I walked for days without counting them.
At first, I tried to measure time by the sun. Morning light through branches. Noon heat pressing against my neck. Evening shadows stretching too long. After a while, even that slipped. Hunger blurred the edges of thought, and fear made every sound feel closer than it was.
I stayed off the roads.
Whenever I saw a cart track or a cleared path, I turned away. The memory of white robes and gold thread had settled too deep in me. I slept where the ground dipped and the trees grew thick, places where the wind broke apart before it reached me.
Food became a problem quickly.
On the second day, my stomach cramped hard enough to bend me over. I chewed leaves that tasted bitter and spit most of them out. I found beetles under bark and forced myself not to think about what they were. Some burned my tongue. Some did nothing at all. Once, I retched and cried quietly so no one would hear.
Water mattered more. Streams saved me. I followed them when I could, drank until my hands stopped shaking, and moved on before night fell.
At night, the world changed.
Every sound felt larger. Branches cracked like footsteps. Owls called too close. I slept in pieces, waking at every shift of air. More than once, I woke with my hand pressed to my chest, certain the mark had flared. Each time, it was only warm. Watching. Waiting.
I spoke to no one. I spoke at all only once.
On the fourth night, rain soaked through the leaves I had pulled over myself. Cold settled into my bones, and my teeth would not stop chattering. I whispered her name without meaning to. It sounded wrong in the open air, like something sacred spoken in the wrong place.
Nothing answered.
By the fifth day, my legs felt hollow. Each step came with a dull ache that never fully faded. I found a bird's nest torn from a branch, eggs broken and dry. I did not touch them. I was hungry, but not that hungry yet.
The pendant stayed warm against my skin. Not hot. Not bright. Just there. Sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I felt a faint pull, not forward, not back, but sideways. I learned to ignore it.
On the seventh morning, the trees thinned.
The forest gave way to open land, fields rolling low and wide. Stone markers lined a road I had not meant to find. I crouched in tall grass and watched it for a long time. People passed there. Farmers. A pair of traders. No white robes. No armor.
Beyond the fields, the land rose again.
The capital stood there, larger than I had imagined.
Its outer walls were old stone, dark with age, patched in places with newer blocks. Towers rose unevenly, some square, some round, flags snapping in the wind. The tallest spire caught the light and threw it back in a hard white glare. I knew that symbol. I turned my face away.
Smoke drifted above the rooftops. I could hear it before I saw it. Voices layered together. Metal striking metal. Bells, smaller than Saint Vale's, ringing often and without care.
Life.
My stomach twisted. Part of me wanted to run back into the trees and never come out again. Another part, colder and more tired, knew I could not.
I waited until dusk.
When the gates grew crowded, when guards grew bored and shadows stretched long, I joined the line. I kept my head down. I wrapped the pendant in cloth and tied it tight beneath my shirt. I pressed my fingers to the mark once, just to feel it there.
"Quiet," I whispered. I did not know who I was speaking to.
The city swallowed me whole.
Streets wound tighter than they looked. Stone pressed close on both sides. Smells layered over each other. Bread. Sweat. Smoke. Rot. I moved with the crowd until the crowd thinned, then found an alley and stayed there until my breathing slowed.
That night, I slept against a wall, knees drawn in, one eye open. No leaves. No stars. Just stone and the sound of too many people dreaming too close together.
I was alone.
And for the first time since the chapel, the reflection that looked back at me from a puddle felt real.
I woke before the city did.
The alley smelled of damp stone and old waste. My back ached where it had pressed against the wall all night, and my legs were stiff from holding them too close. For a moment, I did not remember where I was. Then a cart rattled past the mouth of the alley, and the sound snapped everything back into place.
I stayed still.
Light crept in slowly, a thin gray wash that did not belong to the forest. Here it bounced off stone, broke apart, and returned sharper. I waited until footsteps passed twice without stopping before I moved.
Hunger came first.
It was no longer the sharp pain of the road. It was dull now, constant, like a weight tied inside me. I followed the smell of bread without thinking, drifting through streets that widened and narrowed without warning. Stalls were being set up. A woman swept water from her doorway. Somewhere, metal rang against metal in a steady rhythm.
I kept my head down.
At a corner, a boy younger than me darted past carrying a basket too big for his arms. He laughed when it tipped and rolled apples into the street. A man cursed and helped him gather them. No one looked twice at me. That helped more than I expected.
Near the market square, I stopped.
Guards stood there. Not Radiant Knights. Their armor was darker, simpler, scratched and repaired. City watch. Still, my chest tightened. I turned away before they could notice me hesitating.
Behind a bakery, I found a crate tipped on its side. Inside were crusts and burned scraps tossed out from the morning ovens. I waited. When no one came, I took one piece, then another, and ate fast. The bread was hard and bitter at the edges, but it was bread. My hands shook when I finished.
I did not take more.
The pendant was warm again. Not pulsing. Just aware.
I spent the day moving.
Whenever I stayed too long in one place, the feeling came back. Not fear exactly. Pressure. Like the city itself was noticing me in pieces. I crossed bridges, ducked under hanging signs, slipped through crowds thick enough to hide in. Once, a man brushed past me and frowned, his eyes lingering too long on my chest. I moved on before he could say anything.
By afternoon, my head was light.
I found shade near the outer wall, where the stone was old and pitted. I slid down and sat with my knees drawn up, pretending to watch the street. From there, I could see the spire again, rising above the roofs. White. Clean. Wrong.
Voices drifted from nearby.
"They say the Order's been increasing patrols."
"Purification routes, maybe."
"Or another collection."
The word tightened something in me.
I stood and walked before they could say more.
As dusk fell, the city changed. Lamps bloomed one by one. Fires lit in hearths. Music started somewhere, thin and bright, quickly swallowed by distance. People moved with purpose now. Fewer glances. More shadows.
I found shelter beneath a collapsed stairwell that led nowhere. The stone still held the day's warmth. I pressed my palm to my chest and breathed until the ache eased.
That night, sleep came in fragments.
I dreamed of bells again. Not Saint Vale's. Smaller ones, ringing out of rhythm. When I woke, the pendant was hot enough to make me hiss. I wrapped it tighter in cloth and held it there until it cooled.
Morning came.
On the second day, I learned the city's rules.
Do not run. Do not stare. Do not linger near temples. Do not sleep where you can be seen. I watched others and copied them. I traded a morning of hauling crates for a bowl of thin stew. I learned which alleys stayed empty and which ones did not.
By the third day, someone noticed.
An old woman selling thread watched me pass twice. The second time, she clicked her tongue. "You walk like you're waiting to be taken," she said.
I froze.
She did not raise her voice. She did not reach for me. She only studied my face, sharp-eyed and tired.
"Eat more," she added, and went back to her work.
I did not go that way again.
By the fifth day, the pull returned.
Stronger now. Not toward the spire. Away from it. Toward the lower quarters, where stone gave way to rot and the streets dipped too close to the river. I followed reluctantly, every step feeling like a mistake I was choosing anyway.
The mark stirred beneath my skin. Not burning. Not flaring. Just awake.
I stopped at the edge of a narrow bridge and looked down into black water moving too slowly.
"This is a bad idea," I whispered.
The pendant warmed in answer.
I stepped forward.
The bridge creaked under my weight.
It was narrower than it had looked from the street, stones slick with damp and something darker I did not want to name. The river below barely moved. It slid past itself, thick and slow, carrying scraps of wood and the memory of things that had sunk.
Halfway across, I felt it.
Not the pull. Something else.
A pressure at the base of my skull, like fingers pressing just hard enough to be noticed. I stopped. The city noise thinned behind me. No footsteps. No voices. Only the water.
"Don't," someone said quietly.
I turned so fast my foot slipped. I caught myself on the low wall and looked back.
A boy stood at the far end of the bridge.
He was older than me by a few years, thin in a way that came from missed meals rather than choice. His hair was dark and tied back with a strip of cloth that had once been white. He leaned against the stone as if he had all the time in the world.
"Don't what?" I said.
"Look too long," he replied. "It notices."
My throat tightened. "Who are you?"
He shrugged. "Someone who learned the long way."
He stepped closer, slow, careful not to startle me. His eyes flicked to my chest, then away again, as if he had caught himself doing it.
"You're new," he said. "And you don't belong where you're headed."
"I don't belong anywhere," I said.
That earned a faint smile. "Then you'll fit in better than most."
The pressure in my head grew stronger. I turned back toward the water despite myself.
The surface rippled.
Not from wind. Not from current.
Something moved beneath it. A shadow stretched where no shadow should be, long and thin, bending against the direction of the flow. For a moment, I thought I saw a face pressed up from below, blurred and wrong, like a reflection that had forgotten what it was meant to copy.
My breath hitched.
The shadow paused.
I felt a tug in my chest, sharp and immediate. The mark responded before I could stop it, a single pulse of warmth that made my vision narrow.
The water recoiled.
It did not splash. It did not surge. It folded in on itself, as if whatever had been there had pulled away too fast. The surface smoothed, leaving only the slow drift of debris and a faint ring that widened and vanished.
I staggered back.
The boy caught my arm. His grip was solid, real. Human.
"Idiot," he muttered, but there was no anger in it. "You don't stare at the river like that."
"What was that?" I asked.
"Hungry," he said. "Old. Not supposed to be here anymore."
"That's it?" I said.
"That's enough," he replied.
He released my arm and stepped back, putting space between us on purpose.
"You felt it pull at you," he said. "Didn't you."
I didn't answer.
He nodded anyway. "Figures."
"What's your name?" I asked.
He hesitated, then said, "Call me Iren."
"I'm Lucian."
His eyes flicked to my face again, sharper this time. Something passed behind them and was gone.
"Yeah," he said softly. "I thought so."
I stiffened. "You don't know me."
"No," he agreed. "But I know that feeling. Like the city is leaning in to listen."
He jerked his head toward the far side of the bridge. "Come on. You stay here much longer, and something worse will notice."
"Worse than that?" I asked.
Iren glanced back at the water. "The river only takes what wanders too close."
He started walking.
After a second, I followed.
As we stepped off the bridge, the pressure in my head eased. The pendant cooled against my skin, but the mark stayed awake, a quiet hum beneath my ribs.
"Why did you help me?" I asked.
Iren didn't look back. "Because someone helped me once."
We disappeared into the lower streets, leaving the river behind us, slow and silent, pretending it had never moved at all.
We turned down a narrow street where the lamps were fewer and the stone leaned inward.
Iren slowed, then stopped so suddenly I nearly ran into him. He raised a hand, listening. I heard it too after a moment - footsteps, measured, too even to belong to drunks or late traders.
He glanced back at me. For the first time since we met, the calm in his face cracked.
"Don't speak," he whispered. "And whatever you feel in your chest - don't answer it."
The pendant warmed at once.
From the far end of the street, a pale glow bled slowly into view, thin as fog, hugging the stones instead of lighting them. It moved with purpose, not searching, not lost.
Iren stepped sideways, placing himself between me and the light.
"They're closer than they should be," he said under his breath.
The glow paused.
I felt something shift inside me - not a pull, not a command, but recognition.
The light knew I was there.
And it was not alone.
-- End of Chapter 6 --