after him.
Kael blinked, stunned. "You didn't even touch him."
"I didn't need to," Blaze said. He turned, continuing down the street as though nothing had happened. "Fear is sharper than any blade. Wounds heal. Terror doesn't."
Kael's grin spread slow and savage. "I like this. You break them first. Then I break them after."
Blaze said nothing. His mind was already turning, threads weaving tighter.
By nightfall, whispers had begun. A stranger who had stared down gang thugs without raising a hand. A man whose eyes froze you in your tracks. Small rumors, faint as candle smoke, but Blaze knew how such things grew.
He wanted them to grow.
The moon rose silver over Greywick, its pale light slanting through smoke and lantern haze. The town did not sleep; it merely changed faces. Merchants folded their stalls, only for gamblers, drunkards, and cutthroats to take their places. Torches lit the alleys where dice clattered and women laughed too loudly to hide the edge of desperation in their throats.
Blaze moved through it all with measured steps, Kael stalking at his side. To others they looked like weary travelers, cloaked and hooded, passing through with little more than coin to spare. To Blaze, every street corner and every muttered whisper was another line etched on his mental map.
"Master," Kael rumbled. "Why not strike now? These gangs are weak. Their leaders weaker. A night like this, I could paint the walls with their blood."
"You could," Blaze said, his tone even. "And tomorrow another gang would rise from their ashes. No. We don't bleed the town. We bleed it slowly."
Kael growled low in his throat, but he did not argue.
They stopped at the edge of a square where a bonfire blazed high, throwing sparks into the starless night. Dozens of townsfolk had gathered—mercenaries, beggars, even children, all pressing close to watch two men batter each other inside a crude fighting pit. Cheers roared as blood spattered. Wagers passed hand to hand in the shadows.
Blaze's eyes lingered not on the fighters, but on the men standing behind them. A gang emblem stitched on their coats, a symbol he'd already noted on alley walls: a crimson handprint smeared in paint. These were the Crimson Hand—the name whispered by women at the well that morning.
He watched them carefully. How they leaned on their authority. How people looked away from their eyes. How no guard came near.
"They rule this square," Blaze murmured. "But fear rules them."
Kael snorted. "Fear of what?"
"Of losing it. Every man who clutches power lives in terror of it being taken away. That terror is a leash, Kael. And I will hold it."
He turned from the square, leaving the crowd behind. They returned to the inn long past midnight. The keeper hardly looked up when Blaze handed him coin for another night. To the man, Blaze was just another traveler among the countless who came and went.
Good. That was how Blaze wanted it.
When the door closed behind them upstairs, Kael finally let out his frustration. "All day watching, walking, listening. No blood. No battles. Do you mean to starve me, Master?"
Blaze unfastened his cloak and laid it neatly across the chair. "You hunger. That's good. Hunger sharpens the edge. You will feed when I say. Not before."
Kael bared his fangs, but Blaze's pale eyes caught him. Held him. The spawn froze, all growl and fire snuffed out in an instant. Blaze's voice slid into his skull like iron wrapped in silk.
"You are mine," Blaze said softly. "Your blood. Your hunger. Your strength. Mine."
Kael shuddered. His jaw clenched, but slowly he lowered his head. "…Yours."
Blaze released him and turned to the cracked mirror nailed to the wall. His reflection stared back: pale skin, dark eyes shadowed deeper by the lantern light, lips tinged faintly red though he had not fed since the beast in the canyon. His humanity clung still, but thinner now. A mask more fragile each day.
And beneath it, the hunger stirred. Always stirring.
He pressed his hand against the wood of the table where he had drawn his crude map earlier. Four circles. Four factions. Four doors to power.
Mercenaries—drunk, brash, without loyalty. Easy to bribe. Easier to break.
Gangs—territorial vermin, ruled by fear. Fear could be turned.
Nobles—desperate exiles clutching scraps of power. Desperation was a chain.
Church—weak, but dangerous. Always dangerous.
Blaze whispered to himself, voice low and deliberate. "A town of cracks. All it needs is the right hand to pry them open."
Kael tilted his head, watching him. "And you'll be that hand?"
Blaze's lips curved faintly. "No, Kael. I'll be the shadow behind the hand. The one no one sees until it's too late."
The spawn chuckled darkly, but there was awe in his voice now. "Then this town doesn't know what's coming."
Blaze looked once more at his reflection. The pale face that was no longer entirely human. The eyes that no longer flinched. The man who had once been Blaze Carter—the useless summon, the rejected outcast—was gone. In his place stood something sharper, colder.
"This place," Blaze murmured, his voice quiet but absolute, "will serve."
And as the night deepened, Greywick slept uneasily, unaware that within its walls, a predator had already chosen it for his hunting ground.