The cathedral still smelled of death. Blood clung to stone like ink, bodies stacked in corners, and those lucky enough to survive whispered in fevered silence.
By morning, the rumors spread like wildfire.
"The boy with hollow eyes—he killed them all."
"No… no, you don't get it. He made them kill each other. I saw it!"
"The Crimson Coil… broken. They say Kael wasn't even there. Imagine if he was."
The name Rayon Veynar—once muttered in alley corners—was now spoken in taverns, noble halls, and guard barracks.
In the slums, he became a monster. Mothers pulled their children closer. Petty gangs folded into the Forsaken Web out of fear rather than loyalty.
Recruitment surged without Rayon even asking. Kids who once spat at his name now begged for a place under his strings.
But whispers cut both ways. Fear breeds admiration, but it also breeds enemies.
The Nobles' Table
Far above the gutters, inside a marbled hall where chandeliers glowed with ethereal light, nobles sat at a long table. Silver plates were untouched. Wine sat stale in goblets.
A man with powdered hair slammed his fist. "This boy—this gutter rat—dares upset balance? We allow vermin like him to rise, the whole city will drown in blood."
Another noble, older, calm, sipped his drink. "And yet… perhaps we should not treat him as vermin. Anyone who can dismantle half the Crimson Coil alone… deserves recognition."
The table split. Some wanted him erased, crushed like the insect they believed him to be. Others suggested recruitment—turning him into a weapon for their cause.
For the first time, Rayon Veynar's name had reached the ears of kings and lords.
The Guard's Dilemma
The City Watch could no longer ignore him either.
"Do we send in the battalions?" a captain asked.
"Against one boy?" another scoffed, shaking his head. "Half our men would walk out believing he's right. That's the problem. He doesn't just kill—he convinces."
A bounty was placed on his head anyway. Dead or alive. An obscene amount. Enough to make even his allies think twice.
The Crimson Coil
In the ruins of their cathedral, Kael finally returned. His lieutenants bowed, trembling, their faces bruised, their forces decimated.
Kael was silent. His presence alone made the air heavy, his body marked with strings tattooed into his skin—ancient, deliberate, glowing faintly like veins of fire.
He walked among the corpses. Kneeling, he picked up one of Rayon's severed threads still clinging to a body. He studied it, smirked faintly, and whispered to himself.
"Another string-user. And one this young? Hah… a rare thing indeed."
His eyes sharpened. Predatory. Hungry.
"But he's reckless. Still a boy. That makes him mine."
For the Crimson Coil, the massacre wasn't an ending. It was a challenge.
The Forsaken Web
Back at the Web's warehouse hideout, Rayon sat on a cracked chair as his lieutenants argued.
"They'll come for us! The Coil, the nobles, the Watch!"
"Which is why we strike first—ride the fear while it's fresh!"
"No, we hide! Lay low until they forget!"
Rayon didn't speak. Not at first. He let them fight. Let them show him their weaknesses.
Then, finally, he stood.
The hollow threads whispered in the air as silence fell over the room.
"You're all wrong."
His voice was calm, sharp enough to cut.
"I didn't burn half the Coil to hide. I didn't rip apart their killers so we could grovel in shadows. No… this city is watching me now. That means it's already mine. All I have to do is pull."
The Web erupted into a roar, some in fear, some in devotion. They were his, body and soul, whether they knew it or not.
Later, when the noise died down, Rayon sat alone in his room, staring at his reflection in a cracked shard of glass. Blood still stained his hands, even after scrubbing.
His thoughts spiraled.
What am I building? A gang? An empire? Or just a stage to keep proving I exist?
He tightened his fist, threads coiling between his fingers.
The palace. The nobles. The strings behind the strings. That's where the real power sits. Not here in the gutters.
His lips curled into a smirk that wasn't quite a smile.
"Soon. I'll pull them too."
And with that thought, the boy in the gutter aimed his strings not just at the city—but at the world above it.