The sound that woke Ryn was not shouting.
It was the absence of it.
For a moment, lying on the narrow bed beneath the slanted ceiling, he thought he had gone deaf. No carts on stone. No drunken laughter drifting up from the street. No boots passing the inn door. Valenport, for once, was holding its breath.
That was never a good sign.
Ryn sat up slowly, every movement measured. His thigh protested immediately, a deep ache blooming where old scar tissue met fresh strain. He pressed his palm there until the pain dulled into something manageable.
Then he listened.
Somewhere below, wood creaked. Not the careless sound of guests. The deliberate kind. Weight placed carefully. Counted.
Ryn reached for the knife beneath his pillow before his thoughts caught up with his body.
He did not draw it.
Not yet.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, letting the floorboards cool his bare feet. The window was still shuttered. Thin lines of early light slipped through the cracks, pale and uncertain.
Morning had not fully arrived.
That meant patrol change.
That meant mistakes.
Ryn crossed the room and lifted the shutter a finger's width.
The street below was empty.
Too empty.
A single lantern burned at the far corner, its flame low and wavering. The guard who should have stood there was gone. Not replaced. Not slumped. Simply gone.
Ryn exhaled through his nose.
So this was how it moved now. Quietly.
He dressed without haste, every buckle checked twice, the plain knife secured where his hand would find it without looking. When he finished, he did not leave immediately.
He waited.
Footsteps passed below. One set. Then another. They stopped. Murmured. Moved on.
Not guards.
Ryn opened the door and stepped into the narrow hallway.
The inn smelled different at this hour. Cold oil. Damp stone. Something metallic that had no business being there. He moved down the stairs without touching the railing, each step placed near the wall where the wood was strongest.
At the bottom, he saw the body.
The innkeeper lay facedown near the hearth, one arm bent at an angle that no living joint should allow. His eyes were open. His mouth was not.
Ryn knelt beside him.
There was no blood.
That was the first wrong thing.
The second was the mark at the base of the man's skull. Small. Precise. As if someone had pressed the tip of a finger there and decided that was enough.
Ryn closed the innkeeper's eyes.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, though he knew apologies did not travel far after death.
He stood as voices rose outside.
This time, they were real.
Boots. Orders. Confusion edged with fear.
Ryn stepped back into the hallway just as the front door burst open and light flooded the common room.
Brother Calen entered first, breathless, his robes hastily belted. Behind him came two city guards, armor half fastened, eyes already scanning for threats they did not understand.
Calen saw the body and stopped short.
"Saints preserve us…"
Ryn met his gaze.
Calen swallowed. "You did not do this."
It was not a question.
"No," Ryn said. "But whoever did knew where to press."
One of the guards crouched beside the innkeeper, grimacing. "No struggle. No mess. Clean work."
His partner looked up sharply. "Like the dockmaster?"
Silence.
Calen's face tightened. "There have been three more since last night."
Ryn felt the words settle into place, cold and deliberate.
Three more.
"Same mark?" he asked.
The guard nodded. "Always the same."
Ryn straightened. "Then it's not random."
Calen let out a shaky breath. "No. It's a message."
"For who?" one of the guards demanded.
Ryn answered before Calen could. "For anyone who knows how to read it."
The guard frowned. "You're saying this is some kind of code?"
"I'm saying," Ryn replied, "that this isn't killing. It's accounting."
Calen closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, something brittle had crept into his voice. "The Church archives lost a record last week."
Ryn looked at him.
"Not stolen," Calen continued. "Removed. Cleanly. As if it had never been there."
"What was in it?" Ryn asked.
Calen hesitated.
"That bad?" Ryn pressed.
"A list," Calen said quietly. "Names tied to old pardons. Old favors. Men forgiven not because they were innocent, but because they were useful."
Ryn felt a familiar tightening along his spine.
"A debt ledger," he said.
Calen nodded.
One of the guards shifted uneasily. "You're saying the Church kept records like that?"
"We keep many things," Calen replied. "Some of them are not meant to be comfortable."
Ryn glanced once more at the innkeeper's body.
"Whoever took it," Ryn said, "isn't exposing it."
"No," Calen agreed. "They're collecting."
A horn sounded outside.
Short. Sharp.
Signal.
The guard cursed under his breath. "Another one."
Ryn was already moving.
"Where?" he asked.
The guard pointed. "Warehouse row. Near the old counting house."
Ryn did not wait for permission.
The streets were waking now, not into morning, but into alarm. Shutters opened just enough for eyes to peer out. Whispers followed him like insects.
By the time he reached the counting house, a crowd had already formed.
Too many people.
Ryn slowed.
Panic spreads faster than truth. He had learned that early.
He pushed through carefully, keeping his shoulders angled, his presence unremarkable. At the center of the circle lay a man slumped against the stone wall, legs stretched awkwardly before him.
This one bled.
Not much. Just a thin line from the corner of his mouth.
The mark was still there.
But this time, there was something else.
Ryn crouched.
Pinned to the man's chest was a scrap of parchment, held in place by a small iron nail driven cleanly through cloth and flesh alike.
No name.
No seal.
Just three words, written in a sharp, economical hand.
Paid in full.
Ryn stared at it longer than he should have.
A cold needle threaded its way down his spine. He let the feeling pass, then exhaled, slow and silent, through his nose.
So that was the next step.
Calen arrived moments later, breath ragged. He saw the parchment and went pale.
"This is blasphemy," someone whispered.
"No," Ryn said softly. "It's judgment."
Calen looked at him. "You recognize the hand."
"Yes."
Not from the parchment under the willow.
From the way Kael used to write notes on scrap wood. Precise. Unadorned. No wasted strokes.
This wasn't Kael.
But it was someone who had learned from the same discipline.
Someone who understood restraint.
Ryn stood.
"We need to know who was on that list," he said. "And who isn't anymore."
Calen hesitated. "The remaining records are sealed."
"Then unseal them," Ryn replied.
"That authority—"
"Will mean nothing," Ryn cut in, "if whoever is doing this decides the city itself is indebted."
Calen met his eyes.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Calen nodded once. "Come with me."
They walked back toward the cathedral district as the city finally began to shout in earnest. Orders. Accusations. Prayers hurled like shields.
Ryn felt none of it settle on him.
Not because he was untouched.
But because he knew now.
This was not a hunt.
It was a reckoning that had learned how to walk.
And whether he liked it or not, Kael's shadow was moving again.
Toward him.