The Flames of the Proxy

The Undergleam never truly slept. It pulsed beneath the city like a buried heartbeat, quiet but constant, an artery too deep to be cauterized.

Lucien Blackmoore slipped through the tunnel's threshold, his coat clinging to him with the damp breath of subterranean heat. The air tasted of scorched ozone and rusted chemical spice. He inhaled it with the casual detachment of someone who'd learned long ago not to flinch at poison.

Lila crept close behind. Her boots made almost no sound, which didn't mean she wasn't tense. Her fingers curled around his coat sleeve, not tightly but with the steadiness of someone trying to measure distance in chaos. The scarf at her throat trembled in the stale air. Her eyes tracked every shadow, no longer innocent but still unseasoned. That made her dangerous—mostly to herself.

"Stick close, Lila." Lucien didn't glance back. "My stage, my tempo."

She gave a tight nod, her jaw set like she was chewing on a protest. It stayed in her throat.

They stepped into the Undergleam's black market, a sprawl of neon-blooded filth beneath a collapsed overpass where old gods forgot to look. Holograms shivered above scrap-stitched stalls. Glyph-script pulsed from hanging charms, coded wares humming like dormant curses. Vendors hissed encrypted dialects between glances over their shoulders. Chrome-eyed buyers eyed datablades like they were bartering for sins. No one moved without intent. No one breathed without checking who watched them do it.

Lucien's gaze moved through it all, unhurried. Sigils blinked faintly behind his pupils, a red mesh only he could read. He didn't scan for merchandise. He traced threads.

"There," he muttered. The word caught in his teeth like he already disliked how true it was.

Just beyond a mound of scrap metal, the soul flickered. The proxy. Obscured under folding wards, cloaked in cheap shielding. But the signature pulsed dirty—tainted with Cassian's threading, like tar soaked in perfume.

The Ledger stirred in Lucien's mind, a sudden pulse deep in his brainstem. Data burned through his sightline.

Soul confirmed. Proxy status. Loyalty breached. Escalation risk at 4.8. Defense systems mapped. Surveillance grid semi-active. Informant route severed.

Lucien didn't blink. "He's leaking fear."

Lila cast him a quick glance. "Cassian's man?"

"Cassian's pawn." Lucien's lip twitched. "He doesn't even get a rook's respect."

They passed a stall draped in vials of psychoactive dream-ink, descended iron steps into the tram station's broken bones. The air here had a denser weight, as if too many bad intentions had thickened it. Walls whispered. Glyphs vibrated on the tiles like something was waiting.

The Ledger's voice sharpened.

Temporal displacement signatures detected. High probability of entrapment. Radiant signature consistent with delayed explosives. Radius modeled.

Lucien paused mid-step. Something hummed in the soles of his boots. A dissonance in the grid. He slipped a containment sigil from his coat and ground it between his fingers like salt.

"Don't stray," he whispered to Lila, without turning.

She nodded. Her eyes followed the filament line that glowed faintly along the floor, tracing their path like a vein drawn in light. They moved fast, guided by that single line, until they hit the chamber buried beneath the ruin.

The proxy was already in motion. Wiry, jittery, cloaked in a cheap nullweave trying too hard to hide everything. His fingers scribbled across a glowing array etched into the ground.

Lucien moved before the man finished.

"Spectral lock."

The spell cracked like a whip. Glyphs spun from Lucien's hand and slammed into the air around the proxy. Chains of red light wrapped tight around arms and chest and legs, binding him like a marionette tangled in its own strings.

The proxy didn't scream because of the spell. He screamed because the trap lit up behind him.

A holo-bomb flared to life on the left wall, a blue sphere of death coiling inward. It didn't explode. Not yet. It vibrated in place like it was breathing.

The Ledger's voice sliced across Lucien's field.

Threat confirmed. Holo-bomb class B. Detonation in 2.1 seconds. Lila: fatal exposure imminent. Recommended action: weave spectral shield immediately.

Lucien dropped into a crouch. Both hands hit stone.

"Inversion bind. Spectral weave. Fortify... anchor—now."

The glyphs burst upward, a dome of translucent script forming around Lila just as the holo-bomb went nova. The blast tore through time more than space, rending noise from silence and color from light. Heat peeled the walls like paper. Dust froze midair then liquified.

But inside the shield, Lila didn't burn.

Lucien stood when it passed. Not fast. Just enough to show the moment hadn't broken him. He glanced back.

"You breathing?"

Lila nodded, lips pale. Her fingers trembled. "You caught it. Barely."

Lucien turned toward the proxy. The man was unconscious now, glyphs still glowing like embers on his arms. Lucien reached into his coat, pulled the Codex shard, and pressed two fingers to the man's temple.

"Let's see what garbage you've been hoarding."

The Codex flared. Layers of data peeled back. Sabotage blueprints. Trade route incursions. Encoded exploits meant to bleed Lucien's markets. Cassian's plans weren't improvised—they were a rot that had already spread.

Lucien's jaw shifted. His fingers traced a loop into the air and snapped it closed around the proxy's spine.

"I consign you to Veilshade," he said quietly. "Let the scribes dissect you for sport."

The proxy's soul tore loose in a single jerk, like a tether yanked from bone. The body sagged. The tether vanished.

Lucien straightened and brushed his coat sleeve.

"Cassian's bombs smell like alley piss," he muttered.

The Ledger pulsed again. Not just code this time. A sensation. An ache.

Her fear binds you.

Lucien turned.

Lila stood stiff, arms crossed over her chest like she needed to hold herself inside her skin. Her eyes didn't quite meet his. She looked more shadow than flesh.

"Lila." His voice softened.

She lifted her chin.

"You did good," he said. "But this... this isn't weight you need to carry."

She swallowed. "But I'm already carrying it, aren't I?"

He didn't speak. Just reached into the Codex, drew a sigil with deliberate care. A soft spiral. A safeguard.

Protective clause formed. Client: Lila Varos. Status: exposed. Clause anchored to Ledger's active weave. Harm diversion active. Duration: until revoked.

The glyph settled into her like breath drawn deep. She didn't flinch.

Lucien turned slightly away. "Just a precaution," he said, more to himself than her. "Bad odds call for loaded dice."

The Ledger's hum returned. Faint. Like guilt given voice.

You guard fates.

He didn't answer it.

They left the ruins without another word. Behind them, the market resumed its rhythm like nothing had burned. The Codex held Cassian's plans, tucked and sealed. Traders. Liars. People he thought loyal.

Lucien glanced at Lila once more as they merged with the night traffic.

She was watching him with something new. Not trust. Not suspicion. Something sharper. Something waiting.

And he knew the Ledger was still recording; Every step, every look, every thread unraveling one thread too late.