Word traveled fast in the places few dared to look.
By the end of the week, whispers of strange movements reached even the darkest corners of the city. Loyalists gathering. Old oaths being dusted off like relics from a forgotten age. A name, spoken in low tones behind closed doors:
Vane.
Most dismissed it as a myth. A ghost story for those who still clung to the past.
But some knew better.
In the private room of a speakeasy hidden below the eastern docks, a group of five men and women sat in a thick cloud of cigar smoke. Their suits were sharp, their smiles sharper. These weren't businessmen, not truly. They were predators—ruthless operators who had survived the collapse of the Vane dynasty by tearing apart the pieces left behind.
Now they controlled the undercurrents of the city—the "Hollow Society" Balen had warned of.
And they had felt the shift.
"The reports are consistent," said a man with slicked-back hair, his fingers tapping against a glass of bourbon. "A Vane heir is moving. Quietly. Gathering support."
"A boy," sneered a woman with diamond earrings and venom in her eyes. "Nothing more. The Vanes are dust."
"Perhaps," said the third, older and more careful, "but we don't survive by ignoring threats."
Silence settled over the table. All of them remembered the stories—the way the Vane family had once ruled not with armies, but with loyalty and fear, binding the hidden powers of the city to their cause.
The Vanes had been protectors.
And executioners.
If even a fraction of that legacy remained, it could not be left unchecked.
"What do we do?" asked the youngest, a man still too green to fully mask his nerves.
The eldest leaned forward, his smile thin and cold.
"We test him."
Meanwhile, Alaric moved through the city like a ghost.
Every meeting with potential allies was another thread woven into his growing web. Each conversation was deliberate, careful. No grand speeches. No promises of glory. Only simple, iron-clad truths.
"I don't need worshippers," he told them. "I need people who fight for what's rightfully ours—and protect it like their own."
Vin Drake became the first to fully swear loyalty. Others began to follow: a silent woman who ran a private courier service with ties to old Vane information networks; a pair of twin brothers who had once guarded hidden estates now lost to history; a former city official who owed Harold Marrow debts that could never be repaid.
Slowly, the pieces came together.
But Alaric knew better than to believe his rise would go unnoticed.
One evening, just as he finished locking the hardware store for the night, he noticed them.
Two men across the street, pretending to argue over a map.
Another leaning against a lamppost, fiddling with his phone but never typing.
Their body language screamed danger to anyone who knew how to read it.
Alaric didn't react. He tucked his hands into his pockets and walked calmly down the street, feeling the pulse of awareness thrumming through him. The Vane bloodline didn't panic. It didn't flee.
It waited.
Watched.
Prepared.
At the first alleyway, he slipped into the shadows, letting the old breath techniques cloak his steps. The world blurred around him—the sounds of the city dulling, his body moving with the practiced silence of an unseen blade.
When the men followed, he was already behind them.
The first dropped with a precise strike to the back of the knee, collapsing silently onto the slick pavement. The second spun too late, and Alaric disarmed him in a flash, wrenching the weapon from his grip and pressing him hard against the brick wall.
"Who sent you?" Alaric asked, his voice low, almost a whisper.
The man said nothing—just sneered.
Alaric tightened his grip, applying pressure to a nerve point that made the man's body seize.
"I won't ask twice."
Through gritted teeth, the man spat one word:
"Hollow."
Alaric stepped back, letting the man crumple to the ground gasping.
Hollow.
Balen had been right.
The past wasn't just watching.
It was moving against him.
And Alaric Vane was ready.
He turned and vanished back into the night, the pendant warm against his chest, the pulse of destiny beating louder with every step.
The real war was beginning.
And this time, he would not lose.