The rain in Eryndor's Lower Quarter didn't wash away the stench.
It only made it worse — wet garbage, rotting fish, and the smoke of cheap tavern fires clinging to the air.
Kael kept his head low as he weaved through the narrow streets, clutching a warm loaf of bread under his tattered cloak.
The baker's shouts still echoed behind him.
"Thief! Stop him!"
He didn't look back.
He'd learned long ago that hesitation was a luxury orphans couldn't afford.
The crowd swallowed him until he slipped into an alley between two leaning buildings.
He bit into the bread, ignoring the burn on his fingers. It was fresh. It was stolen.
It was survival.
A sound broke the quiet — a whisper, faint and strange, carried by the wind.
Here… here…
Kael froze.
He'd lived in these streets his whole life, and there was no place for whispers in the wind — not like that.
Drawn by a pull he couldn't explain, he followed it through the twisting alleys, past a row of crumbling walls, and into the ruins of the Old Temple.
No one came here anymore.
They said it was cursed after the War of Ash.
The air inside was cold, yet in the center of the cracked marble floor floated a single ember — glowing, pulsing, alive.
Kael's breath caught.
The ember was small, no larger than a coin, but it burned with colors he'd never seen — gold, crimson, and a deep blue that seemed to swallow the light around it.
His instincts screamed at him to run.
Instead, he stepped forward and reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the ember, the world went silent.
And then, a voice — clear and sharp — echoed in his mind.
"Finally… you found me."