The storm passed by morning, but the chill lingered. Ash Whisper awoke under a blanket of damp fog, muffling sound and distorting silhouettes. It was the kind of morning where danger could wear a friendly face, and a blade might already be halfway through your back before you even felt the wind shift.
Alaric stood in the square, hood up, eyes closed. He was listening.
Not to the people moving crates or the soft clink of metal from Griggs' forge—but to everything else. The air. The shifts in pressure. His awareness sharpened over time, honed by instinct and the creeping edge of his passive skills. He didn't just move through the world anymore—he read it.
And right now, the air felt wrong.
Selene emerged from the mist beside him. "You feel it too."
"Someone's watching us," Alaric said quietly.
"More than one."
They didn't need to say it, but they both thought the same name.
Marcus.
Hours later, Alaric walked the ruined outer wall with Patch. The techie had been unusually quiet all morning, eyes darting between his field scanner and the crumbled skyline of Zenith in the distance.
"There's something in the data I'm not getting," Patch finally muttered, frustration in every line of his face. "Movement patterns, drone loops, thermal ghosts—I've triangulated at least two unknowns inside our perimeter."
"Council?"
Patch shook his head. "Maybe. But they're not triggering our alarms. Like they're threading a needle through our blind spots."
"Or they know the blind spots better than we do," Alaric said. "This feels like Marcus."
"I thought you said he wasn't ready to face you directly."
"He's not. But he's ready to remind me that he can take everything from me again."
Patch glanced at him. "So what do we do?"
"We make it a game of shadows. If they want to hide in plain sight… then so do we."
Later that day, Alaric disappeared from view.
Only a few people knew where he went—Selene, Lia, and Asha. The rest were told he was patrolling the far edge of Ash Whisper's new territory. In reality, Alaric was beneath the town, crouched in a forgotten water tunnel with rusting walls and graffiti dating back three governments.
He moved with quiet precision, steps almost soundless thanks to his growing proficiency in stealth.
[Skill: Stealth – 22.1%]
As the tunnel opened into a collapsed maintenance corridor, Alaric waited, breath slow, hand resting lightly on the hilt of his bound dagger. That was when he saw it.
A shadow moved across the broken wall—too controlled to be a rat, too large to be chance.
Alaric stepped forward, fast but smooth. His knife met resistance—not flesh, but another blade.
Clang.
The force of the parry sent him backward. From the shadows stepped a figure wrapped in dark cloth, a silver mask covering their lower face. Their stance was tight. Measured. Professional.
No words. Just movement.
The figure lunged.
Alaric barely ducked in time, twisting his body sideways and slicing upward. The masked fighter blocked again, spinning, attempting to hook his ankle. Alaric jumped and countered with a sharp kick to the ribs.
They separated for half a second—then clashed again.
Clang. Clang. Swish. Grit.
It was like dancing with a ghost.
He didn't know how long they fought—ten seconds? Thirty? Time blurred. But eventually, the masked fighter leapt back, knife lowered. They stared at him through the dim, fog-drenched light.
"You've improved," came a woman's voice.
Alaric's breath hitched.
"…You," he said, recognizing her now.
She was the same one who warned him about Murdock. The same one who had been watching from the shadows when he'd first earned the Stealth skill. The one who had vanished without a trace… until now.
"I wondered when you'd show up again."
The woman tilted her head. "I wondered when you'd earn it."
"Earn what?"
She stepped forward, her mask still hiding most of her face. "A test. And you passed."
The words were cryptic, but her tone held conviction.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"A shadow. Like you. I belong to no one. But I recognize potential… and intent." Her gaze pierced him. "Yours is shifting."
"Toward what?"
"That's what I came to see."
She turned, walking back into the fog.
"Wait!" Alaric called.
She paused. "There's more coming than just Marcus. He's not the only one watching. And he's not the most dangerous."
Then she vanished.
That night, Alaric sat alone at the top of Ash Whisper's watchtower. He hadn't told anyone about the encounter yet—not even Lia. Not yet.
He stared at the stars, mind whirring.
More than Marcus? More than the Council?
The realization chilled him.
This wasn't just about revenge anymore. Not just about survival.
This was the beginning of something bigger. Something vast, invisible, and already moving beneath the surface.
The shadows were deeper than he'd imagined.
And now, he wasn't sure whether he was climbing out of them…
…or falling further in.