The night split apart.
A thunderous detonation ripped through the air, a sound so deafening that for a single, frozen moment, it erased all others.
Then came the force.
Char barely had time to turn his head before it hit them.
A blast wave of burning air and concussive energy crashed into the rooftops, sending tiles shattering like glass and hurling both him and Ishmael into the void.
For a breathless second, Char was airborne.
He felt the weightlessness, the eerie sensation of being torn from the world—and then gravity seized him.
The street rushed to meet him.
He twisted at the last moment, trying to land properly—failed.
His shoulder, the one already torn by the bullet, slammed against the rain-slick cobblestone with bone-crunching force. A flare of white-hot agony speared through him, sharp enough to steal his breath.
Ishmael landed beside him with a grunt, rolling over his injured thigh. His fingers clawed against the stones, desperate to grip onto something solid.
The world spun.
For a moment, all Char could do was breathe—in, out, in, out— shallow and ragged.
Then, the silence after the explosion peeled away.
And the screaming began.
Char's blurred vision refocused. He pushed himself up, his good arm trembling beneath him. His ears still rang from the blast, but beyond it, he could hear the city wailing.
Oryn-Vel was burning.
Red magic fire climbed the buildings, licking at the walls, pouring from the shattered remains of the city center. From where they lay, Char could see the distant glow of the inferno, the hellish light painting the sky in bleeding shades of crimson.
The third cluster.
It had detonated.
More buildings collapsed in the distance, crumbling into the streets below. The stone itself cracked beneath the consuming flames, the magic making a mockery of solid reality, melting through walls like candle wax.
Char felt something tighten in his chest.
"Shit," Ishmael groaned beside him, trying to push himself up with one arm. His face twisted in pain. His thigh was bleeding again, the deep wound torn open from the rough landing.
Char swallowed against the pain in his own shoulder, blinking away the sweat and rain in his eyes. He turned to Ishmael.
"Are you—" His voice came out hoarse. He coughed. "Are you alive?"
Ishmael gave a strained, humorless chuckle. "Mostly."
Char exhaled. His fingers brushed against the pouch at his side. The Healing Stone.
He hesitated.
His body screamed for it. His shoulder was pulsing, burning, his whole arm tingling with a dull, spreading numbness. Ishmael wasn't in better shape.
But then—
Renna.
Char clenched his jaw.
They had one chance to use it. One. And she needed it most.
He exhaled slowly, forcing the decision from his mind.
Later. If they lived long enough for "later."
"We need to move," Char muttered. "The safehouse is—"
Ishmael cut him off, his voice low, grim.
"Char."
Char looked up.
Ishmael was staring down the street, his jaw tight. His breathing wasn't steady.
Char followed his gaze.
They weren't alone.
Another band of Syndicate members stood not far ahead, a half-dozen men with weapons drawn.
But they weren't attacking.
They weren't even looking at them.
Their faces were twisted, eyes locked on the destruction.
Char saw horror.
The Syndicate—these same men who had slaughtered civilians, burned homes, dragged families from their hiding places—looked afraid.
The red flames reflected in their wide eyes, flickering like the hungry maw of something unstoppable.
"Did you—" One of them swallowed. "Did you see that?"
Another let out a harsh breath. "This wasn't the plan."
"Three," a third whispered, voice barely audible. "Three of them went off."
"Gods help us," another muttered. His hands were shaking. "What the hell did we do?"
Char and Ishmael stayed still.
For the first time, Char felt something new in the air.
Doubt.
Not all of the Syndicate had been clued into the full extent of Varrel's madness. Not all had understood that this was the end goal.
The weight of the destruction was finally hitting them.
One of the men turned his gaze back to Char and Ishmael, his expression twisted between duty and raw, gut-churning dread.
"Get up," he said hoarsely. "You're coming with us."
Char felt his fingers twitch toward his weapon.
Ishmael, still bleeding, let out a slow breath. "No."
The Syndicate member flinched.
There was no mockery in Ishmael's voice. No taunt. No sneer.
Just exhaustion.
Another explosion rumbled in the distance.
One of the men took a staggering step back. Then another.
Then, without a word, he turned and ran.
The others watched him go.
Char could see it—the unraveling. The doubt sinking deep.
He didn't hesitate.
"Let's go," he hissed to Ishmael.
This time, nobody stopped them.
*
The night was thick with smoke, the scent of burning wood and melting stone clogging the air as Char and Ishmael moved through the ruined streets, their bodies aching, their breath ragged, but their hope—fragile and flickering—still alive. Every step forward was a victory, however small, and with each alley they passed, with each turn they took, the path towards the safehouse became clearer.
Then they saw it.
A collapsed shop lay across the street, its wooden beams shattered, its brick walls crumbled into an impassable heap of wreckage. Red embers glowed between the broken planks, the remains of whatever fire had gutted it, and thick, curling smoke twisted into the sky like skeletal fingers reaching toward the heavens.
A dead end.
Char felt his stomach drop, the breath punched from his lungs as the realization sank in. They were trapped. The only way forward had been buried beneath splintered wood and scorched stone, cutting them off completely. The weight of it pressed against his ribs, tight and suffocating, like a slow-crushing vice around his chest.
Ishmael stood motionless beside him, silent as he took in the ruin before them. His face was set in that same impassive mask, his sharp features unreadable in the flickering light of distant fires, but Char knew better. He saw the way Ishmael's fingers twitched at his side, how his breathing deepened, how his jaw clenched just slightly. He was angry.
Not loud, wild, furious anger—cold anger. The kind that settled deep into the bones, that turned into calculated thought rather than reckless action. Ishmael was already analyzing, already thinking of what to do next.
Char wasn't.
His mind was a storm.
The tension, the exhaustion, the mounting pressure—it all snapped at once.
He exhaled sharply, pressing his palms against his head, fingers threading into his hair. His breath came faster, chest rising and falling as his thoughts piled over each other, crashing, spiraling, drowning him.
This city. This damned city. Every path blocked, every moment spiraling into deeper ruin. It was always something. The Syndicate, the fires, the damn crystals—every step forward only led to another dead end.
A body lay near the wreckage. A Syndicate corpse, one of the countless left strewn across the streets like discarded trash. Char barely thought before he swung his foot forward, kicking it hard.
His boot struck the lifeless thing's ribs with a sickening thud, rolling it onto its side. The body flopped limply, arms splaying awkwardly, head lolling back to reveal an empty stare, the glazed-over eyes reflecting the glow of distant flames.
"Gods damn it," Char hissed, his voice trembling. "This—this fucking city! This whole night!" He kicked again, harder, his injured shoulder flaring in pain as he moved, but he didn't care.
He wanted something—anything—to give, to break beneath his anger, to crack under the sheer weight of everything pressing down on him.
The body didn't move anymore. The world didn't change.
Nothing did.
His breathing was ragged, his chest rising and falling unevenly as he turned suddenly, his frayed nerves snapping as he rounded on Ishmael.
"And what, exactly, do we do now?" he spat, his voice sharp and raw. "Huh? Just keep running? Keep waiting for the next fucking explosion to box us in? Keep stumbling around in this godsdamned graveyard and hope we don't get torn apart before we make it out?"
Ishmael didn't react immediately. He simply met Char's glare with those calm, dark eyes. Watching. Waiting. Letting Char's words—his anger, his exhaustion, his fear—spill out unchecked.
Then, he exhaled. Slowly. Controlled. He didn't raise his voice, didn't snarl back, didn't react with the same sharpness.
"We find another way."
Char let out a breathless, humorless laugh. "Another way. Right. Because that's been working so well for us so far."
Ishmael tilted his head slightly, expression still impassive. "Would you rather sit here and scream at me until the fire reaches us?"
Char opened his mouth—then shut it. His hands clenched into fists at his sides.
Ishmael was right. Of course he was.
That only made it worse.
For a long moment, Char said nothing, swallowing against the tangled mess of emotions twisting in his throat. His fingers twitched at his side, and he hesitated, something deeper rising to the surface. Something old. Something that had been gnawing at him since this whole nightmare started.
He could tell him.
He could tell Ishmael the truth.
That he was never supposed to be here. That none of this was real. That all of this, the pain, the death, the fire, him— it all existed because he had written it. That every single person in this city was living a life shaped by the ink of his own hands.
That he created him.
The words clawed up his throat, pressing against his tongue.
But then—
He saw Ishmael's face. The way he stood, weight shifted slightly off his injured leg, one hand pressed against his side, gaze steady and unreadable.
Real.
He was real.
They all were.
And the truth wouldn't change anything.
It wouldn't fix this city. It wouldn't stop the fires. It wouldn't turn back the clock and undo what had already happened. It wouldn't bring back the dead.
It would just make him sound insane.
So Char swallowed it back.
Like always.
Instead, he took a slow breath, steeling himself. His fists unclenched. The storm inside his head still raged, but he forced it to quiet—at least for now.
He glanced away, toward the ruins that blocked their path, the twisted remnants of the shop standing like a tombstone in the flickering red light.
Ishmael watched him for another moment, then exhaled, rolling his shoulder slightly as he adjusted his weight. He didn't say anything else. He didn't need to.
They both knew the truth.
They had no choice but to move forward.