Kael ran until his lungs burned and his legs threatened to fold beneath him.
The corpse pit narrowed into a drainage tunnel carved through the bedrock beneath Blackspire City. Water trickled along the floor, slick with ash and rot. The darkness pressed close, broken only by the distant glow of torches behind him and the frantic echoes of boots on stone.
"Inquisitors confirmed," a voice shouted above. "Lock the lower gates. Seal the drains."
Kael did not know where he was going.
He only knew he could not stop.
Every breath scraped his throat raw. His chest felt too tight, like something had wrapped itself around his ribs from the inside. Beneath his tattered shirt, the presence pulsed again, slow and heavy, like a second heart that did not belong to him.
It felt aware.
That terrified him more than the pursuit.
Kael slipped, catching himself against the tunnel wall. His palm came away black with grime and blood. He forced his legs to move again.
Think. Do not panic. Panic kills faster than any blade.
The words were not new. They were what he told himself every time a whip cracked or a guard raised his boot. Survive first. Understand later.
Behind him, the sound changed.
It was not just boots anymore.
There was a hum now. Low and steady. It vibrated through the stone, through his bones.
Authority.
Kael did not know the word, but his body did. The thing inside him recoiled slightly, then tightened, like a beast bracing itself.
Light flooded the tunnel.
Kael twisted into a side passage just as a beam of white fire carved through the space he had occupied. Stone exploded. Heat scorched his back. He screamed as pain flared across his shoulder.
He rolled, came up hard, and kept running.
"Target confirmed," a calm voice echoed. Female. Unhurried. "Subject exhibits anomalous authority resonance. Kill on sight."
Kill.
Not capture. Not question.
That word settled into Kael's mind with terrible clarity.
They were not here to put him back in chains.
They were here to erase him.
The side passage ended abruptly at an iron grate half collapsed from age and neglect. Beyond it lay the old sewer lines, abandoned after the eastern districts were rebuilt. Kael hurled himself forward, slamming his shoulder into the rusted bars.
Pain exploded. The grate held.
Another hum built behind him, stronger now. Closer.
Kael slammed into the grate again. Metal screamed. Rust flaked. Something inside his chest surged, hot and insistent.
No.
Not now.
He did not understand it. Did not trust it. But the alternative was death.
Kael pressed his blood slicked hand against the iron.
The presence answered.
Cold flooded outward, not into his body but through it, as if his bones were suddenly hollow conduits. The iron beneath his palm groaned. The rust blackened, spreading in branching lines.
Then the metal collapsed inward like wet clay.
Kael stumbled through as the grate crumpled behind him.
He did not stop to look.
The sewer swallowed him whole.
Darkness returned, thick and absolute. The hum faded slightly, muffled by distance and stone. Kael ran until the ground sloped downward and his feet splashed into standing water.
He finally collapsed against the wall, sliding down until he sat knee deep in filth, gasping.
His shoulder throbbed. His chest burned. His hands shook so badly he had to clench them into fists.
"What are you," he whispered, voice breaking.
The presence did not answer with words.
Instead, it showed him something.
A flicker of memory that was not his.
A noble hall. Pillars carved with sigils. A man kneeling before a dais, fear sharp and humiliating in his chest. A name spoken with reverence. Authority recognized and affirmed.
Then the memory shattered, devoured, leaving only scraps.
Kael doubled over and vomited into the water.
When he straightened, tears burned his eyes, half from pain, half from something else he did not want to name.
He had taken something.
Not strength. Not skill.
Standing.
The right to exist above others.
That realization hit harder than any blow.
The world above was built on invisible lines. Who could speak. Who could command. Who could kill without consequence. Kael had crossed one of those lines and torn it out of someone else's hands.
That was why they were here.
That was why they would not stop.
Footsteps echoed again, distant but deliberate. The hum returned, fainter than before but still there.
"They split," another voice said. Male this time. Annoyed. "Subject breached containment zone with unknown authority interaction."
"Impossible," the woman replied. "He is untrained."
"So was the last anomaly," the man said. "Until it wasn't."
Kael forced himself to his feet.
He could not outrun them forever. He could not fight them. Not like this. Not injured, starving, shaking.
Think. Use the city. Use what you know.
The sewers forked ahead. One path led deeper, toward the river outlets. The other sloped upward, toward the forgotten underdistricts where the poor had once lived before Blackspire outgrew them.
People hid there.
People who hated the city above.
Kael turned toward the underdistricts.
As he moved, the presence stirred again, less violently this time. It pressed something into his awareness, not knowledge exactly but instinct.
He could feel lines now.
Not tunnels or walls.
Lines of weight. Of recognition. Of who mattered and who did not.
Ahead, somewhere above, those lines burned bright and rigid. Inquisitors. Anchored by something vast and sanctioned.
Below, in the underdistricts, the lines were frayed, weak, tangled.
Safer.
Kael climbed.
The climb was agony. Every step pulled at his wounded shoulder. His vision swam. Twice he nearly slipped back into the dark.
But he kept moving.
He had not survived this long by giving up when things hurt.
The sewer spat him out into a collapsed cellar beneath a ruined tenement. Moonlight filtered through broken boards. The air smelled of mold and old smoke.
Voices drifted from above.
Low. Suspicious.
Kael froze, heart hammering.
He waited, counting breaths, until the footsteps in the sewers faded farther away.
Only then did he pull himself up and peer through the cracked floor.
Three figures huddled around a low fire in what had once been a common room. Ragged cloaks. Knives within reach. Underfolk. Scavengers. The kind who disappeared if the guards asked questions.
One of them looked up suddenly, eyes narrowing.
"Someone's there," she said.
Kael had a choice.
Hide and hope.
Or step forward and risk everything.
He was tired of hoping.
Kael pushed the boards aside and dropped into the room.
The knives came out instantly.
"Easy," Kael said, hands raised, voice hoarse. "I'm not here for trouble."
One of them laughed. "That's what trouble always says."
The woman studied him closely. Her gaze flicked to his torn clothes, his bloodied shoulder, the brand on his collarbone.
Then her eyes widened slightly.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
"You," she said quietly. "Something's wrong with you."
Kael swallowed. "I know."
Above them, far away, a bell rang once.
Then again.
Then a third time.
A city wide alert.
The woman cursed under her breath. "Inquisitors," she said. "They don't ring the bells unless something big broke."
All eyes turned back to Kael.
For the first time since the corpse pit, Kael felt it clearly.
The lines shifted.
Not much. Just a fraction.
But the room felt different.
Like the world was deciding how dangerous he was.
Kael met their stares and made his choice.
"They're looking for me," he said. "If you help me hide, I can make it worth your while."
The presence in his chest pulsed, slow and approving.
Outside, the bells kept ringing.
And somewhere above Blackspire City, the system adjusted its priorities.