Rumors did not spread like fire.
Fire announced itself—bright, violent, undeniable.
Rumors moved differently. They crept. They bent. They changed shape with every mouth they passed through, carrying pieces of truth wrapped in fear, speculation, and convenient lies.
Kael learned this within two days.
They did not linger near the site of the clash. After leaving the fallen hunters behind, Kael led Rowan and Darian deeper into the Blackroot Woods, then out through an old game trail known only to trappers and smugglers. By nightfall, they reached a forgotten stream that marked the edge of imperial patrol routes.
They rested there briefly.
Not long enough to feel safe.
The first sign came from a corpse.
They found it hanging from a tree near the stream's bend—an auxiliary soldier, throat slit cleanly, armor stripped, insignia torn away. The body had been positioned deliberately, feet barely touching the ground, as if meant to be discovered.
Darian swore under his breath.
"This isn't yours," he said immediately, looking at Kael.
"No," Kael replied. "It isn't."
The cut was wrong. Sloppy in intent, precise in execution. Not a warning. A message.
Rowan stared at the body, pale. "So… they're killing their own now?"
"They always have," Darian said grimly. "Just not this openly."
Kael studied the corpse for a long moment, senses extending outward. There was no lingering presence of shadow. No echo of the oath.
This had nothing to do with him directly.
Yet.
They moved on.
By the next evening, they reached a roadside settlement—barely more than an oversized rest stop. A handful of stone buildings clustered around a well, with a small inn that smelled of cheap ale and old smoke. The sign above the door read The Bent Nail.
Kael hesitated at the tree line.
Crowds meant stories.
Stories meant mutation.
But supplies were running low, and Darian's limp had worsened.
"We go in," Kael said. "Quietly."
Inside, the inn buzzed with low conversation. Merchants. Caravan guards. A few off-duty auxiliaries nursing drinks. No hunters—at least not openly.
Kael took a seat in the corner, hood low. Rowan and Darian sat nearby.
The innkeeper spoke too loudly.
"…telling you, they found them scattered like training dummies. Alive, but broken."
A patron snorted. "Bandits?"
"No. Imperial hunters. Or what was left of them."
Kael did not move.
Rowan's grip tightened around his cup.
Another voice chimed in. "I heard it was a demon."
"Shadow thing," someone else said. "Moved like smoke."
"Bullshit," a soldier scoffed. "If it were a demon, they'd all be dead."
The innkeeper leaned in conspiratorially. "Not dead. That's the strange part."
Kael felt it then—the subtle pressure of attention turning inward. Not toward him specifically, but toward the idea forming in the room.
Something strong.
Something restrained.
Something unfinished.
Darian leaned back slightly. "That's how it starts," he muttered. "They can't decide what you are, so they invent you."
Kael's jaw tightened.
He had known this would happen. Still, hearing it spoken aloud carried a different weight.
The door opened.
A courier entered—dusty, breathless, wearing the neutral grey of imperial messengers. He spoke quietly with the innkeeper, passing over a sealed slip.
The innkeeper's expression shifted.
"Drinks on hold," he announced. "Imperial notice."
Groans followed.
He cleared his throat. "Unverified reports of a hostile individual operating near Blackroot Woods. Tall. Dark-clad. Extremely dangerous. Avoid engagement. Report sightings immediately."
A pause.
"Reward pending confirmation."
The word reward hung in the air like bait.
Kael exhaled slowly.
Not a name.
Not yet.
That was worse.
Rowan whispered, "They don't know it's you."
"They don't need to," Kael replied. "They just need people to look."
Darian's gaze hardened. "You're becoming profitable."
Silence settled between them.
Kael finished his drink and stood.
As they moved toward the exit, he felt it—the shift in atmosphere. Not recognition, but interest. Curious glances. Measuring looks.
Outside, night had fallen.
Torches flickered along the road, illuminating wagons rolling in and out of the settlement. Somewhere in the distance, a horn sounded—faint, but deliberate.
Kael stopped.
That was not a patrol signal.
That was coordination.
"Change of plan," he said quietly.
Rowan stiffened. "What kind?"
"The kind where staying ahead isn't enough anymore."
Darian nodded grimly. "They're not chasing a man now. They're chasing a story."
Kael did not answer immediately.
He stood at the edge of the settlement, watching torchlight flicker against wagon wheels and stone walls. The sound of conversation spilled outward—laughter, argument, speculation—each voice carrying fragments of the same unfinished tale. No one spoke his name. That omission felt deliberate, as though the world itself hesitated to attach certainty to what it feared.
"Stories harden when they're denied," Kael said finally. "They soften when they're guided."
Rowan frowned. "You mean… control it?"
"Shape it," Kael corrected. "Control implies authority. I have none."
Darian snorted quietly. "Yet."
Kael ignored the comment and scanned the road once more. He felt it now—thin threads of attention tugging at the edge of his awareness. Not eyes on him, but intent moving through the region like pressure before a storm. Couriers would carry messages tonight. Traders would embellish them tomorrow. By the end of the week, someone important would decide the rumors were worth investing in.
"Bounties start unofficial," Darian said, reading Kael's silence. "Then they get organized. After that, it's not about guilt. It's about proof."
Kael nodded. "Proof can be manufactured."
They moved away from the settlement without haste, choosing a path that climbed into the low hills where stone replaced soil and trees thinned to stubborn shrubs. The air grew colder as elevation increased, the wind sharper, more honest.
Halfway up the slope, Kael stopped again.
He knelt, pressing two fingers against the ground.
"What are you doing?" Rowan whispered.
"Listening," Kael replied.
The land spoke differently here. Not with voices, but with absence. He felt it in the way sound carried too far, in the way insects avoided certain patches of rock. Someone had passed through recently—light-footed, disciplined, careful enough not to leave obvious signs.
Scouts.
Not hunters yet.
Kael rose. "We're being mapped."
Rowan's eyes widened. "Already?"
"Yes." Kael's gaze hardened. "They're learning how we move."
Darian exhaled slowly. "That means they'll start predicting."
"And then intercepting," Kael finished.
They continued upward until the ground leveled into a narrow ridge overlooking the road below. From here, the settlement looked small and fragile, its torchlight like a cluster of embers waiting for a careless wind.
Kael turned away from it.
"This is where restraint becomes visible," he said quietly. "If I vanish completely, the story grows teeth. If I strike too openly, it becomes a legend."
Rowan hesitated. "And the middle?"
Kael considered.
"The middle makes people argue," he said. "Arguments slow things down."
Darian smiled thinly. "You're planning to be inconvenient."
"Yes."
They made camp in a shallow rock hollow shielded from the wind. Kael took first watch, not because he needed sleep less—though that was true—but because he needed to think.
He replayed the inn's voices in his mind, the way curiosity had turned to appetite at the mention of reward. The Empire had learned to weaponize attention long before it learned mercy.
So will I, Kael thought.
Not with blood.
Not yet.
Far below, the horn sounded again—answered this time by another, farther away. Coordination tightened like a net.
Kael felt the oath stir faintly, sensing escalation.
He pressed it down gently.
Not tonight.
He would let the rumor run ahead of him for a while longer. Let it contradict itself. Let it fracture into possibilities. A demon. A survivor. A mercenary. A myth.
When the Empire finally chose which version to believe, it would already be outdated.
Kael looked east, toward the hills that would lead them away from main roads and into places maps remembered poorly.
"Tomorrow," he murmured, "we stop reacting."
Behind him, Rowan slept fitfully. Darian stared at the stars with a quartermaster's habit of counting what could not be controlled.
Below, in the glow of torches and ink-stained rooms, the story took on a life of its own.
And above it all, Kael Vireon planned how to let the world chase the wrong shadow—until it learned, too late, which one was real.
Kael looked up at the darkened sky.
Stories could not be outrun.
They had to be rewritten.
He turned away from the road, guiding them toward the hills instead of the forest. Higher ground. Fewer witnesses. Harder terrain.
Behind them, in the glow of torches and whispered excitement, the rumor took its next shape.
A shadow.
A survivor.
A threat the Empire did not yet understand.
And somewhere far away, ink met parchment as the first unofficial record of Kael Vireon's return began to circulate—unsigned, uncertain, and already too late to erase.