"Move, boy! The runes are turning black!"
Kael dropped his breakfast bowl as the second tremor hit. Thin gruel splattered across cracked stone while the tenement walls groaned around him. His foster mother, Meren, gripped the doorframe with white knuckles.
"What's happening?" she asked.
Through their single window, Kael could see the Dungeon Garden's protective sigils flickering. Gold light turned sickly yellow, then darker.
"I don't know."
The silver line along his forearm began to burn. His bloodline mark had never reacted this strongly before. Not even during the cultivation exercises he practiced in secret.
The third tremor split the obsidian street below. Violet flame erupted from the fissures. Then the screaming started.
"The Garden's breached!" someone shouted from the street.
Kael grabbed his emergency pack. Three days of dried meat, water purification tablets, basic medical supplies. Every Common Blood kept one ready.
"Kael, where are you going?"
