CHAPTER 2 — The Weight of a Gaze
Halworn — City of Iron Sky
Layer 4, Skygut District | Mid-Rift Equinox
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The city of Halworn had no heartbeat.
It lived in metal pulses and arcane static. Breathing was optional here — at least for the ones who mattered. The air stank of mana rot, hot oil, and the tang of ozone where spellcasters welded reality to ambition. Towers curved like spines. The skies were black-stitched with rail trails and glyphlines. The ground pulsed with advertising chants carved into the street itself.
People moved fast. Machines moved faster.
And the suns… never stopped.
The city did not sleep.
But it forgot to be alive.
---
Lucien walked alone.
Not because he chose to.
Because no one walked with him.
People peeled away unconsciously — not out of fear, but something deeper. Like their instincts registered him as a flaw in the world. A too-clean line in a sketch. A sound you don't hear but still know is wrong.
His coat flowed behind him like smoke caught in reverse. The silver runes stitched into its lining pulsed once every few seconds — not visibly, but as pressure in the air. Like a memory brushing past.
His face was unreadable.
White hair tousled by solar breezes.
One radiant blue eye that seemed too awake.
One swirling black void that refused to reflect the world.
He wasn't lost.
He wasn't hunting.
He was drifting.
---
To the common eye, he was just a tall stranger. Maybe a noble. Maybe a war criminal. Maybe just another wanderer in the sun-split shadows of Halworn.
But to the few watching from rooftops, wards, or cracked crystal mirrors — he was recognised.
---
In a cloaked surveillance lounge beneath the Neutral Information Organisation, a whispered conversation was taking place.
> "That's him."
> "Lucien?"
> "Confirmed. No doubt. We had eight sightings this rotation but this one matches all ten identifiers."
> "What's he doing in Halworn?"
> "Unknown."
> "Do we engage?"
> "You want to engage Lucien?"
> "...Logging and watching, then."
> "Very wise."
---
Up above, far from the copper screams of the market, Eris lay flat on the rooftop.
Half-asleep. Fully aware.
Her long white bunny ears fluttered in the breeze. She chewed a piece of dried mint slowly, letting the flavour dissolve without urgency. Her expression remained perfectly neutral — the look of someone watching clouds pass over a battlefield.
She was small, 4'8" by measurement, but somehow the city felt smaller beneath her.
Her red eyes tracked Lucien's every move. Not because she was interested.
But because her hammer was.
The ancient warhammer, slung beside her, vibrated at intervals. It wasn't audible to anyone else — only her.
> He's strange, the hammer seemed to say. I remember this kind of mana…
> "No you don't," Eris muttered.
> I do.
> "Shut up."
---
Lucien paused by a fruit stand where someone was selling memory apples — arcane fruit grown from the soil of dreamers. He stared at one for a second. It dimmed in colour before the vendor quietly packed up his cart and wheeled away without a word.
---
Lucien wasn't suppressing his aura.
But he wasn't expressing it either.
He simply was.
And the world adjusted around him, like glass bending around heat.
---
Across the district, a group of junior enforcers sat in an automated patrol mech on break. They joked, smoked hex-nic sticks, and played cards.
One of them glanced at a flickering monitor showing the crowd below.
He froze.
> "Who the hell is that?" he asked.
No one answered.
The mech shut down.
All of them forgot what they were saying.
---
Lucien glanced upward.
He couldn't see her clearly — not yet.
But his mana field had already registered hers.
Lazy. Heavy. Dense and slow in a way that shouldn't work.
Like gravity applied sideways. Like death, if death had a sense of humour.
> Sin-born? he wondered. Or something older?
He took a step forward.
The shadows shifted.
---
On the rooftop, Eris sat up lazily, arms behind her for balance, hammer resting in her lap. She didn't speak. Her bunny ears folded backward in a motion so smooth it looked involuntary.
Lucien met her eyes. Truly.
And Eris… squinted slightly.
> "Tch. He saw me," she said to no one in particular.
> Good, the hammer purred.
> "No. Bad."
---
The world didn't stop — but the wind did.
Just for a moment.
The breeze paused. The heat held. The world seemed… pending.
Lucien turned.
And disappeared into the alley behind the preacher's pulpit.
---
Eris stood slowly.
She didn't rush.
Didn't even stretch.
She picked up the hammer like someone retrieving a snack, swung it over her shoulder, and stepped from rooftop to rooftop — silent and effortless.
> "...Why are we following him?" she muttered.
The hammer thrummed.
> "No. That's not an answer."
It pulsed again.
---
In the alley, Lucien leaned casually against a rusted arcane vending tower. The machine sparked once, failed to scan him, and powered down permanently.
Lucien didn't blink.
> She's following. That's… new.
He didn't know why.
Didn't care.
But he waited.
And sure enough — moments later — Eris dropped down behind him. No impact. No weight. Just silence.
He turned slightly.
She didn't speak.
He looked at her.
Really looked.
She was... small. And pale. And carried a weapon that radiated ancient hostility.
But she didn't radiate anything herself.
She was quiet. Still.
And that — to Lucien — was more unsettling than anything else.
> "You shouldn't carry that weapon so carelessly," he said.
> "They can try," she replied.
A beat.
> "You're not from here," Lucien said.
> "Neither are you."
Silence.
Then Eris crouched and set the warhammer down, resting her chin on the flat side. She blinked slowly, watching him like a cat watches a flame.
> "Are you dangerous?" she asked.
Lucien's blue eye shimmered.
The black one remained a void.
> "I don't know yet."
---
Across the district, the Core Apostles registered Lucien's mana reading through passive AI sensors embedded in the street. An internal alarm triggered, but the Core AI overrode it.
> "Ignore him. He's not hunting."
> "Then what is he doing?"
> "Wandering."
---
Back in the alley, Eris spoke again.
> "I want noodles."
Lucien blinked.
> "What?"
> "You were going somewhere. Bring me noodles."
A pause.
> "You want me to buy you food?"
> "Obviously."
Lucien stared at her.
> "Why?"
> "Because I'm hungry," she said flatly. "And you look like someone who knows where the good noodles are."
He laughed. Quietly.
Just once.
Then turned and walked.
Eris followed, dragging her hammer behind her like a child pulls a blanket.
---
They didn't speak for a while.
Not even when they reached a cramped noodle stall surrounded by silence where every customer had already left without knowing why.
Lucien sat first.
Eris sat beside him.
The vendor — trembling — served them both for free.
---
> "This is good," Eris mumbled, mouth half-full.
Lucien nodded. Slowly.
They ate in silence.
But something had shifted.
A pattern that wasn't there before… now was.
And far away, in a sealed tomb beneath a ruined sun-temple, a relic blinked. For the first time in centuries.
It whispered one word:
> Lucien.
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