The rooftops of Londinium hadn't changed, even after a long while away. The skyline was still jagged with chimney stacks and tilted roof edges, all dusted in soot.
Smoke drifted lazily upward into the night sky, where the stars struggled to shine through the thick, gray mist.
But to Everan Valen, everything felt different, like a staged play performed with the right props but the wrong script.
He stood atop the edge of a crumbling building, his boots steady on the stone despite the slope, his long coat fluttering at his sides as the wind blew.
The wind was damp and sharp with coal smoke and the stink of the Thames. It crawled up his clothes, brushing against his throat like fingers.
Below, gaslights flickered in their iron cages, stretching in narrow lines along the cobbled road, pale and sickly like dying stars barely brightening up the dark.
Once, this view had filled him with something closer to hunger, a predator's alertness. The city teemed with life, blood, secrets, and sin.
It had sung to him in a dozen languages, and all of them were familiar, but now? He didn't feel anything.
He blinked slowly, his vision blurred again, unusually. That had been happening more often since he came back, the sharpness that once let him pick out a heartbeat from a block away had dulled.
His ears picked up the sounds of the city: a baby crying in the distance behind thin walls, boots walking on wet concrete, laughter laced with alcohol, but they all came to him like echoes filtered through cotton.
The worst part was the ache he felt constantly, not the kind he was used to. His fangs throbbed inside his mouth, not with hunger, but pressure. A slow grind, like they were pushing against bone that refused to yield.
He felt something unusual the moment he stepped back into Londinium. The city had always been dangerous, but now its silence felt like a personal threat.
He moved without thinking, jumping across the gap between buildings. The wind caught him mid-air, and for a moment, he felt weightless.
He landed on the next roof, harder than he'd expected. His knees absorbed the shock, but the jolt of pain rattled up his spine, and he stumbled, caught himself on a chimney ledge, and hissed.
"Sloppy," he muttered, his voice rough from the constant silence. He hadn't spoken in days, or probably weeks, and it wasn't just because of the city, it was mainly him.
Everan took a slow breath, the cold filling his lungs as fog rolled over the rooftops like living things, curling around brick and tiles, coiling around his boots.
The fogs here had always been thick in Londinium, but this fog tasted different, almost sweet.
Then, in the distance, he heard a whisper, and he spun quickly. "Who's there?" His voice cracked.
But it was nothing, just the mist. But the feeling stayed, like a thread pulling at the back of his mind. Like he was being followed by someone or something.
He dropped to a crouch and moved again, more carefully this time. His boots touched down soundlessly, years of habit making up for the sluggishness in his limbs.
He moved across the rooftops like a shadow with weight, ducking low beneath arching beams and half-collapsed chimneys. The city sprawled around him, a maze of light and darkness, sound and silence.
He caught a glimpse of a woman stumbling in the alley below him. Her dress was torn, her hair, tangled. A man followed close behind her, shouting. He was probably drunk or angry, or a mixture of both.
Everan paused. The old part of him, the one that used to revel in justice delivered in silence, stirred. One step, and he could be down there, and the man would never raise a hand again.
But the ache in his teeth returned—it was stronger now and distracting. Then the whisper came again. He turned from the scene and vanished into the mist.
His estate waited at the far edge of the district, buried behind wrought-iron gates and walls wrapped in ivy.
The ride through the city had been uneventful. Few people remember him now, and fewer still dared question a figure dressed in black moving through the night.
The world had become accustomed to monsters, so they weren't surprised when they saw one.
The gate creaked open as he pushed it, rust flaked off the hinges. The house loomed beyond, three stories of stone, the windows dark.
His once-proud garden was strangled by weeds, the fountain cracked and dry.
Inside the house, dust coated everything. The air smelled like rot and old wood. His footsteps echoed through the halls as he walked past the portraits, faces of his ancestors, all long dead before he was born.
He stopped right in front of one, his own portrait, hung in the main corridor, cloaked in red, his eyes proud and cold.
He stared at it for a long time. The man in the painting looked like a stranger to him, felt foreign.
He built a fire in the hearth out of habit more than need. The flames danced against the soot-black walls, throwing long shadows across the room.
He pulled off his gloves and flexed his fingers. They were pale and cold. He was losing something, but what was it?
He sat down in the armchair by the fire and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, gazing into the flames. His thoughts churned slowly, like mud. There had been a time when everything made sense to him.
When his mind moved like clockwork, precise, sharp, and accurate.
Now, there were gaps. Blank spots in his memory. The entire night felt different.
Something had followed him out of where he had been. Something in him had changed.
Everan closed his eyes. The fire crackled, and he could feel the surrounding city.
He whispered into the empty room, just to hear the sound of his own voice, "Why did I come back?"