The night had settled into a cold, uneasy quiet, but inside the abandoned warehouses Rayon's recruits moved with purpose.
Drevan was training a pair of Threads in hand-to-hand combat, teaching them to flow with rhythm instead of brute force. Lyra moved silently through the shadows, testing their reflexes and instincts. And Rayon watched it all, hollow eyes sharp, strings flickering faintly across his fingers, reading movements, thoughts, and weaknesses without a word.
"Listen," Rayon said finally, his voice low, calm, but cutting through the room. "You've all survived this city by luck. That ends tonight. Luck is fragile. Skill is fragile. But a web? A web is eternal."
He let his strings rise slightly, tracing the paths of their movements. "Each of you is a thread. Alone, you can break. Together, you can bend the city. Control it. Feed it. Protect it. But you must trust the thread. And you must trust me."
The recruits exchanged glances, nodding. They didn't fully understand, but they felt it—the pull of something stronger than themselves. A leader who could see beyond instinct and into the currents of power itself.
By morning, the warehouse had transformed into something else: part training ground, part command center. Information flowed faster, assignments were understood without confusion, and the newly recruited Threads began testing their own abilities under Rayon's subtle guidance.
But outside, the city whispered warnings. The Hunter Rayon had clashed with earlier was only the beginning.
Cairos had mentioned Hunters before, but now they knew where a Forsaken had set foot. Word had reached the higher echelons. A few of the most dangerous Hunters—those who could rival even the Forsaken themselves—had marked him.
One of them, a Hunter named Kaelen, had eyes like steel and a mind like a razor. He was moving through the city's underbelly, tracking the threads, sensing the pattern that Rayon had already begun weaving. Kaelen was fast, methodical, and dangerous—the type who could sniff out a Forsaken from miles away, and destroy everything in their path.
Rayon didn't know yet that Kaelen had arrived, but his senses flickered, a faint prickling on the edges of his perception. The city itself seemed to warn him, and Hollow Strings twitched at the warning.
Rayon leaned against the rooftop overlooking the warehouse, night wind whipping at his cloak.
The recruits had stabilized, the Threads were organized, and his influence was quietly expanding. But the tension was palpable. Somewhere in the city, the Hunters were converging. Some of them were already strong enough to challenge him.
Rayon smiled faintly, fingers brushing his Hollow Strings. "Good," he whispered. "If they want a fight… I'll give them one. And when I do, they'll remember why the gutter-born owns the night."
Below him, the city pulsed, alive with whispers, threats, and opportunity. And Rayon was already pulling the threads, weaving his web tighter than it had ever been.