By the end of the third day, Pax no longer needed to count faces to know how many eyes now belonged to him.
He had recruited thirty more beggars, bringing the total up to fifty, not fifty followers, not fifty soldiers, and certainly not fifty mouths shouting loyalty or demanding purpose. Just fifty presences.
They were scattered across Greyvale like dust. unremarkable and easily ignored, dismissed by instinct before conscious thought could even register them.
Beggars leaned against walls, old men sat near wells, women hunched beneath threadbare cloaks at alley corners, and children pretended to sleep beside bakery doors. Figures so common that no one truly saw them.
And that was precisely why Pax trusted them.The courtyard that served as the quiet heart of Grey Veil remained unchanged, no banners, no guards, no visible signs of importance.
