CHAPTER 3: THRESHOLD OF SHADOWS

The gates of the Hunter Academy didn't just *look* like fangs. They felt like them. 

Kael stood at the foot of the archway, steel biting into the sky, rune-lights spitting blue sparks onto the pavement. It reeked of ozone and something worse—like old blood baked into stone. *This place chews up slum rats,* his gut screamed. *Spits out the bones.* 

His hand pulsed. The rune-mark had been quiet since dawn, just a dull silver scar. Now it burned like he'd grabbed a live wire. He shoved the hand deep into his torn pocket. *Carve it off you,* the scarred Hunter's voice echoed. *Yeah. Thanks for that.* 

"State your business, scrap-meat." 

A guard stepped forward, grey armor polished to a spiteful shine. Behind him, two others smirked, thumbs hooked into belts near holstered shock-pistols. Their eyes scraped over Kael—the grime, the bloodstained collar, the shoes held together by hope and wire. 

"Recruitment trials," Kael said, forcing the words past dry lips. "I'm applying." 

A snort. "Trials closed at dawn. Piss off." 

Liar. Kael had watched the notice-board in the scrap market for weeks. Three days, dawn to dusk. *Power is your worth,* New Avalon's favorite lie whispered. His power was hidden, hungry, and currently trying to cook his palm. 

Then the rune *bit* him. 

He gasped, doubling over. Violet light bled through the fabric of his sleeve. The guards stiffened. Shock-pistols whined as they powered up. 

"Contraband?" snapped the lead guard. "Or you Gate-sick, boy? Last warning—*walk*." 

Panic iced Kael's veins. *Stupid. This is how you die—at the doorstep of the people who'd rather scrape you off their boots.* But the scarred Hunter's words hooked him: *They'll have to take you.* 

Before he choked on fear, Kael ripped back his sleeve. 

Light exploded. Not the soft glow from the alley—this was violence. Violet and silver fire writhed under his skin, throwing stark, dancing shadows across the guards' suddenly pale faces. The air buzzed, thick and wrong, like the hum before a Gate tears open. 

One guard stumbled back. "Saints… no brand burns like that…" 

The leader lowered his pistol, not in awe. In disgust. "*Void-touched.*" He spat the word like rotten meat. "Get this filth to the Black Gate. Let the Assessors burn it out of him." 

--- 

They didn't *escort* him. They *herded* him. Like a stray dog with mange. 

Through courtyards paved in black glass. Past clusters of initiates in crisp grey uniforms who stopped talking to stare. Whispers slithered after him: 

"…slum rot…" 

"…look at his eyes… Void mad…" 

"…should've been culled at birth…" 

Kael kept his head down. Jaw locked. The rune still throbbed, a hot coal in his flesh, but now… it *pulled*. Toward the Academy's tallest spire. Toward the distant, greasy pulse of the Gates hanging over the city. *Stop it,* he begged silently. *Not now.* 

They stopped. The "Black Gate" wasn't a gate. It was a tombstone—a slab of seamless, light-eating stone sunk into the spire's base. No handle. No lock. Just a single rune carved deep, the color of clotted blood. 

The lead guard slammed his palm against it. "Candidate Thorn. Unregistered rune-manifest. Suspected Void taint." 

Silence. Then the blood-rune flared. The slab groaned sideways, exhaling air so cold it burned Kael's lungs. It smelled of wet rock and… burnt hair. 

"Move." A gauntleted shove between his shoulders. 

Kael stumbled into pitch blackness. The door ground shut behind him. Absolute dark. Then—*ignition*. The rune on his hand flared awake, painting the smooth, curving walls of a tunnel in sickly violet. *Down. Only way is down.* 

He walked. The air got colder. Damp seeped into his bones. 

The tunnel spat him into a cavern. Floating witch-lights cast jumpy blue shadows. Three figures sat on a raised stone dais, swallowed by hooded black robes. Faces hidden. Power hummed in the air, thick enough to choke on. 

"Kael Thorn." The voice came from the center figure, sexless, echoing from the bottom of a well. "You carry a mark not given. *Show us.*" 

No choice. He lifted his hand. Let the rune *burn*. 

Violet light splashed over the stone, clawed at the hoods. He saw eyes glitter in the depths—sharp, cold, fascinated. 

The leftmost figure leaned forward. A gloved finger pointed. "Its resonance… unknown. Where did you steal it?" 

"Didn't steal it." Kael's voice rasped. "Found a pendant. By the East Fringe Gate. It broke… this happened." 

"Liar!" The rightmost Assessor's voice cracked like a whip. Kael flinched. "Relics awaken blood! You *have* no blood worth waking! That power is *Void-gifted*. Tainted!" 

The central figure raised a skeletal hand. Silence fell like an axe. "The Gate," it murmured. "Did it… *call* to you?" 

The question hung. Kael remembered the terrible *pull*. The sense of something *knowing* him from the swirling dark. "...Yes." 

A hiss passed between the hoods. The center one steepled its fingers. "A Voidborne awakening. Rare. Unstable. A danger." 

Kael's heart hammered against his ribs. *Here it comes. The knife. The fire.* 

"Yet," the Assessor continued, "power, even rotting power… is a weapon. New Avalon is hungry for weapons." The hood tilted toward the seething right-hand figure. "He enters the Crucible Class. Lowest tier. Watched. If the rune corrupts… if the Void's whisper grows… he is *excised*. Understood?" 

Not acceptance. A death sentence on delay. 

"Understood," Kael whispered. The rune pulsed against his bones. *Alive*. 

"Go." The central Assessor flicked a dismissive hand. A hidden door scraped open on the far wall, revealing a dim corridor reeking of mildew. "Barracks Nine. Dawn. Pray the Crucible only breaks you. It shatters most." 

Kael turned to leave. Relief was a cold trickle down his spine. 

Then the right-hand Assessor's voice slithered from the shadows, venomous: "Mark him, Silas. Mark the abomination." 

Something cold pricked Kael's neck. He whirled, hand flying up—but the hooded figures were already dissolving into the gloom. No one there. Just a tiny, icy sting beneath his skin. Like a spider's bite. 

He touched the spot. No blood. Just… a hard little knot. A tracker? Poison? A clock ticking down? 

Clutching his burning hand, Kael Thorn stepped out of the judgment chamber. He was inside the Academy. 

The cage door had slammed shut. 

End of chapter 3