He did not stop walking until the city gates were far behind him.
The road stretched empty beneath the whitening sky, flanked by fields still wet with morning dew. Farmers would come soon. Carts. Voices.
Before that happened, he turned off the road and descended into a shallow ravine where the light could not reach all at once.
Only then did he stop.
The pressure was still there.
Not pain. Not burning.
Awareness.
He exhaled slowly and leaned his back against the cold earth, letting the shadow cover most of him. Even filtered through leaves and stone, the sun pressed against his senses - a question waiting to be answered.
It always did.
He flexed his hand.
The cut from earlier was gone, skin smooth and unmarked, as if nothing had ever touched it. That part never surprised him anymore.
What lingered was the resistance.
The blood had hesitated.
That alone was enough to worry him.
That corpse had been wrong - not weak, not unworthy, but incompatible. The body had rejected the change before it could even begin to settle. Another few heartbeats, another drop of blood, and it would have twisted into something loud and uncontrollable.
A mistake.
A small one.
But even small mistakes carried weight.
He closed his eyes.
In his first life, he would have forced it.
Pushed harder. Fed more. Let the blood overwhelm the vessel and shaped whatever crawled out afterward into obedience.
That path had already ended.
He opened his eyes again and pushed himself upright.
The ravine deepened ahead, winding toward a thicket of trees. He moved through it without sound, every step deliberate. Birds fluttered overhead, unaware. Insects buzzed in the brush.
By midday, he reached a low stone structure half-buried by moss and roots. An old waystation, abandoned years ago when the road shifted. Its roof had collapsed inward, leaving only broken walls and a narrow strip of shade that never fully vanished.
He chose the darkest corner and sat.
Time passed.
He did nothing.
This was the part most would not understand.
Action drew attention. Blood invited consequence. The world did not reward haste - it punished it.
A shadow crossed the entrance.
He looked up.
A man stood there, squinting into the dimness. A traveler by the look of him - leather boots, worn cloak, a short blade at his belt. No crest. No holy markings.
The man hesitated. "Didn't think anyone was using this place."
The boy did not answer.
The traveler shifted his weight. His gaze lingered, unsettled. People often reacted that way, even without knowing why.
"Road's safer in daylight," the man added. "You should-"
He stopped.
The boy stood.
Up close, the traveler noticed how still he was. Not tense. Not relaxed. Simply present, in a way that made the air feel thinner.
"You shouldn't be here," the boy said.
The traveler frowned. "I..."
His words cut off as the boy closed the distance between them.
There was no flourish. No wasted motion.
The traveler's knife scraped halfway out of its sheath before the boy's hand closed around his wrist. Bone cracked softly. The sound was lost to the trees.
The man gasped.
The boy twisted, stepped past him, and struck once - precise - at the base of the neck. The body went limp immediately, collapsing into the dirt without a scream.
The boy released him and stepped back.
Dead.
Good.
He waited a few seconds longer, listening.
Nothing followed.
He knelt beside the corpse, inspecting it briefly. No holy tokens. No marks of blessing. Just a man who had walked where he should not have.
This time, he did not reach for the blood.
He stood, dragged the body deeper into the ravine, and covered it with loose soil and fallen branches. The work was quick, practiced.
When he finished, the sun had shifted again.
Too much light.
He retreated into the shade and sat once more, letting the pressure ease.
His thoughts returned, unbidden, to the square.
To the way the blood had recognized him.
To the way it had resisted.
The rules were the same.
That was both comforting and dangerous.
"Not here," he murmured to no one. "Not yet."
This region was wrong. Too open. Too watched. Too eager to burn what it didn't understand.
He needed somewhere quieter.
Smaller.
A place where men disappeared without sermons.
As the sun dipped lower, clouds gathered on the horizon, dulling its authority just enough for him to rise without discomfort.
He left the ravine and returned to the road, heading east this time, towards the towns that lived and died by coin rather than faith.
Behind him, the sun continued its path across the sky.
Watching.