Shadow Without Name

The path stretched long behind him, but Shin didn’t look back.
Nevernight stood distant now, the Iron Lily’s banner long vanished into the haze of the horizon. He followed winding forest trails and lesser-tread paths, letting instinct guide his steps as the day turned gold and then dim.
He moved without purpose-but not without reason.
He needed to be alone.
Shin eventually found shelter in a quiet corner of the city’s eastern district. It was a cramped, modest room above a potter’s workshop-a single bed, a window that rattled when the wind passed, and a chair that wobbled if leaned on wrong. But it was enough.it was his.
The woman who rented it to him didn’t ask questions. She barely looked up from her kiln. That suited him fine.Each morning, he rose with the sun. the bed creaked. The floor was cold. But it felt real. Tangible.
He crooked his own meals-thin soup, bread when he could afford it, dried meat when he couldn’t. no more Iron Lily feasts. No Reina’s sarcasm over the stew, no Kaen stealing his bites off his plates.

Just silence.
He registered himself solo at the guild within a day of returning to Nevernight. Without a full party, the system defaulted him to E-rank. No exceptions, no appeals.
He didn’t argue.
The clerk-a young girl with tight curls and ink-stained hands-offered him a sympathetic glance. “You can always rejoin a team, you know.”
“I know,” he said.
She didn’t ask why he wouldn’t.
The forest to the north became his new training ground.

Every morning, after his breakfast of hard bread and dried pears, he took the winding trail past the outer farms and into the trees. He found a clearing with a single moss-covered stone in the centre and made it his own.
There, he trained.

Sword swings. Footwork. Breathing techniques Kael once drilled into him. He practiced until sweat soaked through his tunic and his arms trembled from the repetition.

Sometimes he shouted. Sometimes he was silent for hours.
The trees didn’t answer. That helped.
When the light began to shift and shadows stretched long, he would sit on the moss stone, catching his breath. And wait.
Wait to see if the thing inside him stirred.
It didn’t. Not always. Sometimes it pulsed faintly-a flicker in the back of his mind, like a sleeping ember shifting in the ashes. Other days, it felt dormant.
Those were the better days.
But on the worse days, he could feel it rise-an aching presence under his skin. A weight that didn’t belong to him. And when it passed, he would sit there for hours longer, hands clenched tight, heart steadying. The moss beneath him grew familiar, like a witness to his unrest. Even the squirrels had stopped scurrying near him.

E-rank quests were a far cry from what he used to face.
Delivering parcels. Retrieving cats. Clearing pests. None of it brought pride. But pride wasn’t what he sought.
He delivered letters across Nevernight, walking the cobbled streets with a hood low over his face. He climbed trees to retrieve lost trinkets for children. He helped a farmer wrangle his escaped goats-earning a bruised and a laugh from an old woman who reminded him of Reina.They paid in coin or barter. One man gave him a loaf of nut bread and an old journal bound in cracked leather.
That night, Shin read it cover to cover. It was a traveller’s diary-half poetic, half-mad. There were passages about lost ruins and whispers of ancient flame sealed beneath the world. Names he didn’t recognize. Symbols that echoed faintly in his memory.
He began circling entries in red ink.
Maybe one would lead him somewhere. To answers. To understanding.
To whatever this power inside him really was.

He began sketching the ruins, writing notes in the margins, drawing connections between scribbled verses and distant geography. It gave him something to do, something to anchor his thoughts beyond sword drills and wandering ghosts.
On the fifth day of solitude, rain fell over Nevernight.
Not a storm-just a long, soft drizzle that blurred the world in silver mist. His boots left prints in the wet soil as he walked the trail to the clearing, cloak pulled tight around his shoulders.
He didn’t train that day. Just stood.
The forest felt different when wet. Softer. Quieter. Even the birds seemed to hush.

He drew his sword.
Held it steady.
And waited.
“Show me,” he murmured. “What are you?”
Nothing happened.
He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe there was no cursed flame inside him. Maybe he was just broken, not burdened.
Maybe.

But he didn’t believe that.
Not entirely.
By the seventh day, rumours began to circulate in the guild.
Someone had seen Shin in the outer fields, slaying a feral beast with a single strike. Someone else claimed they saw a shadow rise behind him-dark wings or smoke or something worse.
He heard the whispers as he turned in his quest forms.
“The Iron Lily guy.”
“He’s solo now?”“Heard he talks to himself in the woods.”
He didn’t correct them.but part of him wondered how long he’d be able to stay unnoticed.
Or if he ever really was.
That evening, he returned to his room, dried his cloak, and lit a candle on the sill.

He sat at his desk-the one leg still wobbled-and opened the journal the old man had given him. He copied symbols into his notebook, one by one, and marked locations on a crude map of the surrounding wilds.
Some sites were near old shrines. Some were ruins that had long disappeared from official charts.
One in particular-circled in bold red-lay to the east, just beyond the ghost wood river. A place called “Rift Hollow.” The name alone felt like it belonged in a dream he’d half-forgotten. The more he stared at it, the more a creeping sense of familiarity coiled in his stomach.
He stared at the map for a long time.
Then, he sat in silence.
The candle flickered.
And, faintly, in the back of his mind-something stirred.
Not a threat.
A presence. Old. familiar.
Waiting.

He remembered the flare from the battle at Black Hollow. How it tore through him like wildfire and shadow. How it moved not like magic, but like a living thing.
He’d thought it was Kaen’s near-death, or Reina’s scream that awoke it.
But what if it had always been there?
Dormant. Watching.
Whispering.
He leaned forward, hands pressed against the table, brows furrowed.
“Why now?” he whispered. “Why me?”
The flame, or whatever it was, gave no reply. But its silence was never empty.
On the ninth day, he stood before the guild board, staring at an odd posting-a request for someone to investigate strange markings found on stone pillars near the abandoned shrine paths.
He recognized the symbols. The same ones in the journal.
He took the job.
Didn’t hesitate.
As he left the guild, someone called out to him.
“Hey! Shin, right? You used to be on Iron Lily?”
He paused.
Turned slightly.

A younger adventurer, probably new to town, looked at him with both awe and fear. “Are the rumours true? About what happened out there?
About… the fire?”
Shin didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said, simply, “You should be careful with rumours.”
And walked away.

That night, he sharpened his blade by candlelight, oiling the hilt and polishing the worn leather grip. It was something Kael had taught him-how to maintain a weapon like it was an extension of the self.
But as he stared at the blade’s reflection, he couldn’t help but wonder:
Was the weapon still his?
Or had something else taken hold of it?
Of him?
Tomorrow, he would visit one of the shrines listed in the journal.
He didn’t know what he’d find.
But it was a path.
And for now, that was enough.