Ryn woke with ash under his fingernails.
Not literal ash.
The kind that stayed even after washing. The residue of a night spent too close to fire, too close to decisions that could not be undone. His hands rested on the edge of the narrow cot, fingers curled slightly, as if still holding onto something that had already burned away.
The room was quiet. Not peaceful. Quiet in the way of places that had learned not to ask questions.
Light filtered through the slats of the shutter, thin and pale. Morning, then. Or something close to it.
He sat up slowly, letting the stiffness in his shoulders ease on its own. No rush. No wasted motion. His body still remembered the dock work from the previous day, the dull ache in his lower back, the faint sting where rope had bitten into skin. Honest pain. Manageable.
What lingered was something else.
The sketch.
Not the paper itself. He had not touched it since folding it back into the inner pocket of his coat. It rested there now, a quiet weight against his ribs. He did not need to look at it again to know what it showed.
Him.
Or something close enough.
Ryn stood and crossed the room, bare feet silent against the worn boards. He poured water from the chipped pitcher into the basin and washed his hands carefully, scrubbing under his nails, rinsing, scrubbing again. The water clouded, then cleared.
The feeling did not.
A cold needle traced its way down his spine.
He let it pass.
Then exhaled, slow and soundless, through his nose.
---
Valenport greeted the day with noise, but not celebration.
Outside, the city moved with the restless energy of a body that had not slept well. Doors opened and closed too quickly. Boots struck stone with unnecessary force. Somewhere nearby, a cart rattled past, its axle complaining loudly, the driver swearing under his breath.
Ryn stepped into the street and became just another shape among many.
The district near the inner docks was already awake. Fishermen argued prices with buyers who pretended not to care. Dockhands hauled crates with shoulders hunched and eyes down. A pair of city guards stood near the corner, halberds resting against the wall, watching without looking like they were watching.
The notice board had been cleaned.
That, more than anything, told him the city had changed overnight.
Yesterday, it had been layered with parchment. Announcements, guild postings, lost items, accusations written in cramped hands and nailed over one another. Now it stood bare, the wood freshly scraped, pale beneath the old nail holes.
Someone had taken the time.
Ryn slowed just enough to read what remained.
One sheet. New.
An official seal pressed into red wax at the bottom.
He did not step closer. He did not need to.
The drawing was rough, but competent.
The posture was wrong in a way only someone observant would notice. Shoulders slightly forward. Weight carried on the balls of the feet, not the heels. A stance learned in mud and reed, not stone courtyards.
Marsh born.
Ryn felt the cold needle again.
He let the crowd pass around him, the flow of bodies bending without resistance. His face remained neutral. Curious, at most. Another man reading another notice.
He turned away before the guards could decide to look at him more closely.
---
Brother Calen found him near the tannery road, where the air always smelled like something already dead.
The priest stood with his hands tucked into the sleeves of his plain robe, head bowed slightly as if in prayer. Or calculation. It was hard to tell with Calen. He had a face that looked honest until you paid attention to his eyes.
"Rough night," Calen said, not looking up.
Ryn stopped beside him. "The city didn't sleep."
"No," Calen agreed. "It hunted."
That word again.
Ryn said nothing.
Calen finally glanced at him, his gaze quick and sharp. "You saw the board."
"Yes."
"And?"
"And someone doesn't want people forgetting."
Calen smiled faintly. "Or wants them remembering the right thing."
They walked together, unhurried. Around them, Valenport breathed and strained, a thousand small tensions pulling in different directions. Whispers followed them in fragments.
A man taken from the eastern alleys.
A warehouse sealed by order of the crown.
A body in the river, hands bound, face gone.
Ghosts, someone muttered.
Calen's mouth tightened.
"They're not hunting ghosts," he said quietly. "They're hunting gaps. Places where stories don't line up."
Ryn considered that. "And when they find one?"
"They fill it," Calen replied. "With blood, if necessary."
They stopped at a narrow bridge spanning a canal choked with refuse. The water below moved slowly, carrying things no one claimed.
"You should leave," Calen said.
Ryn looked at him. "That obvious?"
"To me?" Calen shrugged. "Yes. To others? Not yet. But you are not invisible. You are just… quiet."
Quiet enough to be noticed, now.
Ryn rested his hands on the stone railing. "If I leave, someone else gets pulled in."
Calen followed his gaze to the water. "And if you stay?"
Ryn said nothing.
That was answer enough.
---
The man from the dockyard recognized him later that afternoon.
Not by face.
By movement.
Ryn felt it before he saw it. The way conversation thinned behind him. The way footsteps adjusted, not to follow, but to observe. He turned into a side street lined with shuttered shops and broken signage, the kind of place merchants avoided after midday.
"Hey," the man called, voice rough. "Marsh boy."
Ryn stopped.
He turned slowly, hands empty, posture relaxed.
The man was broader than him, older, arms corded with muscle earned honestly. A dockhand, not a soldier. His eyes were wary, not hostile.
"I saw the board," the man said. "That sketch. Looks like you."
Ryn waited.
"I don't care," the man continued quickly. "I've hauled crates for worse men than whoever they're looking for. But others will care. Already do."
"What do they say?" Ryn asked.
The man scratched his jaw. "That the one they want doesn't fight like a knight. Doesn't shout. Doesn't glow. That he leaves men on the ground looking surprised."
Ryn nodded once.
The man hesitated. "There was another thing."
"Yes?"
"They said whoever trained him didn't teach him how to win," the dockhand said. "Just how not to lose."
Silence stretched between them.
"That true?" the man asked.
Ryn met his gaze. "It was enough."
The dockhand exhaled. "Then listen. Someone's paying for names. Not the guards. Someone else. They started with drifters. Then priests. Then men who don't talk."
"Who's paying?" Ryn asked.
The man shook his head. "That's the problem. No one knows. Just that the coin's old. And heavy."
Ryn felt the folded parchment against his ribs.
The Scribe of Rust.
"Thank you," he said.
The dockhand grunted. "Don't thank me yet. They're cleaning the city from the inside out. Quiet men get noticed last."
He turned and left without waiting for reply.
---
That night, Ryn did not go back to the room.
He moved through Valenport by memory and instinct, choosing paths that curved instead of cutting straight. He passed shrines where candles burned low and alleys where rats scattered at his steps. He crossed the river on foot where the stones were slick and uneven.
He stopped beneath an old watchtower near the outer wall, its shadow long and broken.
There, he finally took out the sketch.
He studied it once.
The angle of the head. The set of the feet. The line of the shoulders.
Not perfect.
But close enough.
Ryn folded it again and tore it carefully, once, twice, until it was nothing but scraps. He scattered them into the canal and watched the pieces drift apart.
The ash under his fingernails finally felt lighter.
Above him, Valenport loomed. Loud. Crowded. Alive.
And for the first time since leaving Greymire, Ryn understood something clearly.
The city was not just a place he passed through.
It was a test.
And someone, somewhere, had decided he was ready to be graded.