By the time Kael reached the south market, the rain had turned to a drizzle, leaving the cobblestones slick and glistening. Stalls were half-closed, their canvas awnings sagging under collected water. Normally, the smell here was a mix of cooked fish, spiced bread, and the faint tang of river silt.
Today, it smelled wrong.
Not wrong like rot — wrong like alive. That same sharp green scent he'd learned to hate in the tunnels.
He slowed near a spice seller's stand, pretending to study the bins of saffron and crushed red pepper. His eyes drifted casually toward the far end of the street.
That's where he saw her.
Tall, long coat, hood drawn low. She was walking too slowly for a market crowd, her head turning just enough to scan faces. Kael couldn't see her eyes, but he knew the shape of her gait.
"Mara," he muttered under his breath.
Ryn glanced up from where she was pretending to inspect a rack of skewered meat. "You're sure?"
"I trained with her. That's her step."
Mara wasn't just an old sparring partner — she was one of the few in the Guild who'd ever taken Kael's side when others called him reckless. She'd been sent east two months ago on a scouting mission. No one had heard from her since.
And now she was here, in the hive's hunting grounds, walking like a lure.
Kael moved without another word.
He cut through the crowd, closing the distance as she turned down a narrow alley between a weaver's shop and a shuttered tavern. The alley smelled damp, the sound of the market fading behind him.
She stopped halfway down, back still turned.
"Mara," he called.
Slowly, she turned her head.
Half her face was hers. The other half was covered in bark-like plating, veins of green light running under the skin. Her left eye was gone, replaced by a cluster of tiny, pale roots.
Mara — B-Rank (Low), GP ~1,000 (Hive-Assimilated).
Her mouth moved, but the voice that came out was not hers.
"Kael."
The sound layered her tone with something deeper, older. "You took something from us."
Ryn's boots splashed on the stones as she entered the alley behind him. "She's not alone."
Kael didn't need the warning — he could already hear it. The faint scrape of roots against stone, the whisper of something slithering just beyond sight.
Figures emerged from the shadows at the far end. Four of them, hunched, wearing rags that barely hid the twisting growths along their limbs.
Hive Drones — C-Rank (Mid), GP ~350 each.
"Mara," Kael said, keeping his voice steady, "I can cut you free. You know I can."
The root-cluster where her eye had been pulsed. "You can't cut what is us."
Her hand came up — not in a weapon draw, but in a command. The drones surged forward.
Kael met them halfway, his knife flashing in the dim light. He cut through the first drone's throat, feeling the warmth flood into him.
[C-Rank (High) | GP: 750 + 10 = 760]
Ryn's quarrel dropped a second, the bolt punching through its chest and pinning it to the alley wall.
The third drone caught Kael's shoulder, slamming him into the brick hard enough to crack plaster. Stonehide flared, keeping bone from breaking, and he shoved it back, driving his blade into its side.
[C-Rank (High) | GP: 760 + 10 = 770]
The last drone came in low, aiming for Ryn. She sidestepped, firing point-blank into its head. It fell twitching, roots curling back into the stone.
When Kael looked up, Mara was moving toward him. Her stride was unhurried, confident, like she knew exactly how this would end.
The bark plating on her arm split open, revealing a cluster of thorned roots that whipped forward. Kael blocked with his forearm, the thorns scraping harmlessly over hardened skin.
He slashed at the base of her arm, but the bark deflected the blow. She was faster than the Warden they'd fought in the quarry tunnels, and her strikes carried more weight.
Ryn fired at her, but the bolt was intercepted midair — a tendril shot from the wall, swatting it aside.
Kael ducked under Mara's next swing and drove his blade up under her ribs. For a heartbeat, her human side faltered — her eye widened, mouth opening in a gasp that sounded like her again.
Then the hive took her voice back.
"You can't save her," it said through her lips.
The warmth of the kill came anyway, though muted, tainted.
[C-Rank (High) | GP: 770 + 20 = 790]
She staggered back, bark plates retracting slightly as if in retreat. Then, without another word, she turned and melted into the far shadows, vanishing into a crack in the wall that closed behind her.
Kael took a step after her, but Ryn grabbed his arm. "You won't catch her. Not in those tunnels. Not now."
He stood there, breath heavy, staring at the place she'd vanished. The warmth of her GP gain buzzed in his veins, but it felt cold all the same.
Back in the safety of a boarded-up warehouse two streets away, Ryn dumped a map on the table. "This wasn't just a hit. They wanted you in the open."
Kael nodded grimly. "They used her because they knew I'd follow."
She traced a line from the south market to the old aqueduct entrance nearest the Council district. "That's where she went. Straight into the deep network."
Kael leaned over the map. "Then that's where we go next."
Ryn's eyes flicked to him. "And if she's waiting?"
He met her gaze without hesitation. "Then I'll cut the hive out of her, or I'll burn the whole section down."
That night, Kael couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her — the moment her human side had surfaced, the flicker of recognition before the hive smothered it again.
He didn't know if she could still be saved. But he knew the hive had just declared the next phase of the war.
They weren't just defending anymore.
They were hunting.