Kaelen didn't stop running until Mist's Edge Dock was a shrinking smear of lantern light behind him. The narrow skywalk swayed with every step, ropes groaning under the gusting wind. Far below, the Veil seethed, its pale tendrils curling upward like searching fingers.
By the time he reached the half-sunken shantytown clinging to the underbelly of the trade island, his breath was ragged. He ducked into a rusted cargo lift, hauled the lever, and let it rattle him down into the shadows.
The pain in his palm hadn't faded.
In the dim light of a flickering rune-lamp, he peeled off his glove — and froze.
The swirling lines he'd seen on the bone shard were now etched into his skin, black as ink but faintly glowing, like coals under ash. They pulsed with his heartbeat. When he touched them, something deep in his chest answered — a slow, massive thrum that wasn't his own.
He stumbled to a cracked mirror nailed to the wall. His eyes… the green had been leeched into a molten amber ring around the pupils.
"What in the Veil's name…?"
He'd heard stories. Runebinding was dangerous enough when done by skilled mages in ritual halls. But forced binding — when the rune chose the bearer — was almost always fatal.
Almost.
The door banged open.
Kaelen's hand went to his dagger, but instead of cold steel, a thin shimmer of shadow coiled from his fingertips, solidifying into a blade of dark light. He stared at it in shock — and nearly too long.
Three figures stepped into the room, cloaked and masked in blacksteel mesh. Their armor bore the mark of the Rune Sovereignty — Lord Draeg's elite hunters.
"The vessel is here," one said, voice distorted by a mask charm.
Kaelen didn't know what vessel meant, but the way they moved toward him told him it wasn't going to end in a polite conversation.
The nearest lunged. Kaelen reacted without thought, the shadow-blade moving as if it knew where to strike. Sparks flew as it met steel, cutting deeper than any normal weapon could.
Another hunter raised a gauntleted hand. The rune on his forearm flared crimson — and the floorboards under Kaelen exploded upward, splintering into a cage of jagged wood.
The rune on Kaelen's palm burned hotter.
His vision tunneled. The shadows thickened, swirling like smoke around his body, and when he moved, they moved with him. In one blink, he was through the wooden cage, reappearing behind his attacker.
The man didn't have time to scream before Kaelen's blade found the seam in his armor.
The other two froze, reassessing. One took a step back. "It's begun," she murmured.
Kaelen didn't wait to find out what that meant. He bolted through the open door, the taste of blood and iron on his tongue, the burning rune thrumming like a war drum in his veins.
Somewhere behind him, the hunters weren't giving chase.
They were watching him go.