CHAPTER 6 THE QUEST YOU CAN'T DECLINE
The shrine didn't sleep.
The stones creaked under the fog, as if something massive were turning over in its dreams.
Kael sat with his back against the altar, knees drawn up, eyes on the darkness where the city lights bled faintly through the mist. Riven paced a shallow groove into the floor.
The Apex Core had gone quiet.
That was worse than the noise.
Then the words burned into Kael's vision.
PRIORITY DIRECTIVE ISSUED.QUEST TYPE: IRREVERSIBLE.OBJECTIVE: EXECUTE HUMAN TARGET.TARGET: CLAN ENFORCER — IDENTIFICATION PENDING.FAILURE CONDITION: HOST TERMINATION.
Kael's throat closed.
Execute.
Not defeat. Not survive.
Kill.
He blinked hard. The words didn't go away.
Riven noticed him go pale. "What is it?"
Kael forced the words past his teeth. "It wants me to murder someone."
Silence swallowed the shrine.
Riven's eyes flicked to the broken doorway, to the fog outside, then back to Kael. "We've killed monsters."
"This isn't that."
Riven hesitated. "Who?"
Kael shook his head. "It hasn't… it hasn't picked yet."
A tremor ran through him, not fear, but something closer to grief.
Riven sat across from him. "Then we choose who deserves it."
Kael stared at his hands. They still looked like hands. Scarred, shaking, human.
"I don't want this," Kael said.
Riven's voice softened. "None of us get to want the world we're born into."
The Apex Core pulsed.
TARGET ACQUIRED.CLAN ENFORCER: SILAS MORR.STATUS: ACTIVE HUNTER.TIME LIMIT: 01:00:00.
Kael felt it then.
Not the man.
The certainty.
Somewhere in the city, a person was now defined only by how long he had left.