Kade ran until the city fell behind him in a smear of roofs and shuttered windows. The side-house grew small, then invisible; Allorio's voice was already a memory. The sack thudded against his shoulder, the mantle heavy and cold at his back. He set one foot in front of the other and let the warrens swallow his steps.
"Oh—shit," Allorio muttered, rummaging through a pocket that was too full of paper and excuses. He barked a laugh, mildly annoyed at his own show. "I forgot to give him the compass. Not even visible now… youth these days. No patience."
He turned and squared his shoulders toward the common room. "Well, he'll manage. Likely." He walked over to the table where Kade's mother sat wiping her hands, finishing the last mouthful as if she'd been handed a small miracle.
"All right then — Laura!" Allorio called, theatrically cheerful. "You've got a patient."
The woman at the far side lifted her head. Laura looked like she did not belong in these alleys: a plain white smock that hung oddly formal, eyes clouded and banded as if by ribbons, a syringe resting like a talisman in her fingers. She spoke as if every surface of the room had been written on and she could read it.
"Is she the patient?" Her voice slid across the table, measured.
Kade's mother blinked, then smiled — that small, surprised light that made her face younger. "So you can see me, then. Cool."
Laura let her small pride show, just for a beat. "Of course."
The grin dropped. "I see… The Waning."
Kade's mother's smile faded. She tilted her head. "How can she tell," she asked herself.
"Already coughing blood?" Laura asked.
"No," the woman lied, voice thin.
Allorio glanced closer, interest flickering. "That's good… your boy," he said, and only then registered who she was. "He's smart."
"Yeah," she managed, voice rough. "He learned it the hard way—" She cut off with a hacking cough; blood flecked her lips.
"Just as I thought." Laura's hands tightened on the syringe. "It's worse than I thought. I'll need you to be honest with me from now on..."
Kade was ten minutes out when the thought arrived — cold, bracketed, obscene in its calm:
[SYSTEM: UPDATE AVAILABLE — THREE OFFERINGS REQUIRED]
He stopped dead. No voice, no flourish. Just the bracketed sentence like a nail.
The mantle at his shoulders gave a single violent pulse. Pain lanced through his ribcage as though someone had shoved a hot poker under the fabric. He doubled, hands on his knees; the world tilted. The Saum pulsed again and pinned him to the stones — a physical insistence, a direction.
He spat, half laugh, half curse. "Lovely. It asks for offerings now." He straightened, shoved the sack up, and logged the food into his [Inventory] with practiced motions.
[SYSTEM: INVENTORY UPDATED — +PROVISIONS (3 DAYS)]
The Saum tugged west. He went that way, mood black as the hem.
Six hours later the warrens gave out to a rock-strewn fold of land. He found a crevice, rolled a flat stone for back support, and made a small fire. He checked his pack as smoke curled up — Sera's dagger, the blood dagger — weapons that felt like choices waiting to be used. He lay close to the coals, pretending to sleep, eyes half-open.
Small figures moved at the edge of the light — shadows that ate shape and spat it back. The ground had become stone and sand; wind made the loose grit hiss like old paper.
Kade let his eyes close, pretending sleep. The lie lasted a second. A stinging thing erupted from the dark and aimed for his skull.
He brought his dagger up on reflex. The blade met nothing solid—only a cold whisper—and slid through as if through smoke. The contact left him with the odd impression of resistance that wasn't there; the phantom weight of a body where none should be. He twisted, stamped a foot, and for a heartbeat his sole hooked something with mass and he pivoted.
Five shapes folded out of shadow like thieves unwrapping knives. Child-small, wrong-angled, too-long fingers; faces smooth and blank as coins. They moved as a single, practiced unit.
His blade found air—the sensation was a tear. The thing lunged from behind; he spun, hips snapping, and a second pair of blades came raining down. Short, precise motions now. He smelled metal—old copper—and under it a sour tang: ritual left to rot.
One began to chant, low and animal. The dirt at its feet split. Thorned vines jerked up, black as tar, whipping at his calves. They cut like barbed wire. He didn't hesitate—he drew a clean line. The vines split like rope and then knit harder where they broke.
They forced him back. He tasted bile and grit. "Charming," he said, flat. "You brought the pruning tools."
He snatched a stout branch, shoved it into the coals until it flared. Light changed everything. Fire touches did what they should: the nearest screeched and dissolved to ash. Two slid under stone lids and vanished into crevices. The ritualist staggered, its chant breaking, but it wasn't done.
An attacker came at him blind from behind. Kade pivoted, caught its throat, and pulled. The thing unstitched—a ribbon of shadow unspooling into nothing. For a long breath the cliffside was full of hissed dust and the quiet of things that mend themselves.
Ash flecked his sleeve. He sucked air, muscles trembling. Somewhere beyond the rocks something watched and did not flee; a slit of light blinked and closed like an eye. The pause was deliberate. The fight had been noticed.
When the light settled, only a scattering remained — smell of singed pitch and old iron. The system chimed in that flat, bureaucratic way, as if someone ticked a box on a ledger:
[SYSTEM: SHADOW-WANDERER(S) NEUTRALIZED — REWARD: NONE]
No surprise there.
He wiped his blade on a scrap of cloth and shook ash from his sleeve. A small coin of light — tiny and stupidly satisfying — blinked in the margins of his mind; he had expected nothing handed so easily.
[SYSTEM: REQUIREMENTS FULFILLED — UPDATING NOW. PROCESS MAY TAKE A FEW MINUTES]
Kade listened to the night, to the pulsing mantle and the slow settling of his breath, and for the first time felt the cold of a path that had teeth.
He stared at the fire until a chime cut through the quiet.
[SYSTEM: UPDATE INSTALLED — FEATURES UNLOCKED: STATUS] [SYSTEM: INFO — HEALTH: 95% | STAMINA: 50%]
Interesting. Actually useful, Kade thought, voice dry in his head. Useful — if you didn't mind the favor arriving with the bill already stapled to it.
Duskveil's rhythm swelled, a slow, deliberate throb that lingered in the air. A slit of light opened beyond the rocks and closed again.
The chime rang louder.
[SYSTEM: ALERT — PREDATOR DETECTED]