"Kaelen, just do it," Kai growled. He felt the shackle pulse; a tiny, rhythmic sting that told him the light towers were still pinging his location through the stone ceiling.
"The blue is at the knuckle. I don't have time for the history lesson."
Kaelen reached under the bar and pulled out a heavy lead-lined box. Inside was a void sleeve; a wrap made of Shadow Stalker hide cured in mineral acid.
"This will mask the signal, but it's going to itch like a thousand creepers. And I won't accept prices like salt or gold. I need a pair of steady hands for a drainage job in the sump level sewers. The salt crust is blocking the main vents, and the church won't send their spark boys down into the rot."
"I am a swordsman, not a plumber," Kai said, but he took the sleeve. He wrapped it over the shackle.
Instantly, the numbing chill of the white steel was replaced by a hot, itchy sensation. The blue light of the runes faded. Suppressed by the Void skin.
"In this city, you are whatever the salt makes you," Kaelen replied, sliding a bowl of thick, brown stew toward Mirir.
The girl looked at Kai for permission. He gave a sharp nod, and she began to eat, her small hands shaking less than they had at the gate.
Elara leaned against the bar, her eyes scanning the room for threats.
"We have the Service pass, Kaelen. Can we use it to get to the High Cathedral? We need to find a way to stabilise the girl's spark potential before the orphanage finders come looking."
Kaelen leaned in close, his voice dropping to a whisper that barely cleared the hum of the lamps.
"The Cathedral isn't a hospital, Merchant. It is a refinery. If you take that girl there, they won't fix her. They will distill her, you know what I mean?
Do you want real help? You will have to find the Apostate. He is hiding somewhere in the sump level, and he is the only one who knows how to break a shackle without killing the wearer."
The basement of the Ash pit was a graveyard of broken things. Below the main tavern floor, the walls were lined with lead sheets that had been hammered flat and nailed over the stone.
"Surveillance dead zone," Kaelen whispered, holding a dim spark lantern high. The yellow light flickered weakly, struggling against the heavy dampness of the sump.
Kail followed him into a cramped workshop. The workbench was covered in rusted clockwork, shattered halo stones, and bits of charred leather.
Kaelen pointed to a chair bolted to the floor. "Sit. If the shackle senses a spike while I am working, it will try to fuse your wrist bone to the steel. I need you anchored."
Kai sat, the void sleeve itching like a burn against his skin. He looked at Miri, who was standing by the door, clutching a piece of salt pork from the tavern above.
"Stay with Elara," Kai said. "This isn't something you need to watch."
'I have seen enough, Kia," she said, her voice small but firm. " I am not leaving."
Kaelen didn't but in. He picked up a pair of heavy, iron-jawed pliers and a vial of void acid,
"The Apostate…he was a high scholar of the spark. He realized that the pure light isn't a gift from the sun; it is a filter. It takes the natural red fire and strips away humanity, leaving only a cold, kinetic force. That's why the church warriors lose their pigment. They are being bleached from the inside out."
"Less talk, more dampening," Kai grunted.
Kaelen poured a drop of the acid onto the shackle's hinge. A hiss of violet smoke rose, smelling of dead wood rotting. Kai's jaw clenched. The shackle made a high-pitched, metallic keening that filled the room, vibrating through Kai's teeth.
"Easy!" Kaelen barked, seeing the Fire Mark on Kai's shoulder start to bleed a dull, angry orange. "If you flare now, you will trigger the kinetic pulse. Think of something cold. Think of something like dead woods or mines."
Kai shut his eyes. He started to think of the weight of The Scourge in his hand. He thought of the flow and began to imagine the heat in his blood slowing down, turning from a river of lava into a stagnant pool of oil. The vibration in the shackle slowed.
"Good," Kaelen breathed, wiping sweat from his brow. He slid a thin needle of shadow lead into the hinge. The blue light of the runes flickered and died. The tether was broken; not removed, but just blinded.
"You are off the grid, Hearth Guard. But it is just for some time. Vane isn't that stupid. When his light towers stop reporting your heartbeat, he will start searching the sump first house by house."
Kai stood up, rotating his shackled wrist. It still felt heavy, but the hook in his soul was gone. He looked at Kaelen.
"The drainage job. When do I start?"
"Tonight," Kaelen said, his eyes turning toward the dark, wet tunnel at the back of the workshop.
"The salt crust in the main vent is glowing purple. That means a Creeper Queen is nesting. If we don't clear it, the sump floods with salt waste, and the church will use it as an excuse to purify the whole district."
The entrance to the sump sewers was a rusted iron grate that leaked a constant stream of grey, mineral-heavy sludge. Kai stood at the lip of the dark tunnel, checking the straps on his boots. The void sleeve on his wrist felt like a hot coal, but it was doing its job; the shackle remained dark and silent.
"Don't touch the water," Kaelen warned, handing Kai a heavy, oilskin lantern. "The runoff is eighty percent Halo Stone waste. It will strip the skin right off your bones, and the red in your blood will react to it like a match to dry wood."