Chapter 9: The City That Hates Him
The walls of Velradis rose like a scar on the horizon.
Carved into the cliffside and fortified with spires of blacksteel, it was not a city made to impress. It was made to survive. Thick gates. Arched towers. Ward-fires burning above the ramparts. Watchers lined the walls—archers, casters, enforcers. Each one stared with the same tension:
The kind that waits for memory to come back wearing a new face.
Kairis stopped on the slope leading to the gate. Arith placed a hand on his arm.
"Keep the hood low," she murmured. "And say nothing unless spoken to."
He nodded.
He didn't ask why.
Because even without knowing the full history, he could feel it: the runic ache in the stones, the whispers from the seal in his spine reacting to the city's threshold.
Nahran had been here.
And Velradis remembered.
They passed through the gate without fanfare.
The guards barely glanced at them.
But once inside the outer market, eyes began to turn.
Not in recognition—at first.
But suspicion.
Children stopped mid-play. Stall vendors quieted. A dog growled as they passed. Somewhere in the distance, a temple bell rang once.
"Where are we going?" Kairis asked.
Arith's voice was low. "To an old contact. If she's still alive, she can hide us long enough to rest."
They moved quickly through the side streets—alleys thick with rusted sigils and cracked murals. Most had been painted over.
But beneath the flaking whitewash, Kairis saw symbols he recognized.
Not remembered.
Felt.
A circle. A wound. A vertical eye made of broken script.
He reached out and touched the stone.
It pulsed faintly beneath his hand.
Still warm, the Eye whispered.
Arith yanked him away.
"Don't touch the marks," she hissed.
"What were they?"
"Your sermons."
They reached a narrow home buried between two taverns. Arith knocked four times, then once more.
A panel opened. A woman's voice.
"I told you if you came back—"
"We're not staying long," Arith replied. "He's not awake. Not fully."
A pause.
Then the door creaked open.
Inside was a low-ceilinged den, lined with scrolls, cracked tomes, and dim lanterns that flickered nervously. The woman who opened the door had white hair bound in braids, and a blade hidden beneath her sleeve.
Her eyes landed on Kairis.
She froze.
Her voice came out like a blade dragged over bone. "You brought him here."
Arith sighed. "We don't have time."
"He shouldn't exist."
"He exists."
The woman turned to Kairis. "Do you know how many we buried in your name?"
He flinched. "I never asked for it."
"Neither did they."
She stepped closer.
"You burned this city once. With a song. With a line of scripture that bent the sky. And now you're here again. What will it be this time? Fire? Teeth?"
Kairis didn't answer.
Because part of him didn't know.
And part of him—deep, deeper than breath—was curious.
That night, they rested in the back room. Kairis sat beside the shuttered window, staring at the moonlight.
Arith handed him a small bowl of broth. He took it, wordless.
"I know this place hurts," she said.
He didn't reply.
"But you need to see what your name does."
"I never asked to be followed."
"You never asked to be feared, either. But that's coming, too."
He looked down at his hands.
"There's nothing left of Nahran in me," he whispered.
Arith's eyes darkened.
"That's not true."
He looked up.
"I saw it today," she said. "In the way you looked at that mural. In the way your fingers curled."
He set the bowl aside.
"I won't become him," he said.
Arith didn't smile. Didn't argue.
Just nodded once.
"I hope that's still your choice when the next Scripture asks for more."