Shadows Beneath

The night was heavy with the scent of damp stone and distant smoke. The two figures moved through the ruined district, their footsteps barely audible over the distant murmurs of the city. Shattered windows gaped like empty sockets, and broken furniture was strewn across the floor of the abandoned shelter they'd found. It was as good a hiding place as any—but Kael couldn't shake the feeling that the walls themselves were watching.

Ronan settled against a cracked wooden table, his usual smirk absent. His eyes flickered toward every darkened corner, his fingers tense against his belt. He had been restless since their last fight, and for once, he wasn't cracking jokes.

Kael wasn't much better. He rolled his shoulder, still feeling the phantom sting of the mark beneath his sleeve. It wasn't pain, exactly—more like something wrong, as if a part of him didn't belong to himself anymore.

"You're fidgeting," Ronan noted without looking.

Kael exhaled sharply and dropped his hand.

"You've been looking over your shoulder for the past hour. Maybe I'm not the only one on edge."

Ronan didn't deny it. Instead, he let out a slow breath and finally met Kael's gaze.

"Because you don't get it yet. They're not hunting you anymore, Kael. You're a target. There's a difference."

Kael scowled. "Right. Because of this damn mark."

"And because you're reckless," Ronan added with a raised brow. "You fight like you have something to prove. You don't think, you just react—which is going to get you killed if you don't learn fast."

Kael clenched his jaw. "You say that like I had a choice."

"You always have a choice," Ronan said simply. "You just keep choosing the stupid ones."

Kael bit back a sharp retort, but something about Ronan's expression made him hesitate. He wasn't just being smug—there was something deeper in his tone.

Frustration, maybe. Or concern.

The thought left a bitter taste in Kael's mouth. He wasn't sure what annoyed him more—the fact that Ronan might actually care, or that he wasn't entirely wrong.

Still, he wasn't about to sit there and be lectured like a damn child. "And what about you?" he shot back. "You've been sticking around, helping me. But why? What's in it for you?"

Ronan's gaze flickered, and for a moment,

Kael thought he saw something unreadable behind those sharp eyes. But then, just like that, it was gone.

"If I wanted you dead," Ronan said, pushing off the table, "I wouldn't have dragged your sorry ass out of that last fight."

There was no bravado in his tone. Just fact.

Kael had no response to that.

They moved again before the hour was up, slipping through the ruined streets with purpose. The city had changed.

Kael could feel it in the way the air pressed against his skin, thick with unseen weight.

Posters of his face were plastered along the crumbling walls—his features sketched with unsettling accuracy. The bounty had doubled.

Masked figures lurked in alleyways, their eyes flickering toward passing strangers before vanishing into the night. He didn't know how many of them were informants, how many were bounty hunters.

But they were watching.

And then, the ambush came.

A shadow burst from the rooftop, moving with practiced silence. A glint of steel. A blade descending fast—

Kael moved. His instincts kicked in before thought could catch up, twisting his body as the dagger narrowly missed his ribs.

The bounty hunter was already adjusting, shifting into another attack—

And then Ronan was there.

Fast. Precise. His blade caught the assassin's wrist mid-strike, twisting it at an unnatural angle. A crack. A sharp gasp. The dagger clattered against the stone.

The bounty hunter didn't hesitate—immediately shifting into a counterattack.

But Ronan was faster.

Kael had fought before. He had survived battles. But watching Ronan fight was something else entirely.

He didn't react. He knew. Every step, every motion, it was as if he was moving seconds ahead of his opponent, adjusting in ways that made their strikes meaningless.

Kael wasn't bad—but compared to Ronan, he was still learning.

The fight ended with a brutal efficiency. A final strike, and the bounty hunter collapsed, unconscious.

Kael was breathing hard, his muscles tensed. Ronan hardly looked fazed. He wiped his blade clean and sheathed it with a sigh. "That was a scout. The real ones won't be so easy."

Kael exhaled sharply. "Yeah, well, I'm getting sick of running into people trying to kill me."

Ronan shot him a dry look. "Then maybe stop making it so easy for them."

Kael scowled but didn't argue.

Ronan led them toward the underground. It was the only place left to go.

"An informant?" Kael asked.

"Someone who used to work for them,"

Ronan confirmed. "He turned against them. If anyone knows what the hell they're planning, it's him."

The entrance to the underground slums was hidden in the ruins of an old market. Kael could smell it before he saw it—a damp, rotting scent that clung to the walls.

"This place is a death trap," Kael muttered.

Ronan grinned. "That's why they won't follow us."

The deeper they went, the worse it became.

The shadows stretched longer than they should. The air grew heavier, like something unseen was pressing down on them.

And then, the whispers began.

"Kael Aetheris…"

He stopped cold. His breath hitched in his throat.

He turned sharply, scanning the darkness.

There was nothing there.

Ronan glanced at him. "You heard something."

Kael swallowed. "No."

Ronan didn't believe him. But he didn't press.

As they walked, Kael's eyes caught something along the tunnel walls—symbols. Strange, ancient scrawls carved into the stone.

And one of them…

His vision blurred for a moment. A flicker of something familiar.

A memory that wasn't his.

The informant was waiting in a makeshift hideout. His eyes flickered to Kael, and his expression shifted from suspicion… to fear.

"You," he whispered. "You're the one they fear."

The conversation was slow, tense. But eventually, the truth came out.

The organization wasn't just hunting Kael. They were afraid of him.

Afraid of what he might become.

And then, the shadows moved.

A presence filled the tunnels, something wrong, something old.

The informant paled. "You should have never come here…"

Then the darkness took him.

Kael barely had time to register what was happening before a whisper slithered through his mind.

"We have waited for you."

And then—nothing but black.