The market was unusually loud that morning.
Carts rattled on cobblestone. Chickens screeched from their pens. And beneath it all, whispers curled like smoke—uncertain, buzzing, watchful.
Something had changed.
Or rather, someone had arrived.
Xerces heard the name before he saw the man.
"Sael."
"Sael of the Inquisition."
"A sorcerer hunter, they say—sharp as knives, quiet as fog."
The villagers didn't say it loudly.
But they didn't need to.
The fear in their voices carried enough weight.
He didn't show himself until sundown.
A tall man cloaked in indigo and silver, with raven-black hair and an eyepatch over his left eye. The other eye—pale grey, cold as frost—seemed to stare straight through anything it looked upon.
He wore no armor, no visible weapon.
Just a staff marked with ancient runes strapped across his back, and a long scar etched down the side of his jaw.
He stood at the center of the square, unmoving, as though waiting for the world to reveal its secrets.
And then—
He turned.
His gaze found Xerces across the crowd.
And held.
Mira noticed it too.
"That's him, isn't it?" she whispered.
Xerces didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Something about Sael sent a jolt of pure instinct racing through his bones—flight, not fight.
Not yet.
That night, Xerces watched the stars from the edge of the village.
He couldn't sleep, not that he ever truly did. But tonight, his thoughts twisted louder than usual.
An inquisitor. Here. Now.
The Devourer's influence was growing. Mira was changing. The whispers in the soil, the wrongness in the sky—it was all accelerating.
And now this man—this hunter of the hidden—had arrived at their doorstep.
He knows.
Xerces didn't doubt it. Men like Sael didn't hunt blindly. If he was here, he had reason.
And if that reason was him—or Mira—then time was running out.
They met the next day.
In the forest.
Not by accident.
Xerces had gone out searching for soulroot—a rare herb used in disguise magic, something he hoped could help Mira suppress whatever mark had been left on her.
And Sael was simply there, standing by a dead tree, staring at him like he'd been waiting.
"You walk too quietly for a farmer," the man said.
Xerces didn't blink.
"I'm not a farmer."
"Of course not. And I'm not an inquisitor."
Silence.
Then: "I've seen illusions before," Sael said. "But yours… is clever. Almost alive."
Xerces tensed.
"Careful," he said. "Accusations like that could get a man hurt."
Sael smiled thinly. "So could secrets."
He stepped closer. Not threatening—just watching.
"I don't know what you are," he said. "Yet. But something is rotting beneath this land. And you, stranger, reek of it."
Then he turned.
Walked away.
And left behind a single phrase that chilled Xerces to his core:
"When the moon turns red, I'll know the truth."
That night, Xerces sat with Mira again. She knew something was wrong, but he didn't speak of it.
Not yet.
Because the question wasn't if Sael would uncover him.
It was whether Xerces could become powerful enough—fast enough—to stop what was coming before it devoured her.
Before it devoured everything.