The dust of Borin's demise still felt like a film on his skin. Arden moved south, a specter driven by a cold, singular purpose: find Kaelen. The Shadow Fox would be the key to unraveling the conspiracy. But the underworld was a ghost itself, its pathways known only through rumor and coded language. Information required currency, and Arden had none but the blood on his hands and the strange power in his veins.
His journey took him through the foothills of the Serpent's Spine, a region where the Order's control was tenuous, and lawlessness festered in the valleys. It was in a dusty tavern in a town called Crossroads that he heard the first tangible lead. A one-eyed miner, deep in his cups, was complaining about the "Jackal's Tithe"—a new tax on the region's illicit silver mines, enforced by a swift and brutal gang.
"The Jackal," the man slurred. "Runs everything from Saltmire now. Got a whole bloody army. Even his couriers are nasty pieces of work."
Jackal. A new name for an old fox. Saltmire. A port city, perfect for a man who dealt in shadows and secrets. It was a direction. But as Arden stood to leave, the tavern door burst open. A farmer, breathless and bleeding from a gash on his forehead, stumbled in.
"Ravenscar!" he gasped, addressing the grizzled town elder. "The Sunken Village… it's the Bone Crows! They've come down from the high pass! Fifty of them at least! They'll burn it all!"
A cold dread filled the tavern. The Bone Crows were a notorious band of deserters and cutthroats, known for their cruelty. The Sunken Village was a day's hard ride away, a poor, isolated community of shepherds and weavers. No help would come from the Order in time.
The elder, Ravenscar, looked around the room of frightened faces, his own shoulders slumping in defeat. "There's nothing we can do. We have barely twenty able-bodied folk here, and they have fifty seasoned killers."
A memory, sharp and unbidden, flashed in Arden's mind: a village, not unlike this one, burning during the war. He and the Blades had arrived too late. The silence that had followed was worse than any demon's roar. He had sworn then to be a shield for the helpless.
That hero was dead. But the purpose… the purpose remained.
"I will go," Arden said, his voice cutting through the panic.
All eyes turned to him. The stranger in the hood with the unsettling aura.
"You?" Ravenscar scoffed. "One man against fifty?"
"I am what stands between them and their slaughter," Arden replied, his tone leaving no room for argument. "I ask for nothing but a fast horse and directions."
Desperation outweighed skepticism. A horse was saddled, and Arden rode out of Crossroads as the sun dipped below the mountains, not towards Saltmire, but towards a forgotten village and a past he thought he'd buried.