By the time the Pit Master finished saying Deren's name, Kael was already moving.
The cot banged the wall behind him. Ash rose with him, smoke sliding off his shoulders in thin black strips. The cramped chamber suddenly felt too small for any of it — the old man in the doorway, the stink of damp plaster, the fresh pressure in Kael's chest that had nothing to do with bruised ribs.
Who told you, he said.
Neighbor from your block. Red scarf. Pit Master stepped aside. Said men in clean coats were asking after your building. Then a fourth showed up with a contract brand on his hand. Your cousin saw them from the window and ran upstairs. She sent word here instead of the watch.
How long.
Ten minutes, maybe.
Too long.
The officiant caught his arm in the corridor. If you run there alone, you hand them half the work.
I'm going either way.
I know. That's why I'm coming.
The Pit Master barked at the guards. South exit. Cart. And get word to Ward Captain Merrow.
Talia appeared with her spear already in hand. I heard enough. If there's a fight, I'm not missing it.
The officiant looked at her once. Fine. Stay useful.
They took the Hall's back service arch and threw themselves into a mule-cart that smelled like old straw and wet rope. Kael counted turns while the driver whipped the team downhill. Every jolt of the wheels hit his ribs. He barely noticed.
Too slow.
Northwatch blurred past in broken pieces. Laundry lines. Fish scales in gutters. Boys on a rooftop yelling at the cart until they saw the city seal. Then South Mill rose around them — crooked brick, patched windows, and the old broken fountain at Mill Square where somebody was always either kissing or bleeding.
There, the driver said.
Kael saw the building at once.
Three stories. Cracked drainpipe. Laundry strung over the rear alley. He'd grown up in two rooms on the second floor and one on the third after the roof leak got worse than the rent.
There were four men outside.
Not watch. Not guild. Their coats were too plain for one and too good for the other. Three held the street. The fourth stood a little apart with a contract brand across the back of one hand.
Hunter.
Kael jumped off the cart before it fully stopped.
The front door banged open.
His father stood there with the old iron pry bar from the workshop in both hands. Blood had dried along one temple. He looked entirely willing to make it everybody else's problem.
You're late, he said.
Kael's stomach dropped. Where's Deren.
Inside. Third floor. Barricaded with your aunt.
The branded man smiled first. Professional mistake.
Kael. Good. You've saved us time.
House Vey has concerns about your safety, said one of the plaincoats. Given today's events, we thought it wise to secure immediate family until matters are clarified.
The Pit Master climbed down from the cart. Secure. That what they call it in your house now.
The branded man's smile thinned. Pit Master. This seems beneath you.
Today's taught me a lot about what's beneath people.
The other three had started spacing out without making it obvious. Two left. One right. Kael saw it because Ash saw it. The bond sharpened around the edges.
Prey.
A white panel flickered.
MARK OF PREY READY
Kael kept his eyes on the hunter. You sent a snare to the Hall.
Alleged snare, the man said.
You came to my building.
We came to keep foolish people from making worse choices.
Talia laughed once. That line sound expensive to anybody else.
One of the plaincoats on the left reached inside his coat.
Ash moved before the hand came back out.
A blur. A scream. A weighted chain hit the dirt.
The whole street broke at once.
The second plaincoat went for Kael's father.
Bad decision.
The old man swung the pry bar two-handed and smashed it into the side of the man's knee. The attacker folded with a howl. Talia was already on him, spearshaft across his throat and a boot on his wrist.
Don't, she said brightly. I'm having a nice morning.
The hunter was the real problem.
He stepped in calm as a tax man, and a pale brown hound slid out of the alley behind him. Longer than Ash. Scarred muzzle. Torn ear. Bronze rank, maybe low silver on a good day.
Ash's smoke thickened.
That, said the hunter, looking at the black beast by Kael's feet, is what all this fuss is for.
The brown hound lowered its head and bared its teeth.
South Mill did not clear when trouble came. It watched. Windows cracked open. Roof edges filled. A baby started crying somewhere upstairs.
The officiant stepped forward. House Vey has no city authority here. Withdraw your men.
The hunter ignored her. My orders are to bring the family under protection.
Kael said, Come take them then.
His father shot him a look that said stop sounding born wrong.
Too late.
The hunter snapped his fingers.
The brown hound launched.
Ash met it in the middle of the lane.
They hit low and hard, teeth first, bodies slamming together on muddy stone and wagon-rutted dirt. The bigger hound had size. Ash had speed and a kind of vicious intelligence people kept mistaking for temper.
The brown hound drove him backward half a stride.
Ash yielded it, twisted under, and tore into the inside of its foreleg.
Blood came quick.
The hunter drew a hooked short blade and stepped in.
Kael started forward.
The Pit Master got there first.
The old man hit him shoulder to shoulder like a dropped beam. Both of them smashed into the drainpipe. Metal shrieked. Brick dust burst loose. The blade skidded away.
One of the plaincoats tried to circle behind Kael.
His father caught him with the pry bar in the ribs and said, Not in my doorway.
That line would stay with Kael.
Talia had finished with her man and drove the butt of her spear into the chain-wielder's jaw hard enough to put him flat. The lane had become a mess of yelling, neighbors leaning out of windows, and House Vey men learning they had misjudged the block.
Then the brown hound got Ash by the shoulder.
Kael felt it like a nail shoved under his own collarbone.
Ash hit the ground. The bigger beast came down after him for the throat.
Mark him, Kael said.
The words left his mouth before he fully meant them.
The panel vanished.
Ash's violet eye burned bright.
The brown hound faltered mid-lunge.
Only for a second.
Enough.
Ash tore free, hit the bigger beast from the side, and suddenly the whole fight changed. Not strength. Certainty. He moved like the hound had already been measured and finished somewhere just ahead of time.
One cut across the nose.
Another at the back leg.
Then Ash went for the throat.
The bigger hound tried to turn with him and failed. Ash was already there, teeth buried under the jaw. A wet sound followed. The brown hound collapsed into the gutter and kicked twice.
The hunter felt it through his own bond. Kael saw the shock hit him a fraction before the pain did.
The Pit Master punched him in the mouth while he was still trying to understand it.
That ended his day.
Silence did not come all at once. It leaked back into the lane after the shouting had nowhere else to go.
Ash stood over the dead hound, sides heaving, blood on his muzzle and shoulder. Smoke climbed off him in thin dark threads.
The panel flashed.
MARK OF PREY CONSUMEDSECOND SLOT OPEN
Kael stared.
Not now. Not with half the building watching and his father bleeding at the door.
His aunt leaned out from the stairwell window. Is it done.
His father looked up without taking his eyes off the men in the street. Deren still breathing.
Yes.
Then it's done enough, she snapped. Get the boy upstairs before I come down there myself.
That, more than the fight, broke the tension. Somebody laughed from a window. Somebody else spat over a sill and missed everyone important.
The officiant wiped blood from the back of her hand and looked around at the watching block.
Any witness willing to swear House Vey laid hands on this building may report to the Hall under city notice.
Three windows opened wider at once.
Talia grinned. They really picked the wrong block.
Kael stepped toward the door.
Ash fell in beside him.
Behind them, the Pit Master hauled the hunter up by the front of his coat and said in a voice the whole lane could hear, House Vey's going to have a very bad afternoon.
Kael believed him.
At the top of the stairs, with his aunt already shouting and Deren's feet pounding toward the landing, the panel came back one more time.
SECOND SLOT CONDITION UPDATEDBLOOD OF A HUNTER — MET
And beneath it, a new line appeared.
SECOND MARK AVAILABLE