Every city had the same face beneath different scars.
Walls blackened by fire. Squares renamed after battles no one wanted to remember. People who spoke in half-truths and flinched at footsteps.
She asked carefully at first.
"Have you seen him?"
Some shook their heads. Some shrugged. Some lied because lies were safer than memory.
Others laughed.
The first man who laughed did not expect her to strike him. Neither did she. The sound her blade made surprised them both. When he fell, bleeding and shocked, she stared at her hands as if they belonged to someone else.
She walked away before the fear could catch up.
That night, she did not sleep.
By the third city, she no longer asked politely.
By the fifth, people answered before she spoke.