The midday heat was brutal, baking the stone paths and coating the timber-framed houses in a harsh, golden glare. Outside the tavern door, the crowd’s mood was already curdling. People clumped tightly together, shoulders hunched as a quiet panic rippled straight through the square.
"-struck again, they're saying it's the Heretic"
"an entire temple, gone overnight. Nothing left but shattered stone."
"and not a single soul made it out alive?"
Neighbors threw nervous glances over their shoulders, tracking the long shadows on the cobblestones. They dropped their voices to a breathless rasp, terrified that speaking the name too loudly might draw something dreadful straight out of the woods.
"What if our valley is next?"
"The Knight Order still hasn't tracked him down?"
"How could they? The bastard doesn't have a face. It's like he dropped right out of the sky."
Step across the threshold into the tavern, though, and the suffocating panic met a bizarre, physical border. The room was packed with shouting patrons and scraping chairs, yet a strange irregularity broke the layout of the space. Deep in the far corner, a single table sat completely isolated.
A young man lounged there with one leg crossed over his knee. He was strikingly handsome, his golden hair catching the dim light filtering through the rafters, yet the space around him remained entirely vacant. Whenever someone pushed through the crowded aisles, they would inexplicably veer off course, stepping away from his table without ever realizing why. A busy maid carrying a heavy tray walked right past, her eyes sliding across the wood wall as if the corner were completely empty. People felt a phantom weight in that direction, a subtle, heavy pressure that made their instincts uneasy, but their brains completely refused to register the person causing it.
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Hidden in plain sight, Lucien raised his long fingers to his temple, idly twirling a strand of golden hair around his index finger. His movements were slow, rhythmic, completely devoid of warmth. He watched the shouting villagers with the cold, clinical curiosity of a scientist observing insects through glass; their life-or-death terror didn't even register as a threat to him. He caught a stray, pungent whiff of spilled, sour ale from the next table over and slightly wrinkled his nose. That fleeting, mundane annoyance mattered more to him than the mythical weight of the room's panic.
A few feet away, a burly local slammed his mug against the counter, slopping foam over the rim.
"The Knights are tearing the province apart looking for him, but it's a fool's errand," the man barked. "Nobody knows his face. It’s like the son of a bitch just materialized out of thin air."
Knight Order.
Lucien's hand froze mid-motion, his finger still hooked tightly in the curl of his hair. The wooden chair beneath him creaked sharply as his weight shifted, his entire posture locking up under a sudden, hidden tension. His gaze lost focus, staring blankly into the dark grain of the table.
The tavern walls dissolved.
In their place rushed a roaring, multicolored fire consuming a massive cathedral while the sky overhead split along invisible seams, cracking apart like shattered glass. Then, a jagged scream ripped through the darkness
"Help us! For pity's sake, somebody save us!"
and his breath caught visibly in his throat.
He blinked, his chest heaving as he forced the memory back down into the dark. He carefully uncoiled his finger from his hair, letting the golden strand fall back into place, and reached for his drink. On the table, the surface of his ale rippled slightly from the faint, involuntary tremor in his hand.
The room actively chose not to look at him. He was still just an invisible ghost staring into space, his face a mask of absolute indifference.
They were hunting the Heretic. They were turning over every stone in the kingdom for the faceless ghost who appeared out of nowhere.
They were looking for him.