Ploare moved through Rootwilds like she had been born in its gutters and raised on its rooftops.
The city was already awake, despite the sun still lingering low and pale behind the eastern ridge. Merchants shouted, carts creaked, and the air carried the smell of fresh bread layered over the stink of damp stone and old sewage. People bumped shoulders, argued over coin, laughed too loudly.
None of it mattered.
Crowds were only useful for two things: concealment and noise.
And noise made liars careless.
Ploare stepped through the market without hurrying, her cloak drawn tight around her shoulders. It was a muted shade of river-green-ordinary enough that it disappeared in the right angles of morning fog. Her boots did not scrape. Her weight did not shift loudly. Even her breathing was trained to remain shallow, quiet, efficient.
A predator didn't waste motion.
A predator didn't waste sound.
She passed a fruit stall where a boy was stealing apples, watched him slip one into his sleeve, then watched the stall owner pretend not to notice. A second boy waited in the crowd, ready to run if the first got caught.
Ploare's gaze flicked away.
Children stole because they were hungry. Adults stole because they were clever. Both were predictable.
Her eyes moved upward, past the banners strung between buildings, past the second-story windows where housewives leaned out to gossip, and toward the rooftops.
Rooftops were cleaner.
Rooftops were honest.
Up there, nobody pretended they weren't watching.
Ploare took a turn into a narrow alley, the kind that swallowed light and kept secrets. She placed one palm against the wall and pushed herself upward.
In two breaths, she was above the street.
Rootwilds spread out beneath her like a living organism.
Districts bled into one another without clear borders-trade stalls merging into butcher lanes, butcher lanes melting into smithy rows, smithy rows dissolving into tavern streets. People moved through it all like blood cells, unaware of the larger body they fed.
Ploare watched them from above.
The same way she always did.
Her eyes narrowed.
Today was not a patrol.
Today was a hunt.
She crossed rooftops in smooth strides, cloak snapping lightly behind her. The city guards down below marched in groups of three and four, heavy boots clapping against stone. Their spears were clean. Their armour polished.
They looked proud.
They looked safe.
Ploare almost laughed.
Safety was a story weak men told themselves.
She stopped near the edge of a slanted roof and crouched. From here she could see the northern checkpoint, the one that filtered traffic from the forest roads. She could see the registry desk, the bored scribes, the lines of travellers.
And she could see something else.
A disturbance.
Not in the crowd-Rootswild always had disturbances.
No.
This disturbance was in the way a patrol officer was speaking too fast, shoulders tense, eyes darting. He wasn't panicked. Not exactly.
But he was unsettled.
Ploare waited.
Waited.
Then dropped soundlessly onto a lower roof and slipped down a stairwell that belonged to a closed bakery. She emerged behind the checkpoint, where guards were less concerned with appearances and more concerned with their own feet.
She approached like she belonged there.
Because she did.
A guard spotted her and stiffened immediately, posture snapping straight.
"Officer Ploare."
Ploare gave him a small nod. "You look like you've swallowed a stone."
The guard swallowed. "Nothing serious, ma'am."
Ploare's eyes slid toward his partner-another guard who looked even more uncomfortable. That one avoided her gaze entirely.
Ploare folded her hands behind her back. "If it's nothing serious, you won't mind saying it twice."
The first guard hesitated.
The second guard spoke instead, voice quiet. "There was... an incident last night."
Ploare's gaze sharpened. "An incident."
The guard's throat bobbed. "A spirit was seen in the tavern district. A floating light. No harm done, but... it slipped through patrol lines without being registered."
Ploare didn't react outwardly.
Inwardly, something cold slid through her chest.
A spirit.
In Rootswild.
Not unheard of-spirits wandered sometimes, curious things that followed rivers and forests like stray cats. But they didn't usually enter a city without leaving a trail.
Unless...
Ploare's mind turned, gears clicking softly into place.
Unless the spirit didn't want to be seen.
"Where?" she asked.
The guard gestured vaguely. "Near the eastern taverns. Some say it went toward the smithy district."
Ploare's eyes narrowed. "Some say."
The guard flinched. "That's all we have, ma'am."
Ploare nodded once.
"Good," she said. "Then I'll take it from here."
The guards looked relieved, as though her presence meant the problem was no longer theirs.
They didn't understand.
A problem didn't vanish when it left your hands.
It only became someone else's wound.
Ploare turned away and walked calmly down the street, blending into the flow of people. Only once she was far enough that the guards couldn't see her expression did her lips tighten.
Melian.
Melian would have left quietly.
The warning given to her from Ploare wasn't light hearted either.
Since Melian had entered the city, she hadn't done so alone Ploare already knew that.
Spirits didn't travel into crowded streets for fun.
They travelled because someone led them.
Or because someone was worth following.
But to think she had been seen before leaving.
Ploare passed a merchant cart loaded with iron ingots, stepped around a group of children playing dice in the gutter, and listened.
The city always talked.
You just had to know which words mattered.
"...new boys," someone muttered near a stall.
Ploare's steps slowed slightly. [I guess digging a bit wouldn't hurt.] She considered.
"...asked about smithies," another voice said, louder.
She didn't look toward them. She didn't need to. She adjusted her path, drifting closer as though she were only another shopper.
A butcher with a stained apron spoke to a woman holding a sack of grain.
"They looked like they'd never been in a city before," the butcher said. "One of them kept staring around like he was trying to memorise the streets."
The woman snorted. "Probably runaways."
"Maybe," the butcher replied. "But the other one carried iron like it was firewood."
Ploare's eyes flicked downward, thoughtful.
Two boys.
One observant.
One strong.
She kept walking, letting their words fall behind her, but her mind held them tightly.
Observant boys became scouts.
Strong boys became soldiers.
Neither were harmless.
She cut through an alleyway and emerged in the low district, where the buildings leaned too close together and the streets never fully dried. The smell here was worse. The people here didn't smile as easily.
The low district was where Rootswild kept its teeth.
And its informants.
Ploare stopped near a sewer bridge where water crawled beneath like a black ribbon. A man sat there on a crate, chewing on something that might have been meat.
He looked up as she approached.
His chewing stopped.
"Officer," he greeted carefully.
Ploare didn't correct him.
She was not officially on duty.
But in Rootswild, her name carried weight whether she wore the badge or not.
She crouched down so they were eye level.
"You've been hearing things," she said.
The man swallowed. "Everyone hears things."
Ploare smiled faintly. "Then you won't mind hearing them again."
The man's eyes shifted nervously.
Ploare produced a small coin-silver, clean-and placed it on the crate between them.
His gaze locked onto it.
"Two young travellers," she said. "Not locals. One carries iron. One watches everything. Who have they spoken to?"
The man hesitated.
Ploare's smile didn't change.
"Answer quickly," she added, voice mild. "Or I'll start asking other people. People who won't appreciate you wasting my time."
The man exhaled, defeated.
"I saw them near the merchant agency," he muttered. "This morning. They were with a man... tall, scarred, cloak like he didn't care about the weather."
Ploare's fingers stilled slightly.
"Scarred," she repeated.
The man nodded. "Yeah. Not fresh scars. Old ones. The kind that don't fade."
Ploare stood.
The coin remained on the crate.
"Where did they go?" she asked.
The man pointed. "Toward the smithies. Toward Hunk Blue's place, I think."
Hunk Blue.
Ploare's eyes narrowed.
That name was not just a smithy name.
It was a name attached to old soldiers, old weapons, old friendships.
The kind of friendship that survived wars.
Ploare thanked the man without speaking and moved on.
She climbed again, slipping up staircases and broken balconies until she reached the rooftops. From above, she could see the smithy district clearly-smoke rising, sparks drifting like fireflies, the sound of hammer strikes echoing faintly through the air.
Her eyes scanned the streets below.
Then she saw them.
Two figures moving through the crowd.
One carried a bundle of metal strapped over his back like a pack mule. His shoulders were broad, his gait steady. The weight didn't slow him.
The other walked beside him, head turning constantly-counting streets, memorising corners, watching the flow of people with eyes too sharp for someone his age.
Ploare's lips pressed together.
Not civilians.
Not lost.
Not harmless.
She followed them from above, moving with the quiet ease of something that belonged to the rooftops more than the streets. They stopped briefly at a stall, bought something some bread perhaps - then continued onward.
And as they moved, Ploare noticed something else.
They weren't leading.
They were being led.
Not by a visible guide.
But by direction.
By certainty.
By the kind of calm that came from someone waiting ahead.
Ploare's gaze sharpened.
She didn't see the third man.
But she could feel his presence in the shape of the boys' movement.
Predators didn't always show themselves.
Sometimes they let their offspring walk first.
Ploare dropped down to street level, keeping her distance. She moved through the crowd like a shadow slipping between lantern posts.
A woman bumped her shoulder and didn't even realise.
Ploare's eyes stayed fixed on the boys.
They turned down a street that narrowed toward the smithy district. Smoke thickened. Heat rose in waves. The air smelled of iron, coal, sweat.
Ploare stepped closer.
A little closer.
And then-
Something pressed against her senses.
Not mana.
Not spirit energy.
Something heavier.
Something older.
It wasn't a force that shoved her away.
It was a somewhat familiar presence that simply existed, like a blade held against the throat of the air itself.
Ploare stopped.
Her hand moved instinctively toward the weapon beneath her cloak.
She forced herself to breathe normally.
The boys didn't react.
They continued walking, unaware.
But Ploare knew.
There was someone near them.
Someone trained.
Someone dangerous enough that even her instincts hesitated.
Her eyes narrowed, scanning the street.
Nothing.
No sudden movement.
No obvious threat.
Just smoke, noise, and the steady pounding of hammers.
Ploare stepped back into the crowd, letting the press of people hide her.
She watched the boys disappear into the smithy district.
And she waited.
Waiting was not weakness.
Waiting was patience.
Patience was what separated hunters from fools.
After several minutes, she turned away.
She needed confirmation.
Not assumptions.
Assumptions got officers killed.
She returned to the low district again, deeper this time, where the streets became narrow enough that you could touch both walls with your hands. A beggar sat near a broken lantern, wrapped in rags, eyes sharp despite his misery.
Ploare crouched in front of him.
His gaze flicked up.
"You're not here for charity," he said.
"No," Ploare replied.
She placed a coin into his palm.
His fingers closed around it immediately.
"Tell me what you've seen," she said.
The beggar's eyes narrowed, studying her.
Then he spoke, slow and careful.
"I saw a scarred man," he said. "Not like the city thugs. Not like the merchant guards. He carried himself like a soldier."
Ploare froze.
Not dramatically.
Not visibly.
But the world narrowed around those words, as though the city itself had leaned in.
"A soldier," she repeated.
The beggar nodded. "A man who walks like he knows how to kill. Like he's done it before. Like he doesn't want to do it again... but he will."
Ploare's throat went dry.
Her mind flashed with memories she didn't invite.
A night of screaming.
A unit that didn't come home.
Steel cutting through flesh with the ease of wind through grass.
A name whispered in fear.
She stood slowly, coinless hand curling into a fist.
The beggar watched her, confused.
Ploare didn't speak.
She stepped backward into the shadow of an alleyway and let the crowd swallow her again.
Her heartbeat was steady.
Too steady.
Because she was not panicking.
She was calculating.
If it was him...
Rootwilds was no longer a city.
It was a trap.
She tilted her head upward, eyes scanning rooftops, scanning smoke, scanning the smithy district where the boys had gone.
She didn't know for sure.
That was the worst part.
Because if she was wrong, she had wasted time.
And if she was right...
Ploare exhaled slowly.
A long breath.
The kind taken before stepping into deep water.
Her voice left her lips as a whisper, barely audible beneath the noise of the city.
"...Derek."
The name tasted like blood.
Ploare felt something she had not allowed herself to feel since that day.
Fear.
Not fear for herself.
Fear that she might be too late.
She pulled her cloak tighter, disappeared into the streets, and began moving again-faster now.
Not rushing.
Never rushing.
But hunting with purpose.
Because if the scarred man had truly returned to the world...
Then the world's calm days were already numbered.
And predators, no matter how patient, did not wait forever.