The desert nights were supposed to be cold.
That's what Khalid's mother used to say — that when the sun fell, the heat bled away, and the world finally exhaled. But here, in the Low Quarter of Madripoor, the air stuck to him like a fever. Even the shadows sweated.
The street beyond the alley was chaos. Not the bright, bustling chaos of the markets, but the jagged, hungry kind that came with gunfire and screaming. Each stuttered flash painted the buildings white before plunging them back into darkness. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered with a brittle crash. A bottle rolled across the stone, clattering to silence.
Khalid pressed his back to the cold brick, curling his toes against the dusty ground. He gripped the scarf wound around his neck — frayed and sun-bleached — the last thing his brother had given him before… before he stopped coming back. The memory burned hotter than the flames licking the alley walls.
The smell was the worst: a thick stew of cordite, burning plastic, and the faint tang of seawater drifting from the docks. Beneath it all, the sour rot of discarded fruit and trash. His stomach growled despite itself.
Boots.
He froze.
Not hurried steps. They had the lazy confidence of people who knew the ground they walked on belonged to them. The sound grew sharper, heavier, until it thudded against the alley's stones like a warning.
Khalid's mind raced. Run deeper, or dart past them? The alley forked into darkness; too deep, and he might be trapped. Too shallow, and they'd corner him.
A figure emerged.
Tall, broad, clad in black flak. The dull gleam of a visor hid his eyes, but the rifle in his hands said everything. Its barrel caught the flicker of distant fire and reflected it in sharp white streaks.
Khalid's reflection shimmered in the visor — a thin, dark-skinned boy, messy black hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, light brown eyes wide and unblinking. A child. A shadow of a threat.
Yet the rifle didn't lower.
"Come here, kid," the man said, flat and mechanical. No kindness. No malice. Just an order.
Khalid's legs betrayed him. Survival instincts screamed to run, but his body refused. He couldn't step forward. Couldn't step back.
The man's boots scraped against stone, deliberate, unstoppable. The visor tilted, catching the firelight in a jagged flare.
Khalid's chest tightened as if the night itself had wrapped around him.
Then he heard it.
A voice. Soft. Right next to his ear.
Not his mother's, not his brother's, not any voice he recognized. It didn't belong to the soldier. It didn't belong anywhere.
Breathe.
It wasn't a suggestion. Not a command. It was a truth carved into the marrow of the world.
Khalid obeyed before he could think.
The air that filled his lungs felt wrong — heavy, choking, thick with something he couldn't name. His chest burned. His vision blurred. His fingers trembled.
And when he exhaled… the world changed.
A black mist poured from his lips, threaded with deep crimson. It swirled in the alley like ink dropped into water, thick and suffocating. It slithered along the ground, curling around crates, climbing walls, reaching for the soldier.
The man stiffened, lifting his rifle instinctively. But the mist moved faster than thought, sliding under his armor, seeping into the visor. He convulsed — once, twice — and collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The rifle skittered across the stone.
Khalid stared at his hands. Wisps of the mist still clung to his fingers, writhing and curling with each ragged breath.
He didn't know if it was his power or if it had been him all along.
Shouts erupted from the alley's mouth. Other soldiers. Footsteps pounding like the drums of doom. Panic surged, sharp and pure. He spun, weaving through overturned crates, trash heaps, and narrow gaps between buildings.
The smoke from the Low Quarter curled in the distance, faintly red under the moonlight. People were running from him, not the mercenaries. That thought twisted his stomach into ice.
He ducked under a broken fence and landed hard. Pain shot up his leg. He hissed but didn't stop. His breaths came in ragged bursts. His heart hammered as he thought of the scarf clutched at his neck.
"Why… why me?" he whispered.
A faint movement above drew his eyes upward.
A figure crouched on a rooftop, cloaked in black with silver threads that shimmered in the moonlight. A crimson charm swung from one ear, catching the breeze. His eyes glowed faintly — not the hard glint of a visor, but the slow burn of embers.
Khalid blinked. He hadn't seen him descend. Yet suddenly, the stranger was on the alley floor, boots touching the stone without a sound.
"You've been breathing things you shouldn't," the man said, accent thick, melodic, and strange. "Things that don't belong in this world."
Khalid's back pressed harder against the crate. "Who… who are you?"
The man's smile was slow, deliberate. "The one who's going to teach you before you burn yourself out." His gaze flicked to the wisps of crimson-black smoke still curling from Khalid's lips. "Before they kill you."
Khalid's throat felt dry. "Why… why help me?"
"Because," the man said, stepping closer, voice low and certain, "I've been waiting for someone like you for a very… very long time."
Khalid didn't notice the sudden hush in the alley. The shouts, the pounding boots, the chaos beyond — all of it seemed to fade in the presence of the stranger. Even the smoke around him trembled slightly, as if recognizing a new master.
He swallowed, trembling. "I… I don't understand. What's… happening to me?"
The stranger crouched to his level, studying him. "Power, child. Fear, hunger, survival… all of it has been a lesson preparing you for what comes next. That mist is not a curse, not yet. It is a gift, if you learn to control it."
Khalid's fingers twitched. The smoke pulsed at his touch, almost alive. He wanted to run, to hide, to forget it all. But something deep in him — something he couldn't name — told him this stranger was the first person who might understand.
"Who… who are you?" he asked again, voice barely above a whisper.
Azar Veyran's eyes glinted. "I am the one who can keep you alive. I am the one who can teach you. But," he paused, the crimson charm swinging, catching the faint light, "every gift has its price."
The wind shifted. The smoke curled higher, black and red against the moonlight, a living, breathing thing. Khalid shivered, feeling the weight of it — of himself — and the whisper of something older, older than men, older than the city.
Breathe.
He did.
And for the first time, he felt the truth in the command.