Kael tore through the streets like a storm, a blur of motion and intent. He vaulted barrels, cleared walls, his boots slamming cobbles in a staccato rhythm. Every stride was calculation and fury. He angled west, adjusting course toward the flare that split the night sky like a wound.

  A narrow gangway appeared—he took it at a sprint, boots hammering against damp stone. Up a barrel, over a fence. He ran the wall’s edge, shoes scraping grit, then sprang to a second-story balcony. No hesitation. He leapt again—third-story rooftop garden, then across the yawning gap to a tiled roof beyond.

  He didn’t stop.

  Didn’t slow.

  Roof tiles cracked underfoot. Chimneys blurred past. Every motion was reckless precision—death defied by muscle memory.

  Lucien was hurt.

  Lucien.

  A blade-master. A killer touched by the gods. An angel of death in Kael’s service.

  If he was injured, then whatever they were chasing wasn’t just dangerous. It was something else entirely.

  Kael ran faster.

  Kael’s scars flared before his eyes caught up—raw magic tearing through the city’s rhythm.

  A blast of lightning split the night to his right. He veered hard, adjusting instinctively, tracking the scent of ozone and the charged bite in the air. Another arc crackled out, slamming into cobblestone. Stone exploded, fragments clattering like shrapnel across the street. His scars pulled, throbbing with warning. Close now.

  Then ice bloomed—a jagged, glittering shockwave across the amber-lit street, erupting into splinters under the glow of the lamps.

  Fuck. Two confirmed—one stormcaster, one frost. Mid-tier, sure. But double-casting was death in motion.

  And then he felt it.

  A healing matrix—gentle, invasive, threading through the noise like silk over a blade. Light ignited the side street.

  Priest. Shit. That’s three.

  Steel rang out ahead—metal on metal—followed by the thunder of hooves and a clatter of wheels.

  Then he saw it.

  Three armored caravans attached in a row barreling through the city, pulled by horses foaming at the mouth. Carts reinforced like war wagons. Lucien and Kavari were already in the storm, locked in vicious melee at the rear. The third cart rocked with the chaos of the fight, tipping footing into a deadly gamble. Black-leathered mercs swarmed them—too many, too fast.

  Kael’s gaze snapped forward. Three figures in robes stood braced atop the lead cart, mage cores pulsing in their hands. In front of them in the second, more muscle packed into the second cart like wolves behind a gate.

  Fuck. This was wrong.

  Too many. Too prepared. Too well-funded.

  His gut twisted. No time.

  He sprinted harder, heart hammering against his ribs.

  Then—he jumped.

  Launched himself off an overhang like a damned spear hurled by the gods, cutting through the night toward the front cart and its spell-choked core.

  As he flew, the scene around him sharpened in frozen clarity.

  Lucien, face streaked with blood, blade locked with a brute twice his size.

  Kavari—barely human in that moment—tearing into a merc’s throat, eyes wild, jaws red, surrounded by carnage.

  Blood sprayed across the third cart, streaking it like warpaint.

  Flesh and sinew tore free in arcs that glittered red beneath the amber street lamps. Severed limbs bounced along the cobblestones as the armored caravan surged through the city like a runaway beast.

  Kael bared his teeth mid-flight.

  This is going to hurt. He angled toward the front cart with the mages but miscalculated the speed of the caravan.

  Kael hit the second cart like a siege javelin fired from a Dwarvin engine.

  Three mercs flew. Screams cut short as they slammed into cobblestone—wet, meaty thuds cracking the night. One bounced under the third cart’s wheels. Steel screamed. The whole caravan rocked from the impact.

  Kael landed hard.

  Something popped in his knee. His shoulder wrenched sideways. A rib snapped. Pain flared—but the sway of the cart gave him just enough cover to rise as the mercs did the same.

  Blades gleamed under the twin moons.

  He felt the priest casting.

  A familiar snarl echoed through his scars. The Torrent bucked. Magic surged.

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  Kael pulled—ripping mana from six glowing cores mid-incantation. They winked out like snuffed candles. The priest and two mages froze, staring—their mage cores dying before they even bloomed.

  Too slow.

  Kael reached into the priest’s formed matrix and stole it—haste, not healing—and fed it with the stolen power. Time cracked.

  The world slowed.

  A heartbeat stretched into an eternity.

  Kael watched the mercs begin to move—muscles tensing, swords lifting, panic twitching behind their eyes.

  The mages struggled to re-cast. Spell matrixes dripped into existence like thick oil.

  Kael moved.

  Favoring his good leg, he weaved between blades. One sliced his coat—he didn’t care. His fist met a merc’s face, shattering bone in slow motion. Teeth spun into the air like broken stars.

  The stormcaster’s matrix formed first. Kael seized it—ripped it from the mage’s trembling grip—and detonated the lightning arc into the thugs around him.

  The bolt screamed across the cart like a wrathful god.

  Bodies launched—limbs flailing, weapons forgotten—as the blast hurled them from the speeding caravan. They smashed into stone walls with bone-snapping force, blood painting the alley in wet streaks.

  Kael stole the frost mage’s matrix—drew it whole—and reversed it.

  The ice spear drove into the stormcaster’s chest, impaling him clean. He tumbled from the cart, arms flailing, and vanished under the pounding hooves of the lead horses.

  Crunch. Gone.

  Kael twisted again, hammering another thug with a reverse elbow that bent the man’s neck at a sickening angle.

  The priest’s healing matrix shimmered into readiness.

  Kael snatched it.

  His knee snapped back into place. His shoulder groaned, and his rib unfolded like a reborn serpent. The healing burned—worse in slow time—but it worked.

  The frost mage’s eyes widened, disbelief washing over his face. The priest dropped to his knees, hands shaking, whispering prayers that wouldn’t save him.

  Kael saw the train now—ceremonial, massive, polished like a war trophy—rolling across the bridge toward the city’s outer line. It shouldn’t have been moving. The track wasn’t even supposed to connect yet. The armored caravan was barreling towards it.

  Confusion. But no time.

  Behind him, chaos reigned.

  Screams. Steel. Flesh.

  Lucien’s blade flashed in the moonlight—red and silver. Kavari tore into another merc, her mouth and claws soaked in gore.

  Kael turned—just in time to see the frost mage raise trembling hands, lips moving in frantic incantation.

  The matrix spun to life, unstable, panicked.

  Disbelief twisted his face. The spell—his spell—wasn’t obeying. It pulsed, stuttered, fought against him like a dog sensing the wrong master.

  Kael stepped into the casting range, eyes cold.

  Kael smiled.

  Let him.

  The caravan thundered across the cobbled street, wheels screaming as they neared the central train bridge with the newly built tracks and the central city gate.

  The frost mage raised his hands—another matrix flaring to life.

  Kael shifted to seize it—

  —but something slammed into him, hard.

  A merc crashed into him like a battering ram, knocking him flat as the ice spear howled past inches from their heads. Kael felt the spray of freezing shards as it pasted his head.

  Kael hit the ground hard, pain lighting up his ribs. But he twisted like a serpent, coiling around the merc’s bulk. The man reeked of ozone—lightning-burnt skin—and Kael felt the crackle of residual energy under his fingers.

  With a sharp twist and a violent jerk, Kael snapped his neck. The body crumpled.

  He surged up just in time to hear Kavari snarl.

  And then he saw it.

  Lucien—airborne—frozen in time.

  A jagged spear of ice jutted clean through his torso, his eyes wide with shock, blood trailing behind him like a comet’s tail.

  Kael’s breath caught as Lucien fell, time slowing for a heartbeat longer.

  Then the world snapped back into motion.

  The haste spell collapsed.

  Kael dropped to one knee, lungs heaving. The ringing in his ears matched the pounding of his heart.

  “Lucien!” he roared.

  And then—

  Thud.

  The body hit the cobblestones.

  Hard.

  Kavari was standing covered gore and heaving big breaths. “Kavari, get lucien to a healer, who ever is closest! I got it here!”

  Kavari looked uncertain for a split second—then nodded once and leaped from the moving caravan.

  Kael watched her vanish into the night, rolling as she hit the street and sprinted toward where Lucien had fallen.

  The caravan was wild whipping side to side as it barreled forward. The armored carts screamed as they closed the gap to the train.

  Up ahead, pikeys on the bridge scattered, diving for cover as the last of the mercs—the mage, the priest, a few others—vaulted from the caravan onto the slow-moving train, scrambling to reach the front.

  Kael didn’t slow.

  He stooped, grabbed a bone-bladed short sword from the deck, and walked toward the driver.

  “For Lucien,” he muttered—and sliced.

  The blade bit deep. The driver’s head toppled cleanly. Blood sprayed the exterior of the cabin as the horses panicked, thrashing wildly.

  Kael turned, sprinted, and hurled himself from the caravan.

  The train was gaining speed.

  One hand caught the edge.

  His shoulder wrenched, ribs screamed—but he held.

  He pulled himself up, eyes burning, scars flaring. Rage boiling to the surface.

  They were all dead. Every last one of them. He wanted names. He wanted history. He wanted blood.

  As he climbed onto the top of the car, he could already see movement ahead—mercs pouring out of the train’s front engine compartment, climbing up with weapons drawn. They were coordinated, experienced.

  They were nearing the center of the bridge.

  Kael crouched low, counting. Twenty... twenty-five?

  He exhaled sharply. Alone. One mage. One priest. Two dozen mercs. All armed. All waiting.

  He wasn’t immortal. This would be a slaughter.

  Then—

  He saw it.

  His eyes narrowed. A plan clicked into place.

  “Oh,” Kael muttered grimly. “This is gonna suck.”

  He adjusted his grip on the bloodied bone blade and walked forward through the shadows of the moving train.

  One shot. One opening. That’s all he needed.

  Kael stalked forward atop the shuddering train, feet wide for balance, coat whipping in the wind. The mercs let him come.

  Let them.

  They thought they had him. Outnumbered. Cornered.

  Let them think that.

  One of the robed mages stepped forward, voice raised over the roar of the wind.

  “Who are you working for? The Triune Crown? The Bound Wardens?”

  No answer.

  “You’ll talk. Whatever trick you used to steal our matrices—it won’t help you now. We’ll cut you until the healer runs dry. Then, outside the city, we’ll ask our questions slowly.”

  Kael smiled.

  “Fuck that,” he said. “Die screaming in fire.”

  And pulled the mage flare from inside his coat.

  Flick.

  Blue light flared in his hand.

  Fifty eyes blinked.

  Fifty-two widened.

  The flare arced into the night—past their heads—past the last car—

  —and struck the fuel tank.

  For a split second, there was silence.

  Then a sound like the world being torn in half.

  The fuel ignited with a scream. Heat swallowed the bridge. Fire bloomed outward in a massive dome of force. The shock wave ruptured the air and turned men into meat and armor into shrapnel.

  Kael felt time slow as if he were back under a haste matrix. Bodies lifted off the train around him, limbs separating, screams warping in his ears. The pressure hit him like a god’s fist. Ribs cracked. Organs shifted. Blood filled his mouth.

  Then the explosion hurled him into the void.

  Flung like a broken doll, tumbling through smoke and fire and wind, Kael saw the twin moons staring down at him. Silent. Pale. Watching.

  Above, the burning wreck of the train careened off the bridge tracks and into the Outlands.

  And then the water found him.

  Cold. Endless. Black.

  It swallowed him whole.