The rain tasted of rust and old blood.
It came down in sheets, turning the black mud into a sucking mire that swallowed the footsteps of the dying. Beneath the rain's hiss, the chains sang their ceaseless rattle — a broken choir of manacles and iron collars that marked every soul in Gloomspire as owned.
I sat against the rotting wall of the stockhouse, hands bound, the stink of mold and human waste clinging to me like an extra skin. The overseers had left us here until the next shift of "devotion" began — another word for being worked until you collapsed in the mines beneath the city, breathing dust until your lungs tore themselves apart.
No one ever got used to the hunger.
It was a hollow gnawing thing, worse than the beatings, worse than the cold. And worse still was the sound of the priests chanting in the temple above the slums. Their voices carried on the rain like oil on water, promising blessings that never came.
The gods of the Eternal Creed never gave without taking double.
"Oi, rat," someone muttered beside me.
I turned my head slightly. Varrick. Tall, gaunt, eyes like wet glass. His teeth were gone from beatings or disease; I never asked which.
"They're taking another ten from the row tonight," he said, glancing toward the outer yard. "Priest said the quotas ain't met. Means we get to watch."
I didn't answer. He liked talking. I didn't.
A scream split the air.
Not fear. Not pain.
It was rage — deep, hoarse, tearing rage — from somewhere beyond the walls. The guards outside shouted, their boots pounding across the yard. The iron gate groaned open and three men stumbled inside, driven at spearpoint. Two were bleeding, one was missing a hand.
The third… the third was still screaming, eyes wild.
They shoved them to their knees before the priest who had followed — a short, robed man whose lips never stopped moving. His cowl was drawn low, shadows hiding most of his face, but I could see the gleam of gold teeth.
"Blasphemers," the priest said. "They tried to leave the city without the Creed's blessing."
The crowd of chained souls drew back. Leaving without permission was worse than murder here — it was defying the gods' will. And the gods answered defiance with spectacle.
The rain grew colder. I don't know if it was real or if I was imagining it, but the air seemed to darken as the priest drew a curved blade.
The first man tried to speak. The blade took his tongue.
The second spat blood in the priest's face. The guards broke both his legs.
The third — the screamer — laughed instead. He laughed right in the priest's face, blood streaming from his lips. "Your gods are cowards," he said, each word wet and broken. "And one day… they'll choke on their own—"
The blade split him from throat to navel.
I didn't flinch. You stop flinching after the first dozen times you watch a man opened like meat.
The priest turned to the rest of us, his gold teeth flashing. "The Creed is mercy," he said. "Without the veils, your minds would shatter. Without the gods, your souls would burn. Worship… or be erased."
He gestured to the guards. "Take ten more."
Varrick stiffened beside me. "That's us," he whispered.
They started pulling people from the line. Old men. A boy barely past ten. Women with ribs sharp enough to cut. They didn't resist; resistance just made it worse.
When the spear pointed at me, I stood.
The rain seemed louder now. The world narrowed to the point of the spear and the steady breathing of the guard holding it. I could smell the rot in his teeth.
Something in me stirred. Not anger. Not fear. Something colder, older.
They marched us into the yard. The execution block waited, black wood slick with blood and rain. The crowd of the slum pressed close, watching with the dull eyes of those too used to death to mourn it anymore.
I stepped onto the block. The priest's blade gleamed.
"Name," he said.
I stared at him. "Does it matter?"
The gold teeth showed again. "For the record of your passing."
I almost told him. Almost. But the words that came out were not mine.
"You'll remember me without it."
The rain stopped. Or maybe it didn't — maybe I just stopped hearing it. The chains around my wrists felt lighter. The air thickened until every breath was a fight.
The priest frowned, leaning closer. "What—"
The world cracked.
It wasn't sound, not exactly. It was the shattering of something I couldn't see — like a pane of glass breaking inside my skull. A rush of heat flooded through me, but it wasn't blood. It was shadow. Liquid, endless, alive.
The priest stumbled back, his blade slipping. "He's—!"
The shadows moved. They weren't mine, but they came from me — spilling out of the cracks between the stones, stretching like starving hands. They coiled around the priest's ankles, his arms, his throat. His gold teeth flashed once more before the darkness swallowed him whole.
Screams erupted. The guards lunged, but the shadows found them too, wrapping around their spears, bending iron like wet clay.
The crowd scattered.
I stood on the block, the chains falling from my wrists in pieces, cut by something that hadn't touched steel. The shadows clung to me now, curling around my arms like smoke.
In the silence that followed, I heard something. Not from outside. From inside.
First Veil broken.
Truth Mark forged: Shadowpulse.
Do you see it now?
I looked up. The rain had stopped — truly stopped this time — and the sky above Gloomspire was not black but red, as if some great wound had opened beyond the clouds.
The priest was gone. So were the guards. Only the block remained, slick with more than rain.
Varrick was staring at me from the crowd, mouth open. He wasn't the only one.
The shadows whispered at the edge of my mind, promising more. Promising hunger.
A horn sounded from the temple above the slums — deep, thunderous, shaking the ground. The sound of the gods noticing.
And then… the gates began to open.