Kaelen's workshop was no longer a tomb, but a nexus of silent industry. Dozens of his clay-and-bone Scouts now moved through the shadows of Solaris, their mica eyes capturing fragments of life.
He learned the city's new rhythms: the markets where gossip was currency, the taverns where soldiers grumbled after too much ale, the temples where the devout sought solace. He was a weaver at a loom of information, and the first thread he chose to pull was that of Sir Alaric, Captain of the Royal Guard. Alaric had been a young, idealistic knight at the Sunken Keep.
Through his Scouts, Kaelen learned that Alaric, now a grizzled veteran, was haunted. He drank to forget, and in his cups, he would sometimes mutter about "the light that broke wrong" and "the Prince's stumble." He was a man burdened by a truth he dared not speak.
Kaelen crafted a new tool, not of clay, but of sound. He found a narrow, disused aqueduct that ran behind the tavern where Alaric drank alone. For nights, he practiced, not with his ruined voice, but by vibrating the very stone of the aqueduct, shaping the echoes into a ghostly, breathless whisper.
One night, as Alaric stared into his wine, the whisper came from the wall itself. "The wall did not break, Alaric. It was cut." Alaric jerked upright, his hand going to his sword.
"Who's there?" "The tile that fell... was pulled," the stone hissed. "Remember the dagger. Not a weapon for the Horde. A jeweled hilt. A royal hilt." Alaric paled, his drunken haze shattered by a spike of cold fear.
He fled the tavern, the whispered words echoing in his skull. It was the first tile of doubt placed in a loyal man's mind.