Seth woke with his body screaming. Every muscle felt stretched too tight, his shoulders burned, and even his fingers ached from gripping the dagger for so long the day before. He groaned and rolled onto his side, only to wince at the sharp stab in his calves.
"Pathetic," a dry voice murmured.
He blinked. B was standing by the small table in their room, mask tilted toward him, arms folded. The man hadn't made a sound entering—he never did.
"Can't even swing a toy blade without breaking yourself," B went on, stepping forward. Without asking, he plucked the dagger from where Seth had dropped it the night before. He twirled it once in his gloved hand, then crouched beside Seth's bed. "You're gripping too tight."
Seth sat up, still blinking away sleep. B pressed the dagger back into his palm, adjusted his fingers with two quick movements, and tapped the back of Seth's knuckles.
"Relax your hand. A stiff grip makes a stiff corpse."
Before Seth could mutter a reply, B stood again. His presence was sharp and distant as always, but Seth thought he felt… something. A strange flicker of acknowledgment, as though B had noticed Seth's attempt to grow teeth.
Breakfast was served downstairs. Strange Draemhollow fare: bread that was too black and too soft, meat strips that glowed faintly under the lanterns, mugs of bitter broth. Seth chewed in silence, trying not to think about how the meat pulsed faintly on his tongue.
B ate nothing. He sat across the table, masked face turned toward Seth, posture unreadable.
"I have business elsewhere today," he said finally. His tone was the same flat calm it always was, but Seth felt the weight of his gaze. Not just a glance, but a measured stare, lingering long enough to make him shift in his seat.
Business. Elsewhere.
Seth had no idea what that meant, but his chest tightened. Yesterday, without B, he had nearly been herded like cattle through the streets. If not for B showing up at the right moment, he might already be in some cage—or worse.
But B just rose from his seat, adjusted his gloves, and said, "You'll manage."
And then he was gone.
Seth sat alone at the table, staring at the glowing scrap of meat still sitting on his plate. His jaw worked as his thoughts tumbled.
He needed to do something. Anything. He couldn't just keep being dead weight. B wasn't babysitting him, and if he wanted to keep whatever fragile tether of trust existed between them, he had to show that he could contribute.
That thought clung to him as he left the inn. The streets of Draemhollow were as warped in daylight as they had been under the shroud of night. Stalls shouted with bizarre goods—jars of black liquid that sloshed upward, bones carved into charms that vibrated faintly, fruit that shifted colors when touched.
Seth forced himself to keep walking, ignoring the curious stares. He knew exactly what he was looking for this time. Food. Something simple. Bread. Dried meat. Something he could carry back and hand over to B without embarrassing himself.
The System remained silent. No new mission pings. No glowing prompts. Just… nothing.
He hated that more than anything.
"Where are you now?" he muttered under his breath. "You've been in my head non-stop, and now? Nothing?"
No answer.
It was as if the System was waiting—watching what he would choose without its guiding leash.
That unsettled him more than Draemhollow's streets.
He found a small stall that sold rolls of coarse bread. The vendor was hunched, eyes pale and unfocused, his skin etched with faint glowing lines. Seth fumbled with the coins he'd managed to convert, his throat dry.
The vendor sniffed at him, clearly suspicious, but accepted the Shadow Crystals all the same. Seth left quickly, clutching the bread, pulse thudding.
I did it. Bought something. Didn't screw it up.
For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself the thought that maybe—just maybe—he was adapting.
That thought didn't last.
On his way back, Seth took a wrong turn. The streets of Draemhollow twisted like a maze, alleys curling where they shouldn't, paths splitting into shadows that seemed to rearrange themselves when he looked away. He muttered curses under his breath, retracing his steps, only to find himself in an even narrower passage.
The walls here seemed alive, faint veins of light pulsing under the stone. Whispers slithered along the cobblestones, though no one stood nearby. The air tasted thick, metallic.
And then he froze.
At the far end of the alley, half-shrouded in shadow, stood B.
Not alone.
Several cloaked figures surrounded him, their stances loose but charged. Their hoods masked their faces, but Seth could feel their presence like knives pressing against his skin. The air between them hummed with quiet menace, a weight that made his stomach clench.
B stood among them, still and calm, as if he belonged there.
Seth's grip on the bread tightened until his knuckles whitened. He couldn't hear their words, but everything about the scene screamed danger.
This wasn't right.
Not at all.
The cloaked figures spoke low, their words weaving through the hum of the alley. Seth strained his ears, trying to catch even a fragment—until one phrase cut through clear as a blade.
"There's a bad smell in the air tonight," one of them muttered. Their voice was harsh, carrying a rasp like stone dragged across stone. "Something foreign. Someone who doesn't belong."
The world froze.
Seth's breath caught in his throat. They were talking about him. They had to be. The bread in his hand felt suddenly heavy, ridiculous. His pulse hammered so loud he thought it would echo off the alley walls and give him away.
No, no, no… not now, not like this.
Every instinct screamed at him to bolt, but his legs locked. He was prey, caught in the open, eyes wide, waiting for the predator's bite.
And then B moved.
His head turned sharply, as if he'd felt Seth's fear before even seeing him. That mask, that unreadable, impossible mask, locked onto him from across the shadows.
The world narrowed into those eyes.
Seth couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Every drop of blood in his body seemed to drain at once, leaving him hollow and cold. If B spoke—if he so much as twitched—Seth knew the cloaked figures would be on him in an instant.
But B didn't betray him.
Instead, his gaze flickered—an almost imperceptible tilt of the head, a glint of warning in the dark slits of his mask. Not words, not sound, but the meaning was clear.
Leave. Now.
Seth stumbled back. His heart tried to punch through his chest, his mind blank with panic. His shoulder scraped against the alley wall, tearing fabric, but he barely felt it. The bread nearly fell from his hand as his legs finally obeyed.
He turned and fled.
His boots struck the stones too loud, too obvious, but he didn't care. He couldn't care. Every instinct howled for distance, for escape, before those cloaked figures tore into him.
Behind him, B's voice rang out. Calm. Cold. Cutting through the silence like a man dictating fact.
"There's nothing odd here. You're chasing ghosts."
The figures murmured among themselves, skeptical, but B's tone held weight, finality.
Seth didn't stay to hear more.
He tore through Draemhollow's winding veins, alleys bleeding into streets that all looked the same—walls pulsing faintly, the air thick with metallic whispers. His breath came ragged, vision swimming, panic clawing at his throat. The city felt like it was closing in, reshaping itself to trap him.
Every shadow stretched too long. Every figure in the crowd looked his way.
He stumbled, caught himself, pressed a hand to his chest. His heart wouldn't slow, each beat threatening to rip him apart.
Who were they? Why was B with them? Why didn't he give me up?
No answers. Just the echo of that phrase.
A bad smell in the air. Someone who doesn't belong.
They could sense him. Maybe not his face, not his name—but something about him screamed foreign. The System? His soul? His scent? He didn't know, and not knowing gnawed at him worse than the fear itself.
By the time the crooked outline of the inn came into view, his legs were trembling. He clutched the bread tight, though he barely noticed it. His mind kept replaying the way B had looked at him, the silent warning, the calm lie that followed.
Why?
Why protect him? Why not hand him over if they were hunting for outsiders like him?
Seth slipped into the inn quietly, ignoring the murmur of patrons in the common room. He climbed the creaking stairs and collapsed onto the bed in his room, the bread still in his grip.
He stared at it, unblinking.
Food. That was why he left. That was the errand. But the thought felt absurd now, flimsy against the weight of what he had seen.
The cloaked figures. The words that branded him foreign. And above all, B's unreadable eyes—warning him to run, then turning away as though nothing were amiss.
The silence of the room pressed in on him.
Seth lay back, dagger still strapped at his side, and closed his eyes. His heart hadn't yet slowed, his breath still hitched, but one thought rooted itself, inescapable.
He wasn't just surviving in Draemhollow anymore.
He was already being hunted.