Kael came to a shaky halt on the landing pad, boots whining in protest as they finally gave out with a pitiful sputter. A puff of smoke coiled from the thrusters like the last exhale of a dying machine. He staggered a bit, cursing under his breath and waving the smoke away before stepping off the platform and merging into the sluggish flow of pedestrians heading toward the residential sector.
The air up here, relatively speaking, was less toxic. Cleaner, thanks to the steady stream of wind currents that threaded between the ancient, sky-piercing towers. It didn't reek of metal rot and monster spores, so Kael popped off his re-breather and let it hang from his collar. For once, he could breathe without his lungs throwing a protest march.
Didn't mean he let his guard down. Not in this part of the Reach.
Pickpockets, deal-hounds, and gang spotters clung to the edges of crowds. Kael's eyes flicked around—shoulders tense, hand near the concealed blade at his back. He wasn't in the mood for another "friendly" mugging today. He wasn't in the mood for anything, really.
His building stood under the territorial piss-line of the Bloodhowl Syndicate, an outfit that owned this entire stretch near The Howling Grounds, a former industrial wasteland now drenched in the screams of brawls and beasts. Total no-man's-land, unless you had claws, cash, or a death wish.
At the top of the heap sat Fenric "Chains" Marr, an exiled noble from the Lycan Empire who'd traded velvet cloaks and political parties for blood pits, mutant juice, and a throne of rusted bones. Kael had never met the guy personally—thank the stars—but he'd seen the aftermath of someone who pissed Chains off. Spoiler: there wasn't much left to identify.
Still, Fenric wasn't unfair. He didn't care if you were full-blood, half-breed, or just unlucky. As long as you paid your rent on time and didn't puke on his floors, you were golden. Skip rent, though? Your rate doubled. Miss two payments? Well, hope your remains tasted good to the bloodhounds.
Kael turned a corner, boots scraping against cracked alloy tiles, and reached the small, boxy building that passed for the local pharmacy. It was built like a vault, clean-lined and fortified with private security guards, the kind that looked like they'd eat bullets and still demand a tip. Fenric spared no expense protecting his pharmaceutical investments. Gotta keep your customers alive long enough to keep buying.
The doors hissed open, and Kael stepped into a blissfully sterile pocket of air that didn't make his skin itch. The scentless chill was almost enough to bring a tear to his eye.
Inside, holographic ads zipped around the upper walls like over-caffeinated pigeons, flashing sales on anti-rads, immune boosters, and, of course, the ever-popular penile enlargement surgeries. Because even in a city drowning in toxic mist and mutant spiders, insecurity found a way.
Kael snorted. "Fix your lungs or your junk, your choice."
He made a beeline for the shelf lined with re-breather filters, snagging a six-pack with a muttered curse. A full dozen would've run him 40 credits, and that was a luxury he couldn't afford, not unless he wanted to live in a dumpster behind a noodle stall.
At the checkout, he slapped the box onto the scanner and raised his wrist. The flickering teal holo-display blinked his meager balance back at him—234 credits. A gentle subtraction later, he was left with 214.
He didn't even glance at the pharmacist. Just scooped the box and headed out, back into the diluted nightmare called home. He took the long way back, letting the walk burn off the irritation still coiled in his chest. The streets hummed around him, neon signs flashing half-broken promises above twitchy crowds and broken lives.
By the time Kael reached the steps of his apartment complex, a leaning tower of patched metal and flickering lights, he mentally ran the math.
214 credits.
Rent: 200.
Leftover: 14.
Fourteen pathetic credits to his name. Enough for a pack of instant noodles and maybe a third-hand toothpick. So much for being fourth in line to the damn Lycan throne. He laughed, dry, bitter, and hollow. It echoed off the concrete stairwell like a joke no one else found funny.
🐺⚙️"༒ The Howl of the Forsaken ༒"⚙️🐺
Kael finally reached his apartment, stomping up the last flight of corroded stairs with the grace of a man who had long ago stopped caring if they collapsed beneath him. His door—2044, scrawled in faded digits on a pale green slab of metal. It was peppered with long, claw-like gouges and plasma scorch marks, like it had moonlighted as a riot shield in some back-alley war. But it held. Somehow.
The access panel beside the door sputtered with a sickly blue flicker, glitching like it was having a nervous breakdown.
Kael sighed. "You and me both, buddy."
He slammed the side of the panel with the flat of his hand. It buzzed in protest, then stabilized long enough for him to press his thumb to the scanner. A grating click echoed from within the mechanism, followed by a hiss. The door shuddered open an inch, then slid the rest of the way with a screech sharp enough to wake the neighborhood—and piss them off.
Inside, the lights stuttered to life, as if unsure they wanted to participate in this sad excuse for a homecoming. The dull, yellowish glow flickered a few times before settling into a steady hum, casting just enough light to illuminate the glorious wreckage he called a living room.
Two threadbare couches, stained and sagging, faced each other like old enemies who'd called a truce out of shared exhaustion. Between them, a cracked glass table overflowed with a chaos of scrap metal, half-melted circuit boards, microchips, and a couple of half-full liquid power cells still ticking faintly with stolen energy. Kael had hauled it all in from a busted sentry bot he'd scavenged out on the open plains, a good score, even if it did nearly cost him a lung.
And a spleen, he thought dryly, stepping over a loose gear that skittered beneath his boot.
The kitchenette, if it could even be called that, wasn't winning any beauty contests either. Most of the cabinet doors hung crooked or were just... gone. The small table in the center had one good leg and one that had clearly been replaced by a cinder block. The appliances were second-hand, third-hand if you were being honest, all patched together with questionable repairs and duct tape that had seen better days.
Kael didn't even blink at the pile of instant noodle cups and protein bar wrappers littering the countertop. Cleanliness was a luxury. He was too tired, too broke, and too dead inside to care.
He shuffled into his bedroom, where a single bed was built directly into the outer wall of the high-rise. The mattress was thin, the sheets mismatched, but the view? Oh, the view was spectacular—if your idea of beauty included a panoramic look at a crumbling city held together with rust, desperation, and broken dreams.
Only a fool would choose to live here. Kael? He had the privilege of being that fool.
A small door led to the bathroom, which was as minimalist as it got. Just a toilet, a tiny vanity with a chipped mirror, and a shower barely large enough for someone with shoulders. Kael peeled off his filthy clothes, each article sticking to his skin, and tossed them into the hamper under the sink.
He stepped into the cramped shower and pulled the cloudy glass door shut behind him. With a sigh, he pressed the button on the control panel. The jets wheezed to life like they were coughing up their last breath, then sprayed him with a burst of lukewarm water that wasn't cold enough to be cruel, but not warm enough to be kind either.
"Luxury living," Kael muttered under his breath, reaching for the loofah that had seen better centuries.
The pre-mixed soap stung slightly as it hit his skin—cheap, a generic cleanser. He scrubbed quickly, his movements robotic, like a man just trying to finish the daily routine before life came knocking again.
As the rinse cycle kicked in, sluicing away the foam and grime, Kael tilted his head back and let the water trickle down his face. It didn't feel cleansing. Just... necessary.
Finally, the jets cut off and a blast of hot air roared to life, scouring the moisture from his body in one harsh, overly enthusiastic breath. He emerged from the stall clean-ish, dry-ish, and emotionally bankrupt as when he'd walked in. But hey, at least he didn't smell like alley grease and regret anymore. Small victories.
After yanking on a pair of boxer briefs over his bare ass, Kael let gravity win and collapsed onto the bed with the grace of a man thoroughly defeated by the day. He exhaled a long, ragged sigh that carried the full weight of bone-deep exhaustion, but his date with Morpheus wasn't coming.
Tomorrow promised another soul-sucking grind through the sewage pipe that was life in Ashgarde Reach. He wasn't even lucky enough to have nightmares, they couldn't compete with reality.
Kael turned his head to the side, eyes landing on the two daggers resting on a floating desk bolted into the wall beside his bed. The blades shimmered faintly in the low light—thin, elegant, and deadly, like the woman who gave them to him. His fingers twitched, instinctively wanting to reach out, to touch that last sliver of her left in his world. He didn't.
Sylvia Tensworth. His mother. Born into one of Sakura City's oldest and most politically ruthless families. She'd grown up on a steady diet of etiquette lessons and combat training, equal parts velvet glove and iron fist. The Tensworths were aristocrats of the old breed, smiles with teeth behind them.
Her father, Councilor Dickson Tensworth, was a man who preached strength through legacy, and practiced it by shaping his daughter into a blade with a pulse. By the time she was eighteen, Sylvia had carved her name into the political sphere as The Pale Flame, a prodigy whose arcane fire magic didn't burn red like normal mages, but cold, silver-white, like moonlight caught in gasoline.
She was a weapon in a ballroom gown, deadly and composed, with eyes like polished silver and a stare that made grown men flinch. She could end you with a word or a flick of her wrist. And still... she had loved Kael.
Until the day she was forced to leave him behind.
When Kael turned thirteen, the Lycan world had been watching. Waiting. Every noble bloodline had expectations, and none more so than the Bloodfang dynasty—Kael's father's side. But when his first transformation never came, when no mystical ability bloomed in his blood... the whispers started. Then the accusations. Then the decree.
Emperor Kaarnak Bloodfang, his father in name only, gave Kael a single glance, cold and impersonal, before signing his exile like it was a minor clerical task. Not a son—just a genetic disappointment to sweep under the rug.
Under cover of night, Kael had been dumped into Ashgarde Reach like bio-waste. No ceremony. No goodbye. Just two daggers tucked into his arms. His mother's last defiance. The Pale Flame, silenced by political chains.
Not that anyone in the Lycan court thought he'd survive. Why would they? In their eyes, he was already dead. An embarrassment erased. And maybe they were right. Because some nights, Kael wasn't sure if he had actually survived... or just kept breathing out of spite.
*** End Of Chapter 2 ***