The air in the room was too still.
No wind. No light but the glyph-sheen that pulsed faintly from the threads sewn into the walls. It wasn't meant to be comfortable. It was meant to keep truth from leaking out.
Alaeth stood with her hands folded behind her back, her cloak damp at the hem with street-filth and the slow rot of Drevmor's breath. She hadn't removed her knife. The room allowed that much. Barely.
Across from her, seated at a half-rotten table of veined blackwood, was the one who had once gone by Talith the Archive.
He had no eyes now. Just smooth skin where lids had once been, stitched with soft white glyphs. His lips were inked black, and his mouth never opened when he spoke.
The words came through the threads that ran from the corners of the room into the base of his skull.
"You come to collect a debt."
"No," Alaeth said. "I come to trade."
"With what coin?"
She reached into her cloak and pulled free the bundle—bone-wrapped and sealed with blood thread. She laid it gently on the table. The glyphs along its surface writhed faintly as it touched the wood.
Talith's head tilted.
"This relic is unlisted. It does not exist in the city's registry."
"Good."
"It has Concord weight."
"I know."
"You want to buy time, not truth."
Alaeth's jaw flexed.
"I want a name on the list."
"For whom?"
She didn't speak for a long moment.
Then: "My son."
Talith did not move. But the threads around him vibrated.
"He is unbound. Untested. No faction holds his leash."
"He's held something else."
"That mark. We've heard it's lit. That is not safety. That is invitation."
"I'm not asking for safety."
"He will be tested. They will not show restraint."
"I don't want them to."
"He may die."
"He won't."
The room hummed in response.
"And if he does?"
Alaeth's fingers curled at her sides.
"Then let the ground remember what it tried to bury."
There was silence. The relic on the table throbbed once—an echo of blood through stone.
Talith reached forward with hands that didn't quite look like hands anymore—etched with script, half-translucent, too still. He touched the relic gently, and something hissed beneath the surface of the table.
"There is a space."
Alaeth said nothing.
"It will be given. But no name will protect him inside. The Shroudspire has no friends. Only trials."
She nodded.
"They will see what he is."
"I hope they choke on it."
Talith leaned back.
"He must arrive within three days. The sigil gate will open only once. The Mirefang is permitted to accompany him. But it may not interfere. If it does—he forfeits the seal."
She blinked slowly. "Understood."
Talith's unseen gaze seemed to pierce her anyway.
"Why now, Alaeth? You were never one to surrender him to another's hand."
"I'm not surrendering him," she said. "I'm buying time."
"For what?"
"For him to choose who he becomes—not just what the world expects him to burn."
When she left the chamber, the corridor swallowed her like a throat.
The damp hung heavier than before. Her steps echoed without sound. She climbed back into the city through an old bone-path, emerging behind the relic market just as the sun slipped behind the broken ridge.
She adjusted her cloak.
Her cheek still bore the faint stain from the Concord scout's strike. It didn't hurt anymore. Not the way it had earlier.
Caelen was waiting where she'd left him—eyes a little harder, stance a little taller.
The sun was nearly gone when the streets turned quiet.
Drevmor didn't fall asleep. It just learned when to whisper.
Caelen walked beside Alaeth, the Mirefang padding at his flank like a silent breath made flesh. The market behind them had thinned out—vendors shuttered their stalls, glyph-lamps flickered out one by one, and the streets narrowed into alleys painted in moss, ash, and old blood.
They were three turns from shelter when the wind stopped.
No sound. No scent. Just weight.
The Mirefang froze.
Alaeth did too.
That was all the warning they got.
The first man stepped out of an alcove to the left—short, wide, covered in patched leather with rusted studs. He smiled with cracked teeth and tapped a hooked blade against his thigh.
Behind them, two more dropped from the broken lip of a rooftop—one tall and twitchy, the other squat with a half-burned face and knuckles wrapped in chain. The fourth wasn't in sight yet.
"Evening," the leader said, stepping closer. "Pretty cloak, lady. Pretty beast. Pretty boy. You collecting things, or just flaunting what ain't yours?"
Alaeth didn't answer. Her hand was already on the hilt beneath her cloak.
The burned one sniffed and cracked his knuckles. "Reckon we take the relic and leave 'em bleeding."
The twitchy one nodded toward Caelen. "He's small. Won't fight. Strip him fast."
Caelen tensed.
The Mirefang growled.
But the sound didn't scare them.
It was Alaeth's stillness that did.
The leader clicked his tongue. "Twitch wrong, and we open him first. Got it?"
Alaeth moved.
She was a blur of cloak and blade—faster than she had any right to be. Her knife caught the burned man across the cheek as he lunged, then twisted past his guard to sink deep into his thigh. He screamed and dropped.
The twitchy one lashed out with a chain, catching her shoulder, but she pivoted, drove an elbow into his throat, and kicked him back hard enough to crack ribs.
Steel hissed. Blood struck stone.
Caelen turned—
Too slow.
The fourth man, lean and grinning, stepped from behind a crumbled shrine.
Young. Fast. A thin blade in hand. Not as scarred as the others. Maybe newer to this. Maybe hungrier.
"Well, then," the man said. "You and me."
Caelen raised his fists.
The man laughed.
The first blow knocked him off balance. Not because it was heavy—because it was sharp. A shallow cut across the ribs. Fast. Measured.
Caelen grunted, staggered, swung blindly.
The man ducked and swept his legs.
He hit the ground hard.
Pain lit his ribs. The stone scraped his palms raw.
The man moved in, knife flashing.
Caelen rolled—
Then froze.
Something shifted.
A flicker behind his eyes. Not light. Not sound. A movement that didn't come from him.
His body shifted left—just enough to miss the blade. Not entirely. It sliced across his shoulder.
But not deep.
He got to his feet.
The thug grinned, circling.
Caelen's blood hit the stone, warm and real.
Then it happened again.
Another flicker—this time a stance, a memory of balance.
He moved with it. Not perfect. But enough.
The next strike he blocked—barely—with his forearm.
It hurt like fire. But he stayed up.
The thug's grin faltered. "Not bad."
Caelen lunged—clumsy, fast.
The man dodged easily and caught him in the stomach with the hilt of his blade.
Caelen folded. Gasped.
But when he hit the wall, something clicked.
A step pattern. A grip technique. Not his.
Elbow, twist, drive.
He reacted.
Grabbed the man's wrist as the blade came in again, twisted hard, drove his forehead into the thug's nose.
The man yelped, stumbling back.
Blood spattered the stone.
Caelen didn't wait.
He moved—fast now, not graceful but aggressive. One punch to the gut. A shoulder slam. He wrapped the man's arm, pivoted, and slammed him backward into the alley wall.
The thug crumpled.
Unconscious.
Caelen stood over him, panting.
He tasted blood.
His hands shook.
But he'd done it.
His first fight.
And he was still standing.
He turned—
Alaeth was holding her own. But she was slowing.
The chain-fighter's strikes were getting through. Her cloak was torn. Her shoulder bled.
She dodged a thrust—barely.
Caelen took a step toward her.
A breath away—
And something grabbed his leg.
The thug he'd knocked out.
Not gone.
Not finished.
Caelen fell.
The knife was still in the man's hand.
He raised it.
Caelen reached for the blade at his belt—
And the alley lit with a growl so deep it shattered silence.
The Mirefang moved.
Not fast.
Not loud.
It was surgical.
Its jaws closed on the man's arm before the blade could fall. Bone cracked. The man screamed.
The beast didn't kill him.
It just held him there—bleeding, broken, mouth open in a howl.
Caelen crawled forward, reached for the dropped weapon.
The man twisted toward him—
Caelen drove the blade into his chest.
Not clean. Not fast.
But deep.
The scream cut off.
The man went still.
Caelen's hand slipped from the hilt.
Blood pooled.
He sat back.
And stared.
He didn't drop the knife.
His fingers wouldn't let go.
The man at his feet had gone still, slack-jawed, the blade buried to the hilt just beneath his ribs. His chest had stopped moving. The blood soaked into the alley grime so fast it made no sound.
Caelen stared.
He felt… nothing.
No rush. No thrill.
Just cold.
And breath. Loud in his ears. Ragged. Too much.
The Mirefang sat beside him now, silent, one paw red to the claw. It didn't look proud. It didn't look satisfied.
It looked… calm.
Like this had always been inevitable.
The weight of the knife in his hand began to shift.
He dropped it.
It hit the stone with a flat, wet clack.
The scent hit next—iron and bile, dirt and blood.
His hands were shaking.
He wiped them on his tunic, but the red didn't come off. It smeared. Slick. Alive a moment ago. Now just a stain.
Alaeth limped into view.
She was bleeding—shoulder, thigh, a long line across her cheek—but her blade was still in hand, the steel dripping. One of the attackers lay crumpled behind her. Another had fled, howling and clutching what was left of an arm.
She looked at Caelen.
At the corpse.
And stopped moving.
For the first time in his life, he saw something in her expression that wasn't control.
It wasn't fear.
Not quite.
It was distance.
Like she was measuring him again. From the ground up.
He didn't speak.
She came closer, breath shallow, blood leaving dark trails on her boot.
"Don't look away," she said, voice low. "You owe him that much."
He didn't.
His gaze dropped to the face.
The man's eyes were still half-open. One was glassy. The other had begun to cloud.
His mouth hung slightly ajar. A tooth was chipped. He looked young, now. Not hungry. Not cruel.
Just… still.
Caelen's stomach turned.
He swallowed it.
The Mirefang rose and moved closer.
It sniffed the blood. Then, gently, it licked the back of Caelen's hand—slow, deliberate.
He didn't pull away.
The tongue was warm.
Too warm.
Alaeth crouched beside the body.
She closed the man's eyes with two fingers. Clean. Efficient. Then she looked up at Caelen again.
"You did what you had to."
He didn't answer.
Something behind his eyes itched.
The glyph under his skin—just below the collarbone—fluttered once. A heat. A warning.
He touched the place through his shirt.
It pulsed.
And stopped.
Not now.
Not yet.
He took a step back.
Then another.
His boot slid in the blood and he caught himself on the wall.
The Mirefang followed, matching his pace. It said nothing. Made no sound. But its gaze never left him.
Then he felt it.
Not the glyph.
A presence.
Watching.
He looked up.
And saw her.
Lira stood above them, half-shadowed, one boot braced on the broken lip of a low rooftop.
Her arms were folded, but not tightly. Her hair hung in streaked cords over her shoulder, one lock dyed copper catching the fading light. She wasn't hiding.
She was witnessing.
And she wasn't smiling.
For a moment, Caelen thought she might say nothing.
But she tilted her head, just slightly.
"Didn't think you had it in you," she said.
No mockery.
No praise.
Just fact.
He stared at her.
She stared back.
Then she turned—and was gone.
Alaeth didn't look up.
She only said, "You'll need to wash."
Caelen wiped his hand on his sleeve again.
The blood was dry now.
And it still wouldn't come off.
They were moving again—slow, wounded.
Alaeth limped slightly on the left side. The blood on her cloak had begun to dry into a patchwork of stiff rust. Caelen followed, ribs tight, each breath shallow. His fingers still itched where he'd gripped the knife.
No one spoke.
Not until the Mirefang growled.
It was low. Barely audible.
But it stopped them both.
Alaeth turned just as the fourth attacker stepped out of the alley mouth behind them.
He wasn't like the others.
He was tall, with smooth movements and no smile. No flair. Just the slow, efficient confidence of someone who didn't need to try hard anymore. Twin blades rested at his sides, both curved—not clean weapons, but meant for cutting deep and leaving wounds open.
He looked at the bodies behind them.
Then at Caelen.
Then at Alaeth.
"You made a mess," he said.
Alaeth pushed Caelen behind her, blood dripping from her side.
"Back off."
The man drew one blade, testing its balance.
"You're hurt. He's broken. I do this quick, and I don't charge you for the others."
Caelen tried to step forward. Alaeth caught his arm.
"I'll handle it," she said.
She pulled her knife. Staggered slightly. Reset her footing.
The man came in hard.
The fight lasted seconds.
Alaeth dodged the first strike. Parried the second. But when she turned to cut low, the man's blade curved around her side and struck directly into the shoulder wound she'd taken earlier.
Her breath hitched. Her arm went limp.
The second blade raked her leg.
She fell to one knee.
The man didn't follow up immediately.
He just circled her.
"You should've stayed down."
He slashed again.
This time across her ribs.
Alaeth gasped and dropped the blade.
She collapsed fully—bleeding, hand gripping her side, breath shallow.
"Stop!"
Caelen lunged.
No skill. No weapon. Just fists.
The man turned easily and slammed a boot into Caelen's chest. He hit the wall with a wet thud and slid down, coughing blood.
"Loyal kid," the man muttered.
He grabbed Caelen by the collar and yanked him up. Drove a fist into his gut. Then another into his face.
Lights flickered behind Caelen's eyes.
He fell again.
The world spun.
Stone under his cheek. His mother's blood a few paces away. The man stepping over him, blades ready.
And still—the Mirefang did nothing.
It crouched low across the alley.
Eyes locked not on the attacker.
But on him.
Caelen blinked.
The man's blade tapped his throat.
"Done?"
Caelen coughed.
Then moved.
He grabbed the attacker's wrist—weakly, barely—and tried to twist.
It didn't work.
The man punched him in the jaw.
Caelen collapsed fully.
The blade pressed harder.
And the Mirefang stood.
It didn't roar.
Didn't charge.
It moved.
A blur of fur, bone, and silence.
One moment it was behind the man—watching.
The next, its claws sank into his thigh, tearing upward with a sound like wet paper ripping.
The man screamed.
Dropped the blade.
The Mirefang's jaws snapped around his shoulder, crushing the bone with a sharp crack before it leapt back, vanishing into shadow again.
The attacker fell to the stone—howling, bleeding, crawling.
Alive.
Just barely.
Caelen rolled onto his side, gasping.
His head rang. Blood dripped from his nose.
But he stood.
He walked to the man—who spat curses, pain-drunk, half-conscious.
He didn't speak.
He picked up the fallen blade.
And drove it down.
The alley fell still again.
The man stopped moving.
Caelen let the blade fall.
His hands shook.
His knees buckled.
He sat back, spine against the wall.
The Mirefang came close.
It didn't touch him.
Didn't growl.
Just watched.
Its head tilted—studying him.
Not with pride.
Not even protection.
But with expectation.
It had waited.
It had watched.
It had stepped in only when the breaking point neared.
Alaeth pulled herself upright, using the wall for balance.
Her eyes flicked to the corpse.
Then to her son.
She didn't ask if he was alright.
There was no point.
She just looked at him for a long time.
And said, quietly, "We need to go."
Caelen stood again.
He didn't look at the body.
He didn't cry.
The Mirefang walked beside him, silent.
The blood still hadn't dried on his hands.
And neither of them said a word.