The next morning, Kael returned to the outer district markets.
It was a risk. The streets here were patrolled more heavily, crawling with Enforcers and drones. But if he wanted to survive—not just survive, thrive—he needed supplies. Food. Weapons. And, most importantly, information.
He pulled the hood of his coat low and blended into the tide of the broken: beggars, orphans, and laborers marked with the sigil of Forsaken. No one looked twice at him. That was the only advantage his kind had.
No one ever looked at them long enough to notice when they changed.
Kael's steps were light, but inside, the Echoes buzzed. The Skein of the Hollow Fang and Whisper of the Maw coiled within him, dormant but present—like beasts waiting in a cage. He could feel them now, like new limbs not yet fully under his control.
He approached a small vendor stall half-covered in old tarpaulin. The woman behind the counter looked up with dull eyes. A data slate was embedded into the table beside her, flickering weakly.
"I need work," Kael said flatly.
She frowned. "Work? You think this is a guild post? I sell roots and scraps, kid."
Kael leaned closer, his voice lowering. "Not honest work."
Her gaze sharpened.
After a long pause, she reached beneath the table and slid a folded paper wrapped in seal-thread toward him. "Last one who asked for this didn't come back," she muttered.
Kael took it, nodded, and vanished into the crowd.
---
Inside a crumbling warehouse, Kael read the note.
> "Movement reported near the Deadveil Line. Tunnel breaches. Multiple disappearances. Suspected Echo activity. Five coin if confirmed. Ten if cleansed. Don't be stupid."
He folded the paper, fire flickering behind his eyes.
Another Echo.
Another step forward.
He didn't hesitate.
---
The Deadveil Line was an abandoned train artery running beneath the northern factories—choked with rust, flooded in places, and sealed off from the public years ago. The tunnels were supposed to be inactive, but the Dream-bleed was unpredictable. Echoes slipped through cracks, and no wall made by man could hold them forever.
Kael dropped through a maintenance shaft, landing in knee-high water. The air was thick with mold and rot, and something else—something wrong.
It smelled like sleep and ash.
He drew his shadowblade, its edge flickering with unstable darkness.
As he moved deeper, he felt it.
A pressure.
And then he saw them.
Bodies.
Four of them. Mangled. Torn open at the chest. Their eyes had been removed—not gouged, but evaporated, as if burned from the inside out.
Kael knelt beside the nearest one. A sigil was burned into the stone wall beside it—spiraling and fractal.
Not Dream-borne.
This was ritualistic.
His eyes narrowed.
Not just Echoes. Someone was guiding them.
He barely turned before the first attack struck.
---
The blade came silently.
Kael's instincts screamed. The Skein activated.
He ducked just in time, the blade whistling past his ear. He spun and kicked back, connecting with something solid—but unseen. The attacker shimmered into visibility—cloaked in mirrored plates, face hidden behind a featureless mask of white porcelain.
A Whisperkin.
Mercenaries. Dream-marked. Echo-users for hire. And killers.
Kael summoned the Whisper of the Maw.
He inhaled sharply—and screamed.
A piercing sonic wave erupted from his mouth, distorted and laced with raw Echo resonance. The cloaked figure reeled, mask cracking. They stumbled back, blade shaking.
Kael pressed forward. Shadowblade in hand, he slashed low, then high. The mercenary parried the first, but the second tore through the cloak, drawing a hiss of pain.
"You're not here for the Echo," Kael muttered. "You're guarding it."
The figure lunged again, this time faster—enhanced by an Echo of their own. The world blurred. But Kael was ready.
He threw his free hand forward—and the echo of the Maw pulsed again. Not a full scream this time. Just enough to disrupt their step.
It worked.
He ducked under the mercenary's strike and drove his blade upward, piercing through their side. They shrieked and fell, gasping.
Kael yanked the mask off.
The woman beneath was no older than twenty. Her eyes burned with fractured light.
"You've been Echo-bound too long," Kael said softly.
She spat blood. "You're just like us. Hungry. Hollow."
"No," he said. "I'm worse."
And then the tunnel lit up with pale violet.
Behind him, the Echo emerged.
---
It slithered from the darkness like smoke taking shape—a hundred eyes blinking open across its form. It moved like fog, but every part of it shimmered with refracted light. No face. No limbs. Just a drifting, pulsing mass of awareness.
It watched him.
> "Who calls the Eye of Silence?" it asked in a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere.
Kael didn't hesitate.
"I do."
---
End of Chapter 4