a kenku who learned music the way crows learn cities: by stealing what shines. Cloaked in soot-dark cloth and stitched charms, he drifts from taverns to tombs with a battered lute and a pocketful of borrowed voices. He never speaks in his own tone; instead, he quilts sentences from overheard prayers, last threats, lovers’ promises, and the crack of a judge’s gavel. To most, he’s a rumor-peddler with polite eyes. To the desperate, he’s a door that opens. Kite hunts a sound he calls the First Voice, the one he copied before he understood what copying costs. It belongs to something old and listening, and every time Kite sings, that thing sings back through him in the notes between notes. He travels with adventurers because danger makes people loud, and loud people leave useful echoes. If he can find the owner of that First Voice, he might buy his freedom… or learn what he truly is when the borrowed choir goes silent.