Precision Kills Quietly

The rift closed behind him like a heartbeat sealing shut.

Cassian stood in the rain-soaked alleys of Crankrow, deep in the mid-city machine works district. Even at this hour, steam hissed from every wall, gears groaned beneath the stones, and pipe-smoke turned every breath into rust.

He was back in the part of Aurelith where things were built—and things were broken.

The scent of molten brass and ink hit him like memory.

He adjusted the dial on his bracer. "Confirm identity," he muttered into the receiver.

The spell glass lens in his mask blinked. A ripple of red light passed over a torn poster across the street.

TARGET CONFIRMED: MARLO KENT.

Status: Tinker. Guildless. Former Engineer, House Vale Prototype Division.

And below it:

"Subject was last seen leaving your design bay twenty-six minutes before the explosion."

Cassian's jaw tightened.

He remembered Marlo: stuttering, twitchy, always three steps behind but eager to impress. A minor mind. But a good mimic.

Cassian had let him shadow his work.

Had trusted him.

And Marlo had turned that trust into a backdoor had overridden Cassian's command protocols and installed the fatal glyph that burned down his future.

Cassian cracked his knuckles.

Let's see how brave the little rat felt now.

The workshop was buried at the edge of the Slant, where the gears of the lower rail system intersected the old aether ducts.

Cassian didn't knock.

He shorted the door's arcane lock with a pulse spike and walked in, quiet as vapor.

The place was cramped filled with tools, cracked lenses, half-disassembled drones. Projects abandoned mid-construction.

And at the far table, hunched over an open relay coil, sat Marlo Kent.

Still hunched. Still twitching. Still trying to be clever.

Cassian said nothing.

He walked up behind him and set a single object on the workbench.

A burned gear plate.

The same one recovered from the exploded prototype.

Marlo froze.

Very slowly, he turned his head.

Cassian pulled back his hood.

Marlo paled.

"C-Cassian," he whispered. "I thought—I mean, they said—"

"They say a lot of things," Cassian murmured.

He tilted his head.

"You remember this gearplate?"

Marlo swallowed. "I—I had nothing to do with—"

Cassian slid a folded blueprint onto the table.

It was a copy of the original flight schematic.

Marlo's name was on the metadata watermark.

In the sabotage layer.

Cassian tapped it once.

"Explain."

"I didn't—I swear, I didn't know what it was for! Thorne said it was just to reroute the flight vector, some efficiency patch. I didn't know it would—"

Cassian held up a hand.

Marlo stopped.

Cassian looked at him carefully. Thoughtfully.

"You were good at copying my work," he said.

Marlo nodded, sweat dripping down his face.

"Then do it again."

Marlo blinked. "What?"

"You're going to replicate my rift gate. Build me three redundant versions. Hard-wired for one-time use, encrypted to my blood."

"I—" Marlo's voice cracked. "Cassian, I don't know how. That stuff you built—it's not engineering, it's witchcraft. It—"

Cassian leaned close. Voice low.

"I'm not asking because I think you can," he said. "I'm asking because I know you'll try harder when you're terrified."

He tapped the gear plate again.

"Build it. Or I leave you with nothing but the sound of your own heart failing."

Marlo stared at him. Open-mouthed. Pale.

And nodded.

Cassian straightened.

"Two days," he said. "I'll be watching."

He walked toward the door.

Paused.

Then turned back.

"By the way," he said. "You didn't die because you betrayed me."

Marlo blinked.

"You lived because I need something worse than death."

Cassian turned to leave—but he didn't.

He stopped mid-step.

His head tilted slightly. Not toward Marlo, but toward the far corner of the workshop—where the shadows fell too evenly, where the air was just a little too still.

He adjusted the dial on his mask lens.

"Shroud pulse," he whispered.

A faint click.

The shadows peeled back like gauze.

And revealed her.

Pressed against the wall, crouched, breathing slow and silent.

A woman in a distortion cloak, its shimmer now failing under Cassian's spell. Aether thread hung loose around her shoulders, her hands coated in dust and chalk from the glyphs she used to mute her presence.

Cassian didn't reach for his blade.

He smiled behind the mask.

"Took you long enough," he said.

The woman straightened.

Young. Lean. Eyes sharp like broken glass. And angry in the way someone gets when they've been surviving too long.

Her voice came low. "You weren't supposed to see me."

"No one ever is," Cassian replied. "But you're not 'no one.'"

She said nothing.

He turned to face her fully. "You've been following me since I left the Hatchery line. Watching the vaults. Skimming the market chatter. You intercepted the Tayne core drop, didn't you?"

A flicker of surprise in her eyes. Just for a second.

"I don't kill rats," she said. "I just watch which way they run."

Cassian chuckled.

"I'm not here to flush you out," he said. "I'm here to recruit you."

She narrowed her gaze. "Why?"

"Because we share the same rot in our blood," Cassian said, stepping forward. "Thorne Vale. The Chain. The nobles who think they can rewrite power and bury those who remember how it used to be."

Her jaw tightened.

She didn't deny it.

"Who are you?" Cassian asked.

She hesitated.

Then:

"Veyna."

"Who trained you, Veyna?"

"No one."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Then you're even more dangerous than I thought."

She cocked her head. "And you think we're allies now?"

"I think we're necessary," Cassian said. "I saw you watching Merrow. You hate the same people I do. And unlike most of the bastards down here—you didn't flinch when I walked in."

He stepped closer.

"I'm building something, Veyna. Not a rebellion. Not a kingdom. Something else."

He extended his gloved hand.

"You want to burn the Chain? Good. I want to dismantle it. Slowly. With precision."

She stared at his hand for a long time.

Then took it.

Just once.

A single shake. No smile. No promise.

Only alignment.

Cassian stepped back.

"Welcome to the game."

Veyna's cloak shimmered again as she vanished into the shadows.

And Cassian?

He smiled wider.

Because now the chain that bound Aurelith had another crack.

And he wasn't alone anymore.