Kael stayed in a dockside lodging under a false name.
It did not matter.
The room was narrow and clean in the way places became when they expected guests to vanish without complaint. One window faced the harbor, its shutters warped from salt and wind. At night the sound of water against hulls crept in like breathing—slow, restless, impossible to ignore.
He paid in advance. He spoke little. He left before dawn and returned after dark.
That should have been enough.
It never was.
Blackwake was a city that traded in information the way other ports traded in grain. Secrets moved faster than ships, carried by dockhands, lovers, gamblers, and priests who pretended they only listened for sin. Names were currency. So were patterns.
And Kael had one.
By the third evening, the woman who ran the lodging stopped asking him questions and started answering them instead.
"You're not the only one asking about storms upriver," she said casually as she set down his meal. "Two crews vanished last month. River didn't flood. Didn't change course. Just… stopped giving them back."
Kael ate slowly. "Who's asking?"
"People who don't like unanswered questions," she replied. "And people who like them too much."
She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "You might want to stay off the western docks tomorrow. Someone's paying well for descriptions."
Kael nodded once.
He did not ask of whom.
Later that night, in a low tavern that smelled of tar and old citrus, the gossip thickened.
A man at the next table spoke too loudly about a caravan that had arrived intact after losing half its guards. A woman laughed about a beast pulled apart not by spell or steel, but by bad footing and worse timing. A dockhand swore he'd seen a traveler walk through a knife fight untouched because no one could quite decide when to strike.
Kael listened without looking.
Stories were never accurate.
But they were consistent.
That was worse.
The man approached him just after midnight.
He did not wear fine clothes. He did not wear rags. He wore the kind of nondescript gray that suggested he wanted to be remembered only by those trained to remember. He slid into the seat opposite Kael without invitation, moving with the easy confidence of someone who expected resistance—and knew how to deal with it.
"You crossed the Inland Sea," the man said quietly.
Kael's hand moved—not to a weapon, but to readiness. Weight shifted. Breath slowed.
"That alone narrows the list."
Kael did not respond.
"I watched the manifests," the man continued. "Crew lists. Passenger logs. Storm reports. You don't pray. You don't drink to forget. You work like someone who expects the sea to test him personally."
Kael lifted his eyes.
"I'm not staying," he said.
The man smiled thinly. "Neither do storms."
He placed something on the table between them.
A knotted cord.
Not the same pattern as the ones from Vaeloria. The fibers were different—coarser, darker—but the intent was unmistakable. Human. Improvised. Meant to be recognized rather than understood.
Kael's breath caught despite himself.
"They're starting early," the man went on. "Usually it takes a few months. A few successes. A few deaths with convenient explanations. This time…" He shrugged. "This time people are impatient."
"Who?" Kael asked.
The man's eyes flicked toward the ceiling, then the door, then the street beyond.
"Dock unions," he said. "Two trade houses. A temple that lost its tithes last winter. And some people who don't like gods but like leverage."
"Cultists?" Kael asked.
The man snorted softly. "Cultists announce themselves. These people prefer plausible deniability."
Kael leaned back slowly. "Why tell me?"
"Because I like cities," the man replied. "And cities don't survive when belief starts clustering around a single moving point. It creates gravity. Gravity breaks things."
He pushed the cord closer. "Someone tied this on a post near the eastern quay this morning. They didn't know who you were. Only that you might pass through."
Kael stared at it.
Expectation made tangible.
"I didn't answer them," the man said. "I told them nothing. But others will. And once enough people agree on the shape of a thing, it doesn't matter whether it's true."
Kael's jaw tightened.
"You should leave," the man finished. "Tonight, if you can. Before the shape sets."
Kael stood.
The tavern noise seemed suddenly distant, as if the room had leaned away from him. Somewhere outside, someone laughed too loudly. Somewhere else, glass broke.
"Too late," Kael said.
The man followed his gaze toward the door.
Three figures stood just beyond it, silhouettes pressed too neatly into the frame. Not watching the tavern. Watching him.
No weapons visible.
That meant confidence.
The man cursed under his breath. "They're faster than usual."
Kael stepped past him.
"Don't interfere," Kael said quietly.
"That wasn't the plan," the man replied.
Kael paused. "Then change it."
He pushed the door open.
The night air hit him hard, carrying salt and smoke and something sharper beneath it—anticipation. The three figures straightened as he emerged. One smiled. One swallowed. One adjusted his stance the way someone did when they had rehearsed violence but never committed to it.
"Kael," one of them said.
Kael stopped.
"I told you," he replied evenly. "I'm not staying."
The man laughed nervously. "We just want to talk."
Behind them, more shapes detached from shadow. Too many for coincidence. Too organized for chance.
Belief had arrived ahead of him.
Again.
Kael exhaled slowly and rolled his shoulders, feeling the quiet readiness settle into place like an old habit.
The man with the cord slipped out the tavern door behind him, already fading into the night.
Secrets survived by moving.
So did Kael.
And Blackwake, for better or worse, was about to learn what happened when gossip found something that refused to fit the story it was being written into.