Smoke Over Novar

The city still burned.

Novar had always been restless. Positioned at the outer edge of the empire's trade corridor, it was a vital junction—rich in resources and thick with dissent. Lately, more and more of its population had been caught harboring rebel sympathizers, smuggling contraband tech, or simply refusing to chant the family's name during broadcasts. Ricthard Descovinio III issued the decree himself: a "compliance sweep."

But everyone knew what it really was—punishment by fire. A warning to the rest of the world.

Ash fell like gray snow, and the sky remained choked with the black remains of what used to be homes, storefronts, and lives. Zero moved through the broken alleys of Novar like a shadow, Cain still warm in his grip.

Behind him, bodies littered the streets—soldiers dispatched with swift, precise movements. He didn't look back. The message had been delivered. Now came the hard part: surviving the aftermath.

His comm-link buzzed in his ear.

"Tell me you're not still inside," Kael's voice crackled through the channel.

"I'm leaving," Zero replied, voice low and even. "But there's a complication."

He turned a corner and crouched low beside a collapsed awning. Two civilians—barely older than children—were huddled behind a burnt-out transport cart. A young man, maybe sixteen, tried to shield the girl behind him, who looked no older than ten. Their faces were streaked with soot and panic.

"Civilians," Enzo said. "Alive."

Kael's voice tensed. "Extraction is harder with baggage."

"Then make it work."

Zero deactivated Cain and approached them slowly. The boy flinched, arms raised protectively, but Zero stopped a few steps away and removed his mask halfway—just enough for the boy to see his eyes.

"I'm not here to hurt you."

The boy hesitated. Then, slowly, he lowered his arms.

"What's your name?" Zero asked.

"D-Rey," the boy said. "This is my sister, Vela."

"Stick close. We're getting out of here."

The girl clutched her brother's side silently, her eyes never leaving the strange masked man who had just become their unlikely protector.

---

The sounds of gunfire returned, echoing through the ruins. Loyalist reinforcements.

"Kael, update?" Zero whispered.

"Working on it. There's a tunnel under the west rail, emergency evac route from the old tram line. You've got ten minutes before they sweep the district."

"Coordinates?"

"Sending now."

A soft ping echoed in his earpiece, and a glowing path blinked to life in his visor.

"Moving."

They ducked through the rubble, cutting across what remained of the industrial quarter. Smoke obscured their path, but Zero knew how to move through it—how to vanish within it.

He took out two more soldiers along the way, both clean, quiet kills. The children never saw the bodies. He made sure of that.

But time was running thin.

They reached the rail trench just as the stomping boots of a search squad thundered into the area.

"Down!" Zero hissed, pulling the siblings into a collapsed stairwell.

Above them, voices barked orders.

Zero activated Cain briefly—not for combat, but to enhance his senses. The blade hummed gently, alert but restrained. He could hear their heartbeats. Count their footsteps. Predict their moves.

"Three above. One left. Two right. They split up."

Kael's voice chimed in. "Tunnel entrance should be thirty meters north. I can open the grate remotely."

"Do it. I'll buy time."

Before Kael could argue, Zero was moving again.

He tossed a small charge into the alley. A flash of smoke and fire burst outward, drawing the soldiers' attention. As they surged toward it, Zero blinked behind them—Cain's core humming hot—and disabled them before they even knew he was there.

By the time they hit the ground, Kael's voice came through again.

"Grate's open. Go!"

They ran.

Zero led them down the trench into a narrow shaft of crumbling concrete and steel. Behind them, alarms sounded. The reinforcements had found the bodies.

They slipped into the tunnel, and the grate sealed behind them seconds before a patrol rounded the corner.

---

The tunnel was silent, save for the sound of footsteps and shallow breathing.

D-Rey spoke first. "Why did you save us?"

Zero didn't answer right away. He adjusted Cain on his back.

"Because someone once saved me."

Vela reached out and took her brother's hand. For a moment, they walked in silence.

Kael's voice returned. "Safe house is ready. Transport in fifteen minutes."

"Copy," Zero replied.

He looked down the length of the tunnel, then back at the children.

They didn't know who he really was.

Didn't know he once dined beside the men who burned their city.

But that didn't matter now.

For the first time in a long while, Clarenzo felt the weight of choice—and it didn't come from a throne or a bloodline.

It came from those who still had something left to lose.

And he would fight to make sure they kept it.