Aure pulled the hood tighter as the rain fell on him softly, cold, rhythmic. The kind that made memory feel like mist: half-real, half-forgotten.
The market swirled with people ,spices, whispers. No one paid attention to a wanderer with silver threads in his sleeves. But Aure was watching.
He had followed stories—quiet ones, passed between firelit lips.
"There's a shadow near the eastern ridges." "A blade with no master." "He walks like someone who's already died."
Aure moved past stall after stall—eyes scanning, heart thudding.
And then…
A flicker. A man standing near a fire pit. His cloak heavy with rain. Not looking at them—but through everything.
That stillness. That storm in his bones.
Aure stopped. Breath caught.
It was him. The man from the dream. The one who fell to his knees.
Lian Wolfe.
But he didn't approach. Not yet.
Instead, he stepped into a side alley. Hidden. Watching.
"Why do I remember your eyes, but not your name?"
"Why do I keep having dreams about you?"
"Why does my heart race when you breathe, around me?"
Aure placed a hand by his chest. The glow beneath his skin pulsed once.
He vowed he would find the truth. Even if it shattered him.