Chapter 8: Ashraz and the Children of Rust
Ashraz and the Children of Rust
The smell of the underground still clung to Rael's skin like rot.
Even after returning to Sector 3 of the lower city — the part nicknamed "Scraplight" — the air didn't feel any lighter. Above him, mechanical bridges creaked as Capitol trains dragged freight and flesh toward the upper districts. Down below, the cracked streets of the slums boiled with steam, oil, and rusted hopes.
Rael sat alone, staring at the book bound in skin — The Book of Perfected Pain.
He hadn't opened it again. He didn't need to. The images were already tattooed behind his eyes.
"You haven't slept," Dust said, dropping beside him, wiping blood from his blade. "You keep that up, and you'll start seeing things."
"I already do," Rael replied, voice distant.
Dust paused. "We got trouble. Someone's been watching us. Not Capitol. Not Corrupt. Something else."
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❖ The Children of Rust
They came before dawn.
A silent group of barefooted children in ragged cloaks, skin smeared with ash and oil. Their eyes glowed faintly — not with magic, but with starvation and something worse: belief.
A girl, maybe thirteen, stepped forward. Her hands were stitched shut with thread. Her voice came from her throat like cracked glass.
"You trespassed on hallowed ground," she said.
Rael blinked. "That place? That was a torture chamber."
"To you," she whispered. "To us — it's where monsters were made to fight monsters."
Thread moved beside Rael. "Who are you?"
The girl tilted her head. "We are the Children of Rust. We live where history was erased. We remember what your kind buried."
Dust spat on the ground. "We're not nobles."
"You carry the book," she said. "And the blade."
Rael froze. "What blade?"
But even before he finished the question, something inside his backpack pulsed.
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❖ The Blade of Ashraz
Rael unwrapped the cloth.
Inside was a jagged, crooked sword — dark, half-rotted, etched with molten symbols. It didn't look crafted. It looked grown.
The girl's stitched hands trembled. "You found Ashraz. The first Reapersteel."
Dust muttered, "That's a myth. A weapon born from an executioner's last scream."
"No," the girl said. "It's real. And it chooses pain."
Rael touched the handle — and instantly, his vision shattered.
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He saw—
A boy kneeling in snow.
A gun to his mother's head.
The trigger pulled.
The scream stuck in the boy's throat.
The snow turned red.
And from the blood… the sword was born.
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Rael dropped it, breath shattered.
The blade didn't just show memories.
It remembered things that never should've been real.
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❖ Hidden Places and Missing Truths
Thread knelt before the children. "You said you remember things. What things?"
The girl looked up, eyes sharp. "Places the Capitol erased."
A floating city known as Clerith, once filled with sky-borne libraries, now burned and removed from all maps.
A desert village where all 246 children were experimented on to see if pain could become light.
A region once known as Valemarch, where people grew powers by trading away emotions — until they became hollow and stopped being called people.
Rael's heart twisted. "Why hasn't anyone heard of this?"
The girl touched her stitched lips. "They silenced us. But we remember."
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An Attempted Assassination
It came without warning.
A boy, maybe eight years old, leapt from the shadows, a shard of iron in his hand.
Straight toward Rael's neck.
Thread intercepted him — her hand flicked, threads shooting from her fingertips like wires, wrapping the child in place.
"Let me go!" the boy screamed. "You carry the sword! You'll bring death again!"
Rael approached slowly. He knelt. "I'm not here to hurt you."
"You don't have to," the boy whispered. "Ashraz hurts everyone eventually."
Rael stared into the boy's eyes — and saw himself.
Lost. Angry. Looking for someone to blame.
He stood and turned to Dust. "Let him go."
Dust hissed. "He just tried to kill you."
"I would've done the same," Rael said, eyes cold. "Let him go."
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❖ The Whispers Begin
That night, Rael sat alone again.
Ashraz beside him.
The book in his lap.
And then…
He heard it.
A voice. Not loud. Not clear. Just… near.
"You shouldn't have opened that door."
Rael spun. No one there.
"Do you think pain is power? Or do you just want to feel something again?"
It was a whisper.
No. It was a memory that wasn't his.
He gripped Ashraz.
And beneath his skin — a symbol began to burn.
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The Blade
Thread returned hours later, her eyes wide.
"I read the script," she said. "Ashraz… it's not a weapon."
Rael looked at her.
"It's a key."
"To what?"
She hesitated.
"To a place the Red Spires sealed hundreds of years ago. A city beneath the Capitol."
Dust entered. "A courier just dropped a note at our hideout. Sealed in wax. No name."
Rael opened it.
Only four words.
"The King remembers you."
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