Brother's Keeper

Chapter 8: Brother's Keeper

The barracks room smelled of sweat and metal polish. Shadows played across the stone walls as a single lantern struggled against the darkness. Crespo locked the door behind them, his movements precise and controlled.

"We can rest here briefly," he said, removing his gloves. The Shroudmark on his wrist pulsed with faint blue light. "The alarm was likely triggered in another sector."

Alden slumped against the wall, exhaustion washing over him. The infiltration, combined with Chord withdrawal, had drained what little strength remained. His glass eye throbbed, the pressure behind it building like a storm.

Crespo rummaged through a footlocker, producing a battered metal flask. "Water," he explained, offering it to Alden. "You look half-dead."

The water tasted strange—metallic, like rust. Alden had consumed half the flask before his instincts screamed warning. Too late. A cold numbness spread from his throat to his chest, then outward to his limbs. His glass hand lost all sensation first.

"What did you..." The words slurred as Alden's tongue grew heavy. The flask clattered to the floor.

Crespo watched impassively as Alden slid down the wall, limbs no longer responding to commands. The Artificer's Shroudmark glowed brighter now, pulsing in rhythm with Alden's racing heart.

"You let Elias die," Crespo said, voice suddenly thick with emotion. "Now you'll join him."

Alden struggled to speak, but his lips wouldn't form words. Memories flashed through his mind—Elias screaming as Grey Chord transformed him, glass spreading across his skin like ice on water.

"He was my friend," Crespo continued, squatting to meet Alden's gaze. "While you experimented with new Chord variants, he came to me with concerns. Said the formulas were becoming unstable. But you wouldn't listen."

With methodical precision, Crespo bound Alden's wrists and ankles. The paralytic agent was powerful but temporary—they both knew it. Alden felt himself being lifted, carried across the Artificer's shoulders like animal carcass.

"The Covenant needs your Shroudmark," Crespo whispered as they moved through darkened corridors. "Elias would understand the sacrifice."

---

The laboratory was different from Corbin's—smaller, cruder. A dissection table dominated the center, metal restraints attached at intervals. The corpse of a Hollowed occupied half the surface, its chest cavity splayed open to reveal crystallized organs.

Crespo secured Alden to the empty half of the table. The paralytic was beginning to fade, allowing minimal movement—fingers twitching, eyes blinking. Not enough to escape.

"The Covenant of the Veil," Crespo explained, assembling tools on a nearby tray. A bone saw gleamed under harsh lamplight. "We maintain the barrier between worlds. The original alchemists formed our order before sacrificing themselves."

Alden strained against the restraints. His voice returned as a hoarse whisper: "You serve the Eclipse."

"We contain it," Crespo corrected. "But the Veil needs strengthening. Shroudmarked blood is the key." He examined Alden's glass eye. "Yours is uniquely potent. The Eclipse speaks through you."

On the floor near the table, Alden spotted the vials he'd taken from the Dissident cache. Grey Chord—close enough to see but impossibly out of reach. The glass containers reflected lamplight, taunting him with salvation.

Crespo followed his gaze. "Chord won't save you this time." He tested the bone saw's edge against his thumb. "Your contribution to the Veil will be more permanent."

"Elias wouldn't want this," Alden managed.

"Elias is dead because of you!" Crespo slammed his fist on the metal tray, sending instruments clattering. "He came to me that night, terrified of what he'd discovered in your research. The Eclipse isn't just watching our world—it's consuming it through the Bloodsong. Every dose feeds its influence."

The restraint around Alden's glass hand had begun to cut into the transformed flesh. Hairline fractures spread across his knuckles like spider webs.

"The Chord was my creation," Alden said, stalling for time as feeling returned to his limbs. "I can modify it. Create a version that strengthens the Veil without sacrifice."

Crespo shook his head, the gesture almost sad. "There's always sacrifice, Alden. The universe demands balance." He raised the bone saw. "Your brother understood that in the end."

Alden flexed his glass hand with sudden force. The transformed flesh shattered, shards slicing through the restraint. Pain erupted like fire up his arm, but the restraint fell away.

Crespo lunged forward, but Alden's now-free arm swept the nearby tray, sending instruments flying. In the confusion, he grabbed a vial of Grey Chord, smashing it against the table edge and drawing the jagged glass across Crespo's forearm.

Blood and Chord mingled on the laboratory floor. Crespo staggered back, clutching his wound. The seconds of distraction were enough for Alden to wrench his other restraints free.

The laboratory door burst open. Artificer guards poured in, weapons raised. Cornered, Alden did the unthinkable. He grabbed the remaining vial—not Grey Chord as he'd thought, but something darker. Ash Chord. The forbidden hybrid.

One desperate injection into his neck. The world went silent, then exploded into hyper-clarity.

Ash Chord burned through his system like molten glass. Every sound amplified, every color intensified. Time seemed to stretch and contract simultaneously. Alden moved with inhuman speed, ducking beneath a guard's swing and driving a shard of his own shattered hand into the man's neck.

Crespo reached for him, but froze mid-motion, muscles locked in paralysis—the Ash Chord's effect transferring through blood contact. His eyes widened in horror as Alden approached.

"The Eclipse doesn't just speak through me," Alden whispered, pressing his remaining hand against Crespo's Shroudmark. "It speaks to me."

The mark began to glow, then burn. Crespo's scream was silent, his body rigid with paralysis as the spiral pattern transferred itself from his skin to Alden's palm. The process felt like pressing his hand into live coals.

The Citadel shuddered around them. Dust rained from the ceiling as foundation stones shifted. The Rotstorm they'd seen gathering had arrived—a full manifestation above the Citadel itself.

Alden fled through corridors now filled with panicked Artificers. No one paid him attention—the Citadel's partial collapse took precedence over a single escaping prisoner. He found a servant's exit near the kitchens, emerging into a night torn apart by unnatural weather.

The Rotstorm above sent tendrils of energy crackling down, striking the Citadel's highest towers. Black rain fell, hissing where it touched stone. In the chaos, a voice reached him—clear despite the storm's fury.

"You cannot outrun destiny."

A woman stood in the shadow of a collapsing wall. Her face bore striking resemblance to Corbin's, but her eyes held the spiral pattern of the Eclipse. Serafina. The Dissident leader and Corbin's daughter.

Before Alden could respond, the ground between them split open. He turned and ran, the Ash Chord still lending him unnatural speed. Behind him, the Citadel's eastern tower collapsed in a shower of stone and screams.

The mark on his palm burned anew, throbbing in time with his racing heart. He'd escaped Crespo's blade, but the Eclipse's grasp had only tightened.