Morning in Greywick did not bring freshness; it brought hangovers, bloodstains, and the stink of cheap ale baking in the rising sun. The cobbled streets were wet with piss and last night's rain, and the air carried the constant hum of commerce mixed with curses and threats. It was a city that never truly slept—merely shifted from drunken rage to sober greed.
But that morning, the usual chatter in the markets and taverns carried a new thread. Something more than the price of grain or the newest gang shakedown. Whispers, low and urgent, spread like rats crawling through the cracks.
"Did you hear what happened in South Alley?" a fishmonger hissed as he gutted a catch, his knife jerking with excitement.
"They say a man walked through five of Krenshaw's boys like they were children. Didn't even break a sweat."
"A man?" his neighbor scoffed, a butcher wiping blood from his apron. "It wasn't a man. My cousin's wife swore she saw his eyes glow red. Said shadows moved with him."
Across the way, a beggar whispered to another, voice quivering with awe. "No, no, not shadows. A beast. Tall as a man, with claws sharp as steel. It tore one of 'em apart like nothing. Left the rest crawling."
The beggar shuddered, almost reverent. "Demons walked Greywick last night."
Blaze sat in the corner of a tavern, the kind that reeked of smoke and unwashed bodies, sipping a tankard of watered ale he had no intention of finishing. The wood beneath his fingers was sticky with decades of spilled drink, the air hazed with the stink of sour wine.
Kael leaned against the wall near him, arms crossed, expression sharp as his claws. His gaze swept the room like a guard dog, daring anyone to meet his eyes.
They didn't need to ask for stories. The stories came to them. Drunks at nearby tables traded tales with growing enthusiasm, each trying to outdo the last.
"I heard one of Krenshaw's boys pisses himself now if you so much as look at him!" a sellsword laughed, slamming his mug down.
"Bah, you're mad. The fellow who did it? He ain't a man at all. He's a spirit. No one that calm walks away from Krenshaw's dogs alive."
"Spirit? Don't be daft. More like a monster. One of those cursed things from the deep woods. Gods save us if it's true."
Kael grinned, baring a fang, clearly enjoying the chaos. "Listen to them," he murmured low, only for Blaze. "They make you bigger with every word. By tomorrow, you'll be ten feet tall and spitting fire."
Blaze's expression didn't change, though his eyes lingered on the men spinning tales. "Good," he said softly. "Fear grows best when others water it for you."
Kael chuckled, a low rumble of approval. "Then let me water it more. Another alley. Another pack of dogs. Let them choke on terror until the whole town sings your name."
"No." Blaze's tone was sharp enough to cut, and Kael stilled. "Too much blood too quickly makes people look for answers. Fear must be fed slowly, Kael. Let them wonder. Let them talk."
The spawn tilted his head, frustrated but obedient. "You always think three steps ahead, Master."
"That's why we're still alive."
At another table, two mercenaries argued over whether the stranger in the alley had been human. One swore he'd seen him slip through the streets before, a calm figure in dark clothes with eyes like ice. The other swore it was all drunken exaggeration—until a third leaned in, swearing his brother had seen a pale man walk into the shadows and vanish.
Each retelling shifted the truth a little further, but Blaze did not mind. Truth was irrelevant. Only the echo mattered.
The tavern keeper himself added fuel to the fire, his booming voice carrying as he poured drinks. "Mark my words, lads—this stranger ain't no gutter rat. He's something else. And if he's got the balls to spit in Krenshaw's face, then maybe, just maybe, we ought to keep our distance."
Laughter followed, but it was the nervous kind—the kind that said they were laughing only to mask unease.
Blaze sat in silence, absorbing it all. His patience was not passive—it was the patience of a predator watching the herd panic at the scent of wolves. Every whisper was a step closer to what he wanted.
He leaned back, eyes half-lidded, and finally spoke low enough that only Kael heard. "They think I am shadow, beast, demon, spirit. Good. Let them argue. The more they struggle to explain, the deeper the fear takes root."
Kael tilted his head back and gave a small, sharp laugh. "And one day, when they look up, they'll see you on a throne made of their own stories."
Blaze didn't smile, but his hand tightened on the mug. "One day."
Outside, the city was already shifting. Word carried fast in Greywick; faster than coin, faster than knives. By nightfall, the alleys would be buzzing with frightened mutterings, the guilds would be trading nervous glances, and Krenshaw himself would hear that someone had broken his dogs without breaking a sweat.
Blaze rose from his chair, the wooden legs scraping softly against the floor. His presence alone drew a hush from nearby tables, though no one dared meet his eyes.
Kael straightened immediately, pushing off the wall. "Where to now, Master?"
"Nowhere," Blaze said, tossing a coin onto the table without caring if it was too much. "We let the whispers work."
As they stepped out into the damp street, the tavern behind them erupted with renewed chatter. The tale of the stranger in Greywick was no longer just an incident. It was becoming a legend.
Greywick was a city of noise: hawkers screaming about wares, drunks bellowing insults, and beggars crying for coin. Yet wherever Blaze walked, silence followed him like a cloak.
It wasn't magic—not in the sense of glowing runes or chanting spells. It was something subtler, heavier. A presence. The kind of weight that made a man's tongue stick to the roof of his mouth and his stomach twist. Blaze noticed it first when he moved through the market square that morning.
Vendors called out to everyone but him. Guards patrolling with lazy eyes stepped aside rather than demand to see what he carried. Even dogs, usually bold in chasing scraps, lowered their heads and slunk away when he passed.
Kael trailed behind, grin tugging at his lips as he watched. "They feel it, Master. Even the stupid ones. Especially the stupid ones."
Blaze glanced over his shoulder, eyes cool and unreadable. "It's not enough that they feel it. They need to tell others they felt it."
And so he experimented.
He bought bread from a stall with coin taken off a corpse weeks ago. The baker's hands trembled when she handed him the loaf, her eyes fixed on his pale skin. Blaze said nothing, only let his gaze linger a moment too long before turning away. By the time he left, she was whispering prayers under her breath.
Later, in a tavern crowded with mercenaries, he didn't speak a word. He simply took a corner table, sat with Kael looming nearby, and drank. The noise of the tavern faltered each time someone's eyes caught his. Men who had been shouting dice rolls suddenly lowered their voices. The barmaid who approached to serve them placed mugs with hands that shook, as though she feared brushing his skin.
Blaze leaned back in his chair, watching the ripple effect spread like oil in water. He spoke to Kael without moving his lips much. "Presence. That is all it takes. No blades, no blood. Just presence."
Kael chuckled, resting his claws on the table. "Your silence is louder than most men's screams."
By midday, rumors had shifted again.
A dockhand swore he'd seen the pale stranger walk past a squad of guards who had simply… moved aside, eyes averted, as though afraid to block his path. A washerwoman swore the air around him grew cold, like a draft that followed him.
In another tavern, a man whispered to his drinking companion, "I saw him sit in the corner. Didn't speak, didn't move. But every man at the table near him kept their hands on their blades like children clutching dolls."
Each tale carried exaggeration, but each exaggeration was useful. Blaze did not correct them. He only fed them with silence and patience.
Kael, however, was less patient.
That evening, they returned to the same tavern from the night before. The room quieted as they entered, not fully but enough to notice. Blaze took his place in the same corner, eyes half-closed. Kael stood near the door, his posture screaming ownership.
When the barmaid approached again, Kael leaned forward and whispered, just loud enough for others to overhear. "Call him Master."
The woman stiffened, wide-eyed, but when Kael's fangs flashed, she stammered, "Y-yes, Master." She set the drinks down and fled, but the damage was done. The word spread like fire.
"Master?" muttered one mercenary to another. "Did you hear that? She called him Master."
"Whose master?"
"Doesn't matter. Only fools serve someone they fear less than death."
Blaze didn't chastise Kael for it. Not this time. The seed was useful. He had no intention of being seen as a common thug or nameless killer. To build power, one needed hierarchy, inevitability. If they began to think of him as someone who commanded even in silence, then he was no longer just a stranger. He was something greater.
That night, as they left the tavern, Kael fell into step beside him. "They whisper more each day. Tomorrow, they'll whisper still louder."
Blaze's gaze remained fixed on the street ahead. "Whispers become myths. Myths become power. But only if we don't waste them on petty spectacle."
Kael tilted his head, smirking. "You mean don't break more skulls unless necessary."
"I mean don't break them until it matters."
They passed through an alley on their way back toward the inn they were using as cover. A drunk staggered out of the shadows, muttering curses. When his bleary eyes landed on Blaze, the man froze. His mouth opened, then closed again, as though he couldn't form words.
Blaze stopped, watching. The drunk stumbled back a step, shaking his head, then dropped to his knees, muttering apologies. He didn't even know why he was apologizing—only that some primal instinct screamed that he must.
Blaze turned and walked on without a word. Kael lingered just long enough to bare his teeth at the man, then followed.
By the time the drunk found his voice again, Blaze was gone. But by morning, the drunk would tell the tale of how he had seen death itself walk past him and lived only by mercy.
And so the whispers grew.
By the third day, the whispers had begun to take root.
The border town of Greywick was a city that thrived on lies, but even lies had their own gravity. The taverns, the brothels, the markets—everywhere Blaze walked, his shadow arrived first. The stranger with pale eyes. The beastfolk who called him Master. The alley gang that vanished overnight.
Whispers of fear always drew two kinds of people: the cautious, who avoided him entirely, and the desperate, who sought him out. Blaze had expected both.
It began at the tavern again. He sat at his usual corner table, Kael beside him, when a man approached. Thin, nervous, smelling of sweat and old wine. His hands shook as he wrung a cap between them.
"M-Master," the man stammered.
Kael's lip curled, fangs flashing, but Blaze lifted a hand to still him. He looked at the man with flat, unblinking eyes.
The man swallowed hard. "I—I got enemies. A debt I can't pay. They'll gut me by week's end. But they say you… you can protect. That the gangs fear you."
Blaze said nothing for a long while, only let the man twist in his own fear. Finally, he leaned forward, voice low and calm.
"Why should I protect you?"
The man's knees buckled, and he nearly dropped to the floor. "I'll serve. Work, fetch, carry—I don't care. Just don't let them take my life."
Blaze studied him a moment longer, then waved him away. "Survive the week on your own. If you're still alive, return."
The man bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the dirty floorboards. He scrambled away, relief and dread tangled in his face.
Kael smirked. "You're gathering strays now, Master."
"Not strays," Blaze murmured, eyes still on the door where the man had gone. "Pawns. But pawns must first prove they can survive the board."
By nightfall, another approached. This one different. A woman with scars across her cheek and a mercenary's gait, half-drunk but eyes sharp.
"You're the pale bastard they whisper about," she said, planting herself at his table uninvited. "Men say you stare, and their guts turn to water."
Kael bristled at her tone, but Blaze only sipped his drink. "Do they?"
She leaned in, breath hot with ale. "I say it's bluff. A trick. You look like a corpse in nice clothes. Nothing more."
Blaze set down his cup and met her gaze. His pupils seemed to darken, shadows bleeding outward. The woman's words caught in her throat. She tried to hold his eyes, tried to smirk, but her face twitched, then broke. Her hand clenched the table hard enough to whiten knuckles. Sweat slid down her temple.
When Blaze finally looked away, she stumbled back, knocking over her chair. The tavern went dead silent.
The woman gasped, hand on her chest, then laughed—hoarse, unsteady, but laughter nonetheless. "Ha… I'll be damned. You are real."
She left without another word, but her laughter carried into the night. By morning, half the town knew the stranger's eyes alone could break a mercenary's spirit.
The whispers no longer described him as only dangerous. They described him as inevitable.
A gambler said the stranger saw straight through lies.
A drunk swore that in his presence, his sins screamed inside his skull.
A prostitute claimed his shadow stretched longer than it should, as though it belonged to something else.
All falsehoods, all exaggerations—but all useful.
Kael, too, changed with the rumors. Where once he had followed Blaze like a bodyguard, he now called him Master openly in the streets. People watched the way Kael bowed his head when Blaze spoke, how he obeyed with the eagerness of a zealot. It gave shape to the whispers, made them more believable. If even a beastfolk warrior knelt, then surely the pale stranger was something greater than a man.
One night, as they returned to their inn, Kael broke the silence. "You are building a court, Master. One soul at a time. They don't even know it yet."
Blaze glanced at him, the faintest shadow of a smile ghosting his lips. "A court begins with whispers. Then with fear. Then with loyalty. Only then does it become power."
The test came days later.
A brawl broke out in the tavern, as they often did in Greywick. Dice thrown, accusations shouted, chairs overturned. One man, drunk and loud, swung a bottle and missed. He staggered into Blaze's table.
"Watch yourself," the man slurred, not realizing where he was. He looked up—and froze.
The tavern hushed. Even the men still fighting slowed.
Blaze didn't move. He didn't speak. He simply looked at the man, a calm, icy stare that slid through flesh and bone alike.
The drunk dropped his bottle. His lips moved, but no words came. He stepped back once. Twice. Then he bolted out the door without another sound.
The tavern remained hushed for a heartbeat longer. Then, as if nothing had happened, noise resumed—quieter than before, more careful.
Kael leaned closer, whispering so only Blaze could hear. "You broke him without a touch."
Blaze's eyes remained on the door. "Sometimes, fear is sharper than any blade."
That night, as Greywick's streets darkened and lanterns guttered, Blaze stood by the window of their rented room. He looked out over the crooked rooftops, the flicker of torches, the restless city of scum and ambition.
"They whisper now," he murmured, voice soft but certain. "Soon, they will kneel."
Kael, lounging on the bed with a predator's grin, bared his fangs in satisfaction. "Let them whisper louder, Master. I'll be here when they start crawling."
Blaze's fingers brushed the cursed ring on his hand. It pulsed once, faintly, as though approving.
And in the silence of the room, the whispers of Greywick seemed to echo even here—promises of fear, of power, of a shadow growing roots deep within the city's heart.