---
Chapter 4: Ashwalkers
The alleys of Litharion twisted like veins in a dead god's heart. Kaelen ran through them blind, feet pounding stone, lungs burning with every breath. The symbol on his chest had faded from sight—but not from feeling. It pulsed with each heartbeat, as if tethered to something vast and waiting just beyond reality.
Behind him, the Sanctum Guard scoured the ruins. Their shouts chased him like hounds.
"Seal the western sector! He's a Marked!"
"By the Core, look at the readings—this one's touched by void!"
Kaelen didn't understand what he had become. Only that he could not stop. Could not be caught. Not now.
He ducked through a half-collapsed grate into the boneworks—Litharion's underworld of tunnels, ossuaries, and forgotten dead. The light above thinned to slivers. The air turned sour, heavy with dust and decay.
Then he heard them.
Footsteps. But not the guards.
These were slower. Wet. Shambling.
Ashwalkers.
They were myths used to scare children—corpses reanimated by exposure to wild fragments of the broken sun. But myths didn't breathe with lungs full of smoke. Myths didn't moan as they dragged broken limbs across stone.
Kaelen backed away, blade trembling in hand. Three figures lurched into view. Skin blackened and flaking. Eyes glowing faint orange. One wore the remnants of a guard's uniform.
The Eclipse symbol flared on Kaelen's chest.
The Ashwalkers froze.
Then dropped to their knees.
Violet fire bled from Kaelen's shadow and coiled around the undead like silk threads.
Kaelen staggered. The connection drained something from him—heat, thought, memory—but it worked.
They rose again.
Not as enemies.
As his first soldiers.