The marketplace had thinned as the moon climbed higher, casting pale light over the canyon walls. Most sect envoys had returned to their quarters, and only the desperate or sleepless lingered beneath the flickering lanterns.
Kael moved like vapor between them — untraceable.
He'd taken the long way around the market, cutting through forgotten alleys and ruined shrines etched into the rock, hoping to find something — or someone — who could give shape to the fragment of a memory stirring in him.
He didn't know what he was looking for.
But the shadows did.
He paused near a cracked statue of the Earth God, its hands broken off and offerings long since decayed. The silence here was strange — not empty, but expectant.
And then…
Turn left.
The voice came not from outside — but from within his own shadow.
Kael narrowed his eyes. It didn't speak with words, not truly. It guided. Impressed. It was the Night Throne Requiem speaking — or something older, nested inside it.
He obeyed.
The path was barely carved, leading around the edge of a chasm littered with broken mining gear and collapsed spirit wells. No one came this way anymore.
Except one.
At the very end of the cliff, near a tent made of tattered banners and held up by bones, sat an old man. Thin. Bearded. Draped in mismatched robes of Earth Sect origin, but clearly thrown together from discarded rags.
He muttered to himself as he threw pebbles off the ledge, each one whistling down into nothing.
"Spirits in the rocks… whispers in the dirt… Hah! They never liked stew anyway…"
Kael would've passed him off as mad — except his shadow froze.
It didn't warn. It didn't attack.
It bowed.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "You see me."
The old man didn't stop throwing pebbles. "Of course I see you. I saw you before you were reborn. Your name still burns in the shadows, Kael."
Kael's hand slid to the hilt of his dagger. "Who are you?"
The old man snorted. "Still quick to draw. Good. I worried the wound to your soul made you soft."
He turned, and for the first time, Kael saw it — not madness in his eyes, but clarity. Deeper than any cultivator he'd seen since his return.
"Name's Orrin," the old man said. "Last disciple of the Inner Ring, first sworn to the Umbra Creed."
Kael's breath caught.
That name — Umbra Creed — that was the heart of their clan. The true name. Not the public one used in peace. It was the war name, whispered only in blood and brotherhood.
"You were part of the war council," Kael said slowly. "I remember… your voice."
Orrin stood slowly, joints creaking, and gave a shallow bow — the traditional greeting of one shadow-bound to another.
"I stayed behind when they came," Orrin said. "Played the madman, shuffled through the dust while they burned the records. Someone had to survive to find you."
Kael looked around. "You're being watched."
"Of course we are," Orrin said, voice flat. "I let them think I'm harmless. You? Not so much. Come. We speak behind walls."
He turned, gesturing toward a small tunnel carved beneath the tent — almost invisible beneath a woven rug.
Kael followed without hesitation.
The passage was narrow and dark, but lit faintly by glowing mushrooms and moss that pulsed with faint spiritual energy. The deeper they went, the more Kael felt it:
A presence.
Old shadow.
Residual energies of their clan, long forgotten.
Orrin's hideout was a single chamber carved into the rock, reinforced with stone seals and illusion glyphs. The walls bore old banners of their order — faded but still intact. In the center, a brazier glowed with cold flame.
Kael stared.
"You kept it all."
Orrin nodded. "Didn't dare activate any of it. They would've sensed. But you — you walk with the Throne's breath again. It stirs everything."
Kael sat, the exhaustion finally settling in his bones.
"Why did they betray us?" he asked quietly.
Orrin's eyes darkened. "We were too close to something. Too strong. Too united. The other sects… they feared you most. And when the Flame Seer showed them what you might become, they chose fear over fate."
Kael clenched his fists. "Alira's father."
Orrin nodded grimly. "He was the pivot. They thought he saw the future. But I think he shaped it."
Kael's shadow twitched again.
He wasn't just hunted.
He was the threat they'd tried to erase from time itself.
"I need to know more," Kael said. "About the Umbra Creed. About my past. About me."
Orrin placed a hand on his shoulder — heavy, grounding.
"You'll know everything. But not tonight. Rest. Eat. We begin again tomorrow. Quietly. From the dark."
Kael nodded.
And for the first time in this new life… he let his guard down.
But even in sleep, his shadow watched.