The Guild chamber doors had barely slammed behind them when Eliakim caught sight of the second tendril of black smoke slipping between the cobbles, vanishing toward the western quarter.
The streets of Greyspire buzzed with noise—hammer strikes repairing damaged stalls, the clamor of merchants shouting prices—but beneath the sound there was a taut, uneasy silence. People avoided looking too long at the ground, as if afraid something might look back.
Gideon's grip tightened on his twin axes. The runes etched into the steel flared—one in deep crimson, the other in a cold sapphire—flashing in brief pulses, as though answering an unseen call from Kaelvryn's dormant power.
Ezra Nightfall stepped out from the shadow of a collapsed awning, mana already gathering in her palms. The air around her shimmered faintly, unstable—raw strength without the polish of full control. Her eyes locked on the dark shimmer vanishing into the gutter."That's not random," she said under her breath. "It's hunting."
Without wasting another second, Eliakim scanned the intersecting alleys and service lanes in his mind. He didn't need to see the tendril to know where it was going—Greyspire's underbelly had patterns, and this thing was cutting toward the oldest sewer lines.
"This way," he said sharply. "Two streets west, then drop down."
They cut across the crowd, weaving between carts and startled vendors. The smoke was faster in the open, darting between drain gaps, but Eliakim's mental map narrowed its likely exits to just one: the West Sewer Inlet.
---
The moment they reached the rusted grate, the stench hit—damp stone, stagnant water, and something acrid that made the tongue sting.
Eliakim dropped down first, boots splashing into ankle-deep runoff. Gideon followed, axes raised, their glow painting the walls in jagged red-and-blue strokes. Ezra landed silently behind them, magic still sparking at her fingertips, the light bending oddly in her presence.
Down here, the sound of the city above faded to a muted heartbeat. Torch sconces lined the walls at irregular intervals, their flames guttering unnaturally as the smoke slid past, hugging the stone like oil.
It was faster underground, slipping into narrow pipes and reappearing farther ahead, as if it knew the tunnels better than any engineer.
---
They weren't the only ones following it.
Ahead, at the curve of the next tunnel, a figure moved—slow, deliberate steps splashing softly in the water. Nathaniel Blackthorn. His coat swayed just above the runoff, and though the light was poor, Eliakim could see his head tilt slightly, tracking the same tendril they hunted.
For a heartbeat, Nathaniel glanced back over his shoulder. His expression didn't change. No greeting, no recognition—only a faint, cold amusement—before he turned away and continued, his pace unhurried.
The tendril never got far from him. If anything, it seemed to wait for him to catch up before slipping farther into the dark.
---
The tunnels grew narrower, the air heavier. The brickwork here was ancient, overgrown with slick moss. Somewhere in the black ahead, water dripped in slow, steady rhythm.
Gideon's axes glowed brighter, the colors no longer pulsing but burning in a steady light—Kaelvryn's essence thrumming in the metal like a heartbeat.
Ezra's voice was a whisper now, taut with tension. "It's leading us. This isn't random."
"I know," Eliakim murmured. He traced their path in his mind. "Another two turns, and we'll hit the old cistern chamber."
They rounded the last bend and stopped dead.
The cistern was massive—an open space of stone pillars and dark water—but now it was half-filled with a rolling, slow-churning mass of black smoke. Not just tendrils, but a storm trapped within the walls, the surface of the water swallowing the reflections of torchlight whole.
In the center stood Nathaniel, untouched, the tendril curling lazily around him before vanishing into the greater cloud. His eyes glinted faintly in the gloom.
The smoke shifted. It breathed.
And then it moved toward them.