The rope burned.
Not enough to tear skin.
Enough to remind Ryn that his weight mattered.
He leaned back, boots digging into damp stone as the barge lurched forward, wood groaning in protest. The river smelled different here. Less rot. More iron. The kind of scent that clung to the back of the throat and never quite left.
"Pull," someone barked behind him.
Ryn pulled.
The motion was familiar now. Not graceful. Not strong. Repetitive. Honest.
The barge crept away from the dock, its hull scraping once before the current caught it. Water slapped against the stone embankment, loud in the narrow channel. Above them, the bridge loomed like a ribcage, shadows broken by torchlight and the silhouettes of passing boots.
Valenport always looked different from below.
From the streets, it was walls and banners and noise.
From the river, it was weight.
Stone stacked on stone.
Lives stacked on debt.
Everything pressing downward.
Ryn loosened the rope from his shoulder and coiled it without looking. His fingers knew the work. The rhythm kept his thoughts from drifting where they wanted to go.
He did not look up at the bridge.
He did not need to.
Someone was watching.
There was always someone watching now.
"New one," a dockhand muttered, nodding toward Ryn. "Quiet."
"Quiet don't last," another replied. "City'll beat it out of him."
Ryn said nothing.
He stepped back as the barge settled into the current, then turned toward the stairs carved into the embankment. His thigh protested as he climbed. The scar never hurt sharply anymore. It ached instead, deep and dull, like a reminder that healed things could still speak.
At the top, the street opened into noise.
Not chaos.
Not panic.
Function.
Carts rattled past, iron rims biting into stone. A pair of apprentices argued over a ledger near a shuttered stall. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered, followed by laughter that came a heartbeat too late to be genuine.
Ryn adjusted the strap of his pack and moved with the flow, not against it.
He had learned that lesson early.
---
The notice board had been cleaned.
That was the first thing he noticed.
The wood was old, scarred by years of nails and knives and weather, but the parchment pinned to it was new. Too new. Edges crisp. Ink still dark.
Ryn slowed without stopping.
His eyes traced the page once.
Twice.
A sketch stared back at him.
Not perfect.
But close enough.
The posture was wrong in a way only someone observant would get right. Shoulders not slumped, but never fully squared. Weight balanced slightly back, as if ready to step away rather than forward. A stance learned in mud, not stone.
Marsh born.
A cold needle threaded its way down Ryn's spine.
He let the feeling pass.
Then he exhaled, slow and silent, through his nose.
The description beneath the sketch was brief.
Age range.
Build.
Last known location.
No name.
Smart.
Names warned people.
Descriptions found them.
Ryn kept walking.
He did not look back.
He turned a corner, then another, letting the street curve take him out of sight. Only then did he stop, pressing his palm flat against the cool stone of a butcher's wall.
His heart had not sped up.
That worried him more than panic would have.
---
Brother Calen was late.
That, too, was new.
The chapel was small, wedged between a cooper's shop and a row of tenements that leaned toward each other like conspirators. Its door was open, incense drifting out to mingle with the smell of old wood and damp wool.
Ryn waited just inside, where the light fell thin and gray.
Footsteps approached.
Measured.
Unhurried.
Calen entered without looking at him, closing the door carefully behind him before turning. His expression did not change when he saw Ryn.
"That board was cleaned this morning," Calen said.
Ryn nodded once. "I saw."
"They've stopped pretending it's about thieves."
"They never were," Ryn replied.
Calen studied him for a long moment. "You could leave."
"So could you."
"Yes," Calen agreed. "But I'm not the one they're drawing."
Ryn said nothing.
The priest sighed and gestured toward the back room. "Come. Before someone notices how often you stand near church doors."
They moved past shelves of cracked candles and folded cloth, into a space barely large enough for a table and two chairs. Calen poured water from a chipped pitcher, hands steady.
"They're calling it a civic measure," he said. "Protection. Accountability."
"And the river labor?"
"Coincidental," Calen said, without conviction. "Everything is, these days."
Ryn accepted the cup. The water was cool, clean. He drank without haste.
"They asked about you," Calen continued.
Ryn met his eyes.
"Not by name. By habit. A boy who works docks but doesn't drink. Who listens more than he talks. Who walks like he's measuring exits."
"That's most people," Ryn said.
Calen shook his head. "No. Most people walk like they belong somewhere. You don't."
Silence stretched.
Calen broke it. "Do you know what scares them?"
Ryn waited.
"They can't tell if you're hiding," Calen said, "or if there's simply nothing there to see."
---
Night came without ceremony.
Ryn moved when the streets shifted. When the laughter thinned. When the boots grew heavier and the torches fewer.
He took the long way back.
Not because he was lost.
Because he was checking.
The river glimmered between buildings, dark and patient. Somewhere upstream, metal rang once, sharp and deliberate. Not an accident. A signal.
Ryn stopped beneath an archway, listening.
Three steps.
Pause.
One step too careful.
He stepped out instead of away.
The man across the street froze.
They looked at each other.
The stranger's hood was low, but not low enough. His eyes were alert, not startled. His hand rested near his belt, fingers loose.
Not a guard.
Not a thug.
Something trained.
"You walk like you expect company," the man said.
Ryn tilted his head. "You followed badly."
A smile twitched at the corner of the man's mouth. "Wanted to be seen."
"Why."
The man shrugged. "Because if I didn't, someone else would."
Ryn shifted his weight. Just enough.
The man noticed.
"Easy," he said. "I'm not here to take you."
"To do what, then."
"To warn you."
Ryn waited.
"They're not looking for the boy from Greymire anymore," the man said. "They're looking for what followed him out."
Ryn's voice stayed level. "You don't know that."
The man laughed softly. "You burned something you shouldn't have."
The words landed.
Not like a blow.
Like confirmation.
Ryn stepped forward.
The man stepped back.
They mirrored each other, distance constant.
"Who are you," Ryn asked.
"A courier," the man said. "Of sorts."
"For who."
The man hesitated. Just a fraction. Enough.
Ryn saw it.
"Tell them," Ryn said, "I don't belong to anyone."
The courier's smile faded. "That's the problem."
He backed away into shadow, then was gone.
Not fleeing.
Leaving.
---
Ryn stood alone beneath the archway.
The city breathed around him.
He thought of Kael.
Of the parchment.
Of the title that had burned slower than the rest.
Not a name.
A role.
A hand that recorded what others wanted forgotten.
Ryn adjusted his pack and turned toward the river.
Not home.
Not yet.
There were lines in this city that blurred if you stared too long.
He would not blur.
He would be the line that stayed sharp.
And somewhere, deep in Valenport's stone and ink and silence, something had noticed.