The Guild Enclave's council chamber emptied in tense silence, the last of the officials leaving with clipped words and sideways glances. Eliakim and Gideon stepped back into the main hall of Greyspire's Guild Tower, the heavy oak doors thudding shut behind them.
The air in the lobby was wrong.
A faint, oily shimmer rippled above the flagstones—like heat mirage, but darker, heavier. Then it coiled upward, curling in on itself until a tendril of black smoke hovered in midair.
"Gideon…" Eliakim's voice sharpened.
The tendril pulsed once, as though breathing, then split in two. Each thread darted away in opposite directions—one through a side corridor, the other toward the open archway that led to Greyspire's market square.
Shouts erupted outside. The muffled clash of steel and panicked footsteps echoed into the hall.
Guild guards poured in, spears drawn, their captain barking orders."Contain it—don't let it spread!"
Eliakim's gaze tracked the smoke. It wasn't dispersing like normal mist—it was hunting, weaving through doorframes and cracks like it had a will. And then, for the briefest instant, it looked at him. Not physically—no eyes—but an unmistakable awareness, a pull in the gut.
Skyling hissed low from her perch near the wall, feathers bristling.Gideon's hand went to his axe-hilts out of reflex. "This… ain't normal smoke."
Before Eliakim could respond, a merchant burst through the front doors, clutching at his arm—skin blistered with faint, shifting sigils that glowed faintly under the skin like embers.
The black smoke coiled lazily above him… then dove straight into the man's chest.
The merchant screamed, his voice layered with something not human.
The Guild bell tower began ringing—not the usual triple toll for fire, but the long, continuous knell reserved for citywide breach emergencies.
The Fight in the Hall
The possessed merchant staggered forward, eyes clouded black, mouth opening in an inhuman grin. The sigils on his arm spread across his neck like creeping frost.
He lunged—not at the nearest guard, but straight at Eliakim.
Eliakim sidestepped, drawing his dagger in a blur, and slashed across the merchant's arm. The wound smoked, but no blood came—only more of that black vapor.
"Separate him from it!" barked the guard captain, thrusting his spear. The weapon's tip passed through the smoke with no resistance, as though stabbing through shadows.
Gideon stepped in hard, crossing both axes in a downward chop that smashed into the merchant's torso. The body crumpled, but the smoke peeled free and darted toward the ceiling like it had just shed a useless shell.
It split into three tendrils this time. One dove toward the street. The second slipped down into the lower floors of the Guild Tower. The third hung above Eliakim for a moment—hovering, watching—before shooting into a side hall toward the council archives.
"Gideon, Skyling—street first!" Eliakim barked, already moving.
Skyling launched herself into the air, streaking past the guards with wings slicing through the smoky residue. Gideon followed, his heavier frame shoving through the panicked throng in the market square.
In the Streets of Greyspire
Outside, chaos reigned. Citizens fled as smoke slithered between market stalls, slipping into cracks in wood and stone. Where it touched cloth, the fabric blackened instantly. Where it brushed bare skin, the sigil-burns appeared.
Skyling dove low, flaring her wings to blast a gust through one tendril, scattering it—but it regrouped like water reforming after a splash.
Gideon's axes cleaved down, forcing it to retreat toward a fountain where the spray of water made it hiss.
From the Guild Tower doorway, Eliakim flung a chain from his Bracelet of Kharuun, the links glowing faintly as they struck the smoke and wrapped a fragment of it. The captured tendril writhed violently, pulling at the chain until he forced it into the bracelet's dimensional lock.
One down. Two left.
The Political Fallout
By the time the remaining tendrils were driven off, the market was a wreck—burned stalls, overturned carts, injured civilians. The guards were shaken.
Inside the Guild Tower, the council reconvened in a private chamber. Eliakim and Gideon were pulled in immediately.
"This isn't random," one senior guildmaster snapped. "That smoke… it was probing us."
"And it came from the Emberroot anomaly," another added. "Which means you brought it here."
The accusation hung in the air.
Eliakim's jaw tightened, but before he could answer, he noticed the empty seat at the far wall—Nathaniel's. The assassin had slipped away sometime during the chaos.
The guard captain muttered, "And if it follows you, that means it'll be back."
Eliakim knew they were right—but what chilled him most was that the smoke had looked for him first.