The morning mist clung to Kaden's coat like a second skin as he strode through Grey Mane's narrow streets, the hilt of the soul-forged sword pressing against his hip.
The fishmonger's abrupt retreat the prior day still gnawed at him—Don't know her.
Don't want to know her.
—but he refused to let the town's silence bury the questions burning in his chest.
He approached a trio of women mending laundry lines, their voices cutting off as he neared.
"Beg pardon," he said, keeping his tone neutral, "I'm looking for a woman who ordered a sword here. Her name—"
"No names." The oldest woman's knuckles whitened around her basket.
The others stepped back, their eyes darting to the horizon as if scanning for something worse than a stranger with questions.
"You're new, boy. Stay new. Asking about her… it doesn't end well."
Kaden's jaw tightened.
He'd faced bandits, hungry wolves, and the cold bite of betrayal; a town's fear wouldn't cow him.
But as he turned away, he noticed their gazes lingering on his palm—the faint red mark from the system, pulsing faintly, as if it, too, felt the weight of their dread.
The Rusty Tankard, the town's only tavern, reeked of stale ale and smoke when he pushed through the door.
Patrons fell silent, their mugs hovering mid-air, until a gruff voice from the back cut through the tension.
"Sit, boy. Before you startle the rats."
Holt Ironthroat sat hunched over a table, his beard streaked with ash, a half-empty tankard in one gnarled hand.
Kaden recognized him—the only smith in town who'd met his eyes the day he'd arrived.
The old man's gaze was sharp, though, as if he saw more than Kaden's dusty boots and worn apron.
"Vera," Kaden said, sliding into the bench opposite.
"Who is she? Why won't anyone speak of her?"
Holt's fingers tightened around the tankard.
"Vera's not who. She's what." He leaned forward, voice dropping to a rasp.
"A ghost. A warning. The kind that walks these streets when the fog thickens, asking for things no living smith should forge." His eyes flicked to Kaden's palm again.
"You made her sword, didn't you? The one with the soul."
Kaden's pulse quickened.
"How do you—"
"Smiths feel these things, boy. The air changes when a soul's bound to steel. It hums. Like a bad song you can't unhear." Holt reached into his coat, producing a rusted emblem—an anvil crossed with a broken hammer, etched with runes Kaden didn't recognize.
"This was found in the ashes of the last smith who took her order. Twenty years ago. Then he vanished. Along with three others."
Kaden's throat went dry.
"My master… he said the town was safe."
"Safe?" Holt barked a laugh, bitter and hollow.
"Your master was a fool, or a liar. Grey Mane's built on a grave. The dead here don't rest. They watch. And when they want something—" He pushed the emblem across the table.
"—they make sure you deliver."
The emblem felt ice-cold in Kaden's hand, as if it carried the chill of a tomb.
"What's this mean?"
"It means you're in deeper than you think. But if you've got half a brain, you'll pack your tools and leave. Tonight." Holt drained his tankard, rising with a groan.
"But I know your type. Stubborn as a mule, and twice as blind. So take this: the亡者峡湾's not just a name. The dead here… they hunger."
He turned to leave, then paused, glancing back.
"And boy? If you go poking around that cellar of yours, bring a torch. And pray the light's enough."
The tavern door slammed shut behind him, leaving Kaden alone with the emblem and the heavy silence of the room.
The cellar door creaked when Kaden pried it open, a low, mournful sound that set his teeth on edge.
The steps below were damp, cobwebs clinging to his sleeves as he descended, the faint whispering from the prior night growing louder—a chorus of voices, too indistinct to understand, but laced with a hunger that made his skin crawl.
At the bottom, he found it: a stone door, its surface pitted with age, sealed by a rusted iron bar.
But what made his breath catch was the mist seeping through the cracks—black, oily, curling like smoke from a pyre.
When he reached out, his knuckles brushing the stone, a jolt of cold shot up his arm, and for a heartbeat, he felt it—a presence, sharp and predatory, pressing against the other side.
He drew the soul-sword, its edge humming faintly.
When the blade touched the door, the mist recoiled, hissing as if scalded.
And then—a voice, clear as a bell in his mind: "You carry the blood. Open me."
Kaden staggered back, the sword nearly slipping from his grip.
The voice… it wasn't human.
It was old.
Older than the town, older than the forge.
It felt like the scrape of metal on stone, like the first spark struck from flint.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
The only answer was the whispering, now louder, as if the door itself were laughing.
Night fell, and with it, a silence so thick Kaden could almost taste it.
He sat at his workbench, the emblem from Holt gleaming dully under the forge's dying light, when a faint noise