Edrin avoided towns after that.
Not because he feared people, but because people remembered.
Roads were safer. Forest paths, abandoned farmsteads, and small hamlets where travelers passed through and vanished without leaving impressions suited him better.
He moved carefully, deliberately.
He learned how to walk without leaving footprints when the ground was soft. He learned which roads were patrolled and which were ignored. He listened more than he spoke.
Living had become an act that required attention.
The first sign that he was failing came from a place he had already left behind.
In Branford, near the southern riverbank, a fisherman found something odd.
A patch of reeds was flattened near the water's edge. Mud was disturbed in a way that suggested a body had been dragged out of the river. There were marks along the bank where fingers had clawed at the earth.
No corpse was found.
The fisherman reported it casually, expecting nothing to come of it.
But it unsettled him.
People drowned in that river every year. When they did, bodies surfaced downstream within days. This time, nothing appeared.
A few days later, rumors spread.
Not loud ones. Not dramatic ones.
Just questions.
"Did you hear someone survived the Greyhaven storm?"
"I heard there was a man found alive there."
"No, he died later."
"I heard he walked away."
Stories changed as they passed from mouth to mouth.
None of them were accurate.
But all of them circled the same absence.
Edrin felt it before he understood it.
He noticed eyes linger longer when he passed through villages. He noticed pauses in conversations when he entered taverns. He noticed how people watched his chest rise and fall when he slept near others.
He stopped sleeping near others after that.
One evening, while resting in the loft of an abandoned barn, Edrin overheard two travelers talking below.
"…telling you, the river didn't give him back."
"That doesn't mean anything."
"It does when you've lived there long enough. Water takes. It doesn't return."
Edrin remained still, listening.
"Maybe he wasn't really dead."
"Maybe," the other replied. "Or maybe something else happened."
They did not speak further.
They did not need to.
Edrin left before dawn.
He understood something then.
It was not enough to survive quietly.
Survival left marks.
Further south, in a small border town, a priest recorded an inconsistency.
It was a minor thing. A discrepancy in burial rites. A name that appeared in one ledger but not in another. A death that had been reported but never confirmed by remains.
The priest frowned, checked his records again, and made a note in the margin.
Follow up if similar cases appear.
He did not think much of it.
He had no reason to.
Edrin continued moving.
He avoided rivers. He avoided heights. He avoided danger when he could.
But danger had a way of finding him anyway.
One night, while crossing a narrow forest road, he heard footsteps behind him.
Not hurried.
Measured.
He turned slowly.
A man stood several paces back, cloaked, his face partially hidden.
"You walk like someone who expects pain," the man said calmly.
Edrin said nothing.
"That's not an accusation," the stranger continued. "Just an observation."
Edrin's hand tightened around the strap of his pack.
The man raised his hands slightly, showing he carried no weapon.
"Relax. I'm not here to hurt you."
Edrin did not relax.
"Then why follow me?" he asked.
The man smiled faintly.
"Because people who should be dead usually leave clearer trails."
Silence stretched between them.
Edrin felt his heartbeat steady, slow, controlled.
That frightened him.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The man considered the question.
"For now?" he replied. "Someone curious."
That answer was not reassuring.
Far away, in places Edrin could not see, small notes were being written.
Marginal remarks.
Unconfirmed reports.
Names circled once, then twice.
Nothing alarming yet.
But patterns were beginning to form.
And patterns, once noticed, rarely went unnoticed for long.