They came for them at dawn.
No warning. No words. Just the shriek of rusted gates and the bark of orders sharpened like blades. The guards moved with mechanical precision — masks of soot-stained bronze, eyes dim behind slits. Their breath hissed through vents like dying coals.
Kaia stood first.
Always first.
Her claws twitched beneath iron cuffs, ears angled for sound, every nerve wound tight. Golden eyes caught the light like twin embers in frost.
Rei rose slower — the weight of sleep clinging to his bones — but he stood without wavering. There was something new in his stance. Not defiance. Not strength.
Balance.
Like the name had become a spine.
The guards didn't separate them.
This time, they were led together. Down.
Past the choking stench of the pits. Past slave pens that reeked of rot and resignation. Past forges that screamed with molten metal and old magic.
Deeper.
Into the oldest bones of Blackstone — a place not built by men, but carved by something that remembered the first sun.
The runes on the walls were cracked, ancient, and still humming. Rei felt them before he saw them — pulsing faintly beneath the surface of his skin, resonating with the brand scorched across his chest.
Kaia felt it too.
Her steps slowed as they approached the door — a towering arch of blacksteel, veins of violet ore threading its frame like lightning caught in stone.
Behind it, something pulsed.
The door groaned open.
They stepped into a chamber of cinders.
A scorched ring of battle-marked stone. Ash that never settled. The air burned cold — the kind of cold that follows fire too hot to comprehend.
And in the center:
A Construct.
Neither man nor beast — a relic of war-forging. Iron sinew over obsidian bone. Runes etched into steel plates, old as forgotten gods. Its chest glowed from within, emberlight flickering like breath.
It did not speak.
It simply waited.
Then — the overseer's voice. Distant. Watching.
"Survive, and you may still be useful.
Die, and your corpses will serve in your place."
No ceremony. No chains.
Just the trial.
The Construct lunged.
Rei barely dodged — an arm like a siege hammer slammed into the ground, shattering stone. Kaia spun low, bone knives flashing as she carved a line along its flank.
"Left side's slower," she barked.
"Joint gaps under the chest plate — aim for those."
Rei didn't argue.
He moved — not like a trained fighter, but like a gamer recognizing a pattern.
Watching. Reacting. Calculating.
The Construct roared — steam hissing from its back vents, limbs glowing red-hot. Kaia flowed through the heat, her blades dancing like shards of moonlight.
The mark throbbed.
Inside Rei's chest, something stirred — awake and hungry.
Feed me.
No, Rei thought. Not now.
He grabbed a shard of steel from the debris and drove it into the Construct's knee joint. Sparks burst. Kaia leapt, twin knives plunging into its throat vent in one swift strike.
A final convulsion.
Then silence.
The Construct collapsed, twitching — steam leaking from split seams.
Above, the overseer's voice echoed once more.
"Interesting..."
The gate opened.
But no chains came.
Only guards — silent, hesitant — who bowed. Slightly. Unwillingly.
Not to slaves.
To survivors.
They weren't led back to the cells.
Instead — a cleaner chamber. Sparse, but with real bedding. Water. Food. A reprieve, not freedom.
But something had shifted.
Kaia sat against the far wall, wrapping a torn bandage around her arm. Her eyes stayed sharp. Watchful. Measured.
Rei stared at his hands. The mark pulsed — softer now. Like it, too, was… waiting.
"You're learning," Kaia said without looking up.
He glanced over. "To fight?"
"To survive."
A beat passed.
Then — "What do I do when surviving isn't enough?"
Kaia's gaze met his. Her voice was calm. Final.
"Then you stop running.
And you fight for something more."
Rei didn't answer.
But for the first time…
He wanted to.