Morning did not arrive in Valenport so much as it intruded.
Light leaked between buildings before the sun was fully up, pale and gray, catching on damp stone and old timber. The city smelled different at dawn. Less smoke. More salt. The harbor breathed slowly, like a great animal still half-asleep.
Ryn woke before the bells.
He lay still on the narrow bed, staring at the low ceiling of the room he had rented above a cooper's shop. The wood creaked softly as the building settled. Somewhere below, a barrel rolled. Somewhere farther away, gulls cried like they were arguing with the sky.
For a moment, he did not move.
He let the memory fade first.
Ink on parchment.
A familiar posture sketched by an unfamiliar hand.
The quiet certainty in the priest's voice when he said the city was hunting ghosts.
A cold needle threaded its way down Ryn's spine.
He let the feeling pass.
Then he exhaled, slow and silent, through his nose.
Panic was loud.
He did not allow himself loud things.
He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and pressed his feet to the floor. The stone was cold. Grounding. He welcomed it. His thigh twinged faintly where the old scar lived, the reminder that pain was real and manageable and did not need imagination to worsen it.
Ryn dressed without haste.
Plain shirt.
Worn trousers.
Boots that had seen marsh mud and city dust alike.
He strapped the knife at his hip last. Not because it mattered most, but because habits mattered.
By the time he stepped outside, Valenport was already awake.
Not fully loud yet.
But no longer quiet.
Carts rattled over cobbles slick with last night's mist. Vendors raised shutters. Dockhands shouted greetings that were half insult, half affection. Somewhere nearby, a hammer rang against metal, sharp and impatient.
Ryn joined the flow without standing out.
He kept his shoulders slightly rounded, as if used to ducking doorways too low for comfort. His steps were light, careful of slick stone. Marsh-born posture, the kind that favored balance over reach, caution over confidence. He had not chosen it. It had chosen him, long ago.
At the end of the street, a new notice board had been erected overnight.
Fresh wood. Fresh nails.
Ryn did not slow as he passed.
But he saw it.
White parchment, edges curling already in the sea air. Ink still dark. Still hungry.
Sketches.
Three of them.
Different faces. Different ages.
The middle one made his breath pause.
Not because it was perfect.
But because it was close in the ways that mattered.
The tilt of the head.
The way the shoulders sat, as if expecting weight rather than attention.
The spacing of the feet. Too ready to move. Too balanced to belong to a clerk or a fisherman.
Ryn did not look again.
He walked past, counted three heartbeats, then turned down a side street and disappeared into the market's early maze.
Only when the board was well behind him did he feel the tightness ease from his chest.
They were not looking for him.
Not yet.
They were looking for something that reminded them of someone else.
That distinction mattered.
For now.
---
By midday, the city had fully found its voice.
Valenport did not shout like capitals did. It hummed. Constant. Layered. Every sound sitting atop another, none of them dominant enough to drown the rest.
Ryn worked the southern docks that day.
Unloading crates. Rolling barrels. Carrying sacks that left his shoulders aching in the dull, honest way of labor. He did not speak much. Dock work rewarded those who listened more than those who explained.
Men talked anyway.
They always did.
"…saw them take another one near the salt quarter."
"No charge?"
"Doesn't matter. They say the writ comes straight from the council."
"That's not council business. That's Church business."
"Same thing lately."
Ryn kept his eyes on his hands.
Salt stung small cuts. Rope burned the skin. He welcomed both. Physical sensation had edges. Rumors did not.
By afternoon, the word ghost had not been spoken once.
Instead, they said things like imbalance.
Irregularity.
Unregistered presence.
Better words.
More dangerous ones.
When the shift ended, Ryn washed his hands in the harbor shallows, the water cold and opaque. He watched it swirl gray around his fingers until the salt and grime were gone.
Ink, he thought.
Always ink.
---
He found Brother Calen near the western cloisters just before dusk.
The priest was seated on the low wall bordering the Church grounds, sleeves rolled up, sandals dusty. He looked less like a holy man and more like someone who had simply paused mid-walk and forgotten to resume.
"You're late," Calen said without looking up.
Ryn sat beside him. "You didn't give a time."
Calen smiled faintly. "That was the test."
Ryn waited.
The bells rang once, slow and measured. Evening prayer.
Calen watched the people passing. Merchants. Laborers. A pair of soldiers who pretended not to look at the Church gate too closely.
"They added new notices," Calen said.
"Yes."
"And?"
"They are learning how to look."
"That worries you."
"No," Ryn said after a moment. "It makes things simpler."
Calen glanced at him, curiosity flickering. "Explain."
"When hunters do not know what they want," Ryn said, "they burn the forest. When they think they know, they follow tracks. Tracks can be erased."
Calen laughed quietly. "That is an unsettling comfort."
"I learned it young."
Calen nodded. "You knew Kael."
It was not a question.
Ryn felt the name settle between them, heavy but not sharp. "Yes."
"Then you know," Calen said softly, "that some men are not allowed to die quietly."
Ryn did not answer.
Calen turned to face him fully now. "They found a ledger two days ago. Partial. Burned. Someone was careless."
Ryn's fingers curled slightly against the stone.
"Not yours," Calen added quickly. "Old. Years old. But enough to wake certain people who had hoped to stay asleep."
"The Scribe," Ryn said.
Calen's mouth tightened. "Yes."
They sat in silence as the light thinned, the city taking on the blue-gray color of things half remembered.
"You should leave Valenport," Calen said at last.
Ryn shook his head. "Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because if I run now," Ryn said, "I become proof."
Calen studied him. "And if you stay?"
"I become background."
Calen smiled again, this time without humor. "You really were taught by him."
"Yes."
The bells rang again.
Longer this time.
Night was coming.
---
The attempt came sooner than Ryn expected.
He felt it first as absence.
Not footsteps.
Not breath.
The space where sound should have been.
He was crossing the narrow alley behind the dye-houses, the air sharp with old chemicals and rot, when the world thinned around him.
Ryn stopped.
He did not turn.
A blade whispered through the space his neck had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
Steel kissed stone.
Sparks flared.
Ryn moved.
Not fast.
Correct.
He stepped forward and sideways, body folding low, knife coming free in the same motion. The second attacker was already there, cloak brushing Ryn's shoulder as he passed.
Too close.
Amateur.
Ryn hooked the man's ankle and shoved.
The attacker hit the ground hard, breath leaving him in a wet grunt.
The first one recovered quickly, slashing again, wide and angry now.
Ryn let the blade pass.
He struck once.
Not deep.
Enough.
The man screamed and stumbled back, clutching his forearm, blood already slick and dark.
"Leave," Ryn said.
The one on the ground scrambled up, dragging his companion with him. They vanished into the maze, panic louder than footsteps.
Ryn stood alone in the alley.
His heart beat hard.
His hands shook once.
Then he breathed.
Slow.
Silent.
He wiped the knife clean on the stone, slid it back into place, and walked away before the city could gather around the sound.
---
That night, Valenport whispered.
About a failed snatch.
About a quiet man.
About blood on stone with no body to explain it.
And somewhere, in a room heavy with candles and parchment, someone added a new line beneath an old title.
Not a name.
A note.
Active.
---
Ryn returned to his room and barred the door.
He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his hands until they stopped trembling.
Kael had said it once, years ago, while binding a wound.
The world does not forgive silence.
But it respects control.
Ryn lay back and closed his eyes.
Tomorrow would not be quiet.
But neither would he be unprepared.