The following morning brought mist thick enough to swallow the streets whole.Aloysius moved through it quietly, his boots brushing against damp cobblestones, every sound amplified in the haze. The air clung to him, cool but oppressive, like unseen fingers tracing his skin.
He had no destination only the restless pull to move, to keep walking until the unease inside him found a place to rest.
Halfway down a narrow alley, a voice drifted from the fog."You walk as though the ground listens to you."
Aloysius's hand moved instinctively to his sword hilt. The fog shifted, and a figure emerged a tall man with a weathered coat, a half-mask of silver covering his mouth and nose. His eyes, sharp and bright like molten copper, locked on Aloysius with unnerving certainty.
"You… can see it," Aloysius said, the words leaving him before he could stop them.
The man tilted his head, a faint smile visible in the way his eyes narrowed. "Not just see. I can hear it breathing."
Aloysius froze.The shadow beneath his feet writhed faintly, as if recognizing it had been noticed.
"You're not from this city," the stranger continued, stepping closer. "And that thing tethered to you it's older than the stones you stand on."
Aloysius's pulse quickened. "Who are you?"
"Someone who's watched too many men let their shadows walk ahead of them… until they were no longer men." The man's voice softened, almost pitying. "I'm here to warn you, Aloysius Herrold. You're being claimed."
The name rolling off the stranger's tongue made Aloysius stiffen. He hadn't given it.
"Stay away from me," Aloysius warned.
The stranger gave a short, humorless laugh and stepped back into the mist. "Oh, I will. But not before I tell you this if you keep walking this path, you'll meet me again. And next time, I won't be here to warn you."
The fog swallowed him whole, leaving Aloysius alone.Only then did he realize the voice in his head was silent for the first time in days.
And somehow… that silence felt more dangerous than anything it had ever said.