Mireth didn't trust him.
She trusted the hunters less.
That was the only reason she let the man pull her into the alley as the square erupted in chaos. Boots thundered past the mouth of the narrow passage, silver sigils flashing as armored figures pushed through screaming civilians.
"Walk," he murmured, fingers tightening around her wrist. "Don't run. Running makes them look twice."
Her instincts screamed to break free, to burn, to disappear—but the ember beneath her mark barely stirred. Weak. Tired.
She let him lead.
They merged into the crowd, heads lowered, bodies pressed close as panic swallowed Stonewatch. A child cried somewhere. A stall overturned with a crash. Guards shouted conflicting orders.
Hunters moved differently.
Calmer. Sharper.
Mireth felt their presence like a blade against her spine.
"Why are they after you?" she whispered.
The man didn't answer immediately. He turned down another street, then another, moving with the certainty of someone who had memorized escape routes long ago.
"Because," he said finally, "I survived something I wasn't meant to."
That wasn't an answer.
They slipped into a half-abandoned tannery near the edge of the city, the stench of old chemicals heavy in the air. He barred the door behind them and listened, head tilted, until the sounds outside faded.
Only then did he release her.
Mireth stepped back, dagger in hand. "Talk. Now."
He raised his hands slowly. "Fair."
Up close, she could see him properly. Dark hair, eyes too alert for an injured man, movements controlled despite the stiffness in his leg. The wound she'd healed hadn't left a mark—but the exhaustion in his face hadn't faded.
"You shouldn't be standing," she said.
He gave a crooked smile. "You shouldn't exist. Yet here we are."
Her grip tightened.
"My name is Cael," he continued. "And before you ask—no, I'm not marked like you."
The voice inside her stirred faintly, curious.
Not marked, it agreed. But not empty.
That sent a chill down her spine.
"Then why you?" Mireth asked.
Cael hesitated. For the first time, uncertainty flickered across his face.
"Because I can hear them," he said quietly.
Her breath caught. "Hear who?"
"The gods," he replied. "Or what's left of them."
Silence crashed between them.
Mireth laughed once—sharp, disbelieving. "That's not funny."
"I'm not joking."
She took a step back. "That's impossible. Only the marked—"
"—are supposed to," Cael finished. "Yes. That's what they believed too."
He rolled up his sleeve.
There was no glowing sigil. No scar. No silver brand.
Instead, faint black lines traced his veins, branching outward from his wrist like cracks in glass.
"They appeared after I entered the ruins beneath Valenreach," he said. "The place where the gods were silenced."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Valenreach was a myth. A warning whispered among scholars and lunatics. A place no one returned from.
"You're lying," she said weakly.
Cael met her gaze. "I wish I were."
The voice inside her shifted, uneasy now.
He should not exist.
That fear echoed her own.
Before she could respond, a sharp knock echoed through the tannery.
Once.
Twice.
Hunters' signal.
Cael swore under his breath. "They tracked me faster than I thought."
Mireth's pulse spiked. Her power stirred faintly, painfully.
"I can't fight them," she said.
"I know," Cael replied. "That's why we won't."
He shoved open a trapdoor hidden beneath a pile of rotting hides.
"Underground tunnels," he said. "Old city bones. They won't follow—not with civilians above."
"And after?" she asked.
Cael looked at her, eyes dark and steady. "After, we leave Stonewatch."
"Together?" she asked sharply.
"You already know the answer to that."
The mark pulsed once—slow, deliberate.
He walks the same road, the voice whispered. Whether you like it or not.
Mireth clenched her jaw.
The knock came again. Louder this time.
"Move," Cael said.
She hesitated for only a second—then jumped into the darkness.
The trapdoor slammed shut above them as voices rose in anger.
In the dark, as they ran through the city's forgotten veins, Mireth felt it clearly now:
The story was no longer just hers.
And whatever awaited them at the end of this road…
The gods had planned for it to fail.