Two years. Seven hundred and thirty days of scraped-knees survival had led him here. Back to Millhaven's outskirts.
Stupid. Weak. Pathetic. But his stomach had been empty for three days, and familiar streets promised easier scavenging. Merchants whose habits he knew. Blind spots he'd mapped. The devil you know...
Kael crouched behind Chen's Bakery. Full dark had fallen twenty minutes ago. The apprentice would leave soon. Take the side alley to River Street. Then...
The back door creaked. Right on schedule. Wait. Count to ten. Move fast, take only what wouldn't be...
"Kael? Kael Reeve?"
His blood turned to ice water. Then boiling oil. Then ice again.
Martha Henrickson stood three feet away. Market basket sliding from her fingers. Potatoes rolled across the alley. One. Two. Three. Four potatoes spinning in the dirt.
Run? Too late. She'd seen him clearly. Recognition dawning in her weathered face like a horrible sunrise.
"But you're dead!" Her voice cracked. Rose. "The plague... your whole family... two years ago..."
Words. He needed words. Lies. Anything. But his throat had forgotten how to work. She stepped closer. Squinted in the dim light from the bakery window.
"It is you. Lord have mercy, child, what happened to you?"
The concern in her voice broke something inside him. Two years of walls. Of careful distance. Of armor built from cynicism and hunger. All of it crumbled at the first touch of genuine kindness.
His knees buckled. Hit the ground hard. Sharp stones bit through worn trousers.
"I..." The first word came out cracked. Rusty. Then the dam burst. "They're dead. All dead. But not plague. It was... there was this thing. This light. Blue light everywhere. And Mira, she..."
Stop talking. Stop talking. STOP TALKING.
But he couldn't. The words tumbled over each other. Desperate to be heard by someone, anyone who'd known his family. Who'd remember them as more than lies he told to survive.
"Spirits. The men in black called them spirits. In the hairpin. Mira found a silver hairpin and it... it changed her. Made her wrong. Her neck..." He tilted his own head. Showed the impossible angle. "Bent like wet clay. And Mother screamed. Father tried to fight. But I hid. I hid under my bed like a coward and..."
Martha's face changed. The concern melted away. Replaced by something colder. Fear? Disgust? Both?
"You're mad," she whispered. Stepped back. "Touched in the head. Dangerous."
"No! I'm telling the truth! The house on Carpenter's Row, you can check..."
She backed away faster. Hands raised as if he might attack. As if madness was contagious. "Stay away from me. The authorities... they need to know about this. A mad boy, talking about spirits and murder..."
This... this was why he'd learned to lie. Truth sounded like madness. Truth got you locked away or worse.
He grabbed what bread he could from the disposal bin. Two loaves. Three. Tucked them under his coat and ran. Behind him, Martha's voice rose shrill with panic.
"Help! There's a mad boy! Says he sees spirits! Someone call the constable!"
Through the winding alleys. Over the bridge where he'd once played with Mira. Into the warehouse district that smelled of tar and old rope. But even as he ran, he knew it was too late. Martha would talk. People would listen. And the wrong people might hear...
He spent the night in a coal cellar. Black dust coating his throat with every breath. By dawn, he'd convinced himself it would blow over. Martha was old. Excitable. Who'd believe her?
Everyone, apparently.
By noon, the rumors had spread like plague. By evening, when he dared venture out for water, he saw them.
Three figures in black coats. Standing in the market square. Asking questions with professional patience. The same measured movements. The same detached interest. Different faces, but the same eyes that had examined his parents' bodies.
Kiratashi. He'd heard whispers of the name. The men in black who dealt with... unusual problems.
"Someone reported spirit knowledge," the tall woman said. Her voice carried despite the market noise. Clear. Crisp. Dangerous. "Very specific details. Find them."
They spread out. Methodical. Thorough. And they had help. Younger figures in similar coats. Moving with less confidence. Apprentice Kiratashi? They checked every stall. Every alley. Every shadow.
One passed close to Kael's hiding spot. Close enough to see the copper rings on his coat. Three rings. What did that mean? Close enough to smell something like ozone and winter.
The man paused. Head tilting. Then his eyes began to glow.
No. Not his eyes. Something behind his eyes. Something that pushed forward. Eager to manifest. A shape formed in the air... translucent, shifting, wrong. Like heat shimmer given malevolent form. It swept the alley like a searchlight.
Spirit. They were using spirits to hunt.
Kael pressed deeper into the shadows. His birthmark burned. Actually burned, like someone held a torch to his spine. The spirit-light passed over him and... hesitated? The Apprentice frowned.
"Something's off," he called to his partner. "The resonance feels..."
"Familiar?" The woman from before materialized at the alley mouth. She moved wrong. Too smooth. Like she floated instead of walked. "I feel it too. Like an echo of something. Or someone."
"Should we do a deep sweep?"
"Yes. Use the full manifestation."
They'd find him. These weren't town guards to be dodged. Weren't merchants to be fooled. These were hunters who used the same power that had killed his family.
Run. Properly run. Not just to the next town but far, far away.
He waited until they moved to the next street. Counted to thirty. Then slipped out. Quiet as fog. The woods. He knew these woods. Had played in them with...
Don't think. Just move.
Through the northern gate just as it closed for the night. The guard didn't even look up from his pipe. Into the forest proper as full dark fell. Behind him, lights that shouldn't exist began to bloom above Millhaven. Blue lights. Searching lights. Like stars that had fallen and turned predatory.
The marsh. He'd discovered it last summer while foraging. Treacherous ground that sucked at boots. Hid deep holes full of stagnant water. He led them through paths barely wide enough for one person. Heard cursing behind him. Saw the lights falter as they lost the trail.
But they'd find it again. These weren't normal hunters. These were Kiratashi.
By dawn, he'd put eight miles between himself and Millhaven. His feet bled through torn shoes. His stomach cramped with hunger despite the stolen bread. But he was alive. Free. Heading for the trade road to Ashenmoor.
Behind him, smoke rose from Millhaven's chimneys. Normal smoke from normal fires. But in his mind, the town burned with blue light. Consumed by the same wrongness that had taken his family. Another place he could never return to. Another home transformed into ash and memory.
The birthmark pulsed with each heartbeat. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Whispering its wordless protection.
Protected from spirits, perhaps. But not from the humans who wielded them. Not from the world that had no place for mad boys who told the truth.
He turned his back on Millhaven and walked toward whatever came next.
It couldn't be worse than what lay behind.