Whisper

[Brother Prime]

"I told you what I saw."

"Yer a stinkin' liar Jarrod. Always makin' up stories and draggin' me out here after silly things"

Sally Linefield scowled at her brother as they walked toward Silver Lake. Red curls bounced and sparkled in the light of the new morning. Jarrod walked with purpose his lips a thin line, dark eyes searching for something along the path.

"There! See! I told ya it was here!"

Dirty fingers worked at something caught on a bramble beside the path. His efforts produced a scrap of fabric. Silver it glittered in the sunlight, almost white, but silver. They both recognized it from the stories they had heard. Crazy people that stole eyes for their mad God. This was a scrap of fabric from a robe belonging to the Order of the All. And it was new.

"Jarrod, we'll bring it to father. And from now on, no coming out here by yerself, ya hear?"

Sally grabbed Jarrod by his hand and drug him swiftly back toward the safety of their farm, and the wisdom of their father.

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Here and there, hidden in the shadows, were small markings. One on the corner of the long closed Bakery run by Altias Bromn. One on the windowsill of the home of a portly old man called Treadwell. One on the lowest step of the Broken Dagger. And here and there all over town. Barely something to catch the eye. A casual glance would not see it, but it was there.

The mark of a coiled serpent. A simple drawing of charcoal, which would wash away in the next good rain.

In the early morning hours, a sharp eye might see a cloaked figure moving from the town, a stick of charcoal and a scrap of fabric, marking their presence.