---
Chapter 9 – Whispers in the Capital
The capital should have felt safe.
After days of forests heavy with shadows, nights wrapped in fear, and the stench of corrupted beasts lingering on their skin, the towering gates of Altheris rose like salvation. The walls gleamed white in the early sun, banners snapping with proud sigils. Merchants and travelers bustled in colorful streams toward the gate, voices raised in laughter, in haggling, in the kind of everyday life that was supposed to mean peace.
But to Sara, it all felt wrong.
Every look seemed sharper than it should be. The guards' eyes clung too long to her face, the passing merchants' chatter dipped when she walked by, and even the children who peeked from behind their mothers' skirts seemed to shrink from her shadow. The unease gnawed at her ribs like hunger.
She tightened her cloak around her shoulders and lowered her head.
Kael, walking at her side, glanced at her once, then again. He said nothing, but his gaze lingered. He always noticed too much.
---
The hunters' party was quickly ushered toward the guild hall. Their victory over the corrupted beast at the gate had turned heads; word traveled fast in the capital, and already whispers raced ahead of them. Sara could hear snatches of it:
"…unnatural power…"
"…did you see her eyes?"
"…wasn't human, that girl…"
Each word burned hotter than fire.
The guild hall doors slammed behind them, sealing them in with stern faces and heavy silence. An elder hunter demanded reports, his tone sharp with suspicion. The other hunters gave their accounts, each one straying carefully around Sara's part in the battle. Kael, when it was his turn, spoke evenly, coolly, as though nothing unusual had happened. He even praised her composure.
Sara wanted to vanish into the floorboards.
When at last they were dismissed, she fled into the crowded market streets outside, desperate for air. The smells of roasted bread and fresh herbs clashed with the lingering phantom scent of blood and smoke in her nostrils.
That was when she felt it.
A gaze.
Cold. Steady. Anchored to her like a chain.
She turned. Among the swirl of faces and fabrics, one figure did not move with the current of the crowd. Cloaked in black, hood shadowing their face, they stood perfectly still. And though the distance was too far for her to see their eyes, Sara knew with a certainty deeper than reason—they were staring directly at her.
Her breath caught.
The world muffled around her. Voices faded. Only the cloak figure remained.
She took a step forward, then another. Her hand rose without thought, trembling as though reaching for a memory just beyond her grasp.
"Don't," Kael's voice cut low at her side. His hand brushed her arm, firm and grounding. "You see them too?"
She swallowed hard. "I…"
The figure moved. Not toward her—never that—but sideways, slipping effortlessly between the press of bodies. No jostling, no resistance. As though the crowd itself parted to let them through. Sara surged forward, but Kael caught her wrist.
"Wait."
She wrenched free, but the figure was already vanishing around a corner.
---
They chased through winding alleys, the sun cutting harsh patterns between rooftops. Every time they rounded a corner, the figure was there—always just far enough that they could never close the gap. Cloak brushing stone, steps silent, presence unwavering.
Finally, in a narrow courtyard choked with ivy, the figure stopped.
Sara froze.
The hood tilted, and for an instant she saw nothing beneath it but a shimmer—like heat haze over desert sand, warping the air into something that almost looked like a face but refused to resolve.
Then came the voice.
Soft. Low. Genderless. A whisper that seemed to brush against the inside of her skull more than her ears.
"You cannot hide forever, little flame."
Her blood turned to ice.
The figure stepped backward—and melted into shadow. Not into an alley, not into a door, but into the very shade cast by the courtyard walls, until nothing remained.
Sara staggered forward. Her knees nearly gave out. That voice—it had known her. Not the name she bore here, not the life she'd built since waking in this strange world, but something older, something buried.
Kael reached her side, eyes sharp, hand on the hilt of his blade. "What did they say to you?"
She shook her head, words dying in her throat. To tell him would be to open the door she had sealed with blood and silence.
Kael studied her face for a long, heavy moment. Then, to her surprise, he released his blade and stepped closer—not pressing for answers, not demanding truths. Only offering the steady presence of someone who refused to look away.
"You don't have to carry it alone," he said softly.
Sara turned her face away. But in the pit of her chest, her heart ached with something she couldn't name.
---
That night, long after the market had quieted and the guild's lights dimmed, Sara lay awake in her narrow bed. The whisper still curled in her ears.
Little flame.
It had been too real. Too familiar. As if the figure hadn't simply spoken to her, but to the part of her she had fought to bury.
And if they had found her here…
Then no place, not even the heart of the capital, would ever be safe
Sara told on her bed trying to sleep but still can't shake it off"another one.... another person got reincarnated into this world" "but why?,why must it be from that cult..... No I must calm down I have a trial to survive tommorow maybe I can convince them to allow me to join their guild" She said as she finally fell asleep
---
Author's Note
This chapter was all about suspicion, trust, and shadows that refuse to stay buried. Sara's past is starting to bleed into the present, and Kael is becoming the anchor that keeps her from unraveling—even if she doesn't want to admit it yet.
🔥 Teaser for Chapter 10 – "The Trial of Ashes" 🔥
The capital does not forgive uncertainty. Rumors of Sara's power stir fear, and when an "incident" breaks out in the city, the guild turns its eye on her. Will she bend under suspicion—or will the fire inside her finally show itself?
---
Would you like me to make Chapter 10 a more political/inquisition-style confrontation (interrogation, whispers of betrayal) that erupts into a sudden fight, or keep it full-on action trial by combat right from the start?