Rain whispered over the broken arch.
Kaelen stayed where he was for a moment, back against the cold stone, letting the sound anchor him. His thoughts still felt loose in their sockets, pieces that should fit together but didn't.
He looked down. The case sat beside him, lock light still winking green. Untouched. Intact. Somehow, it had made the trip with him. Somehow, he had.
He pushed himself upright, slow and deliberate, every motion a small test that the world hadn't changed again. His legs held. His breath came easier. No impossible shapes, no drift of wrong-angled shadows in his vision. Just rain, and the hollow quiet of a street no one walked after dark.
Assess. Decide. Move.
The drop point was here. The job could still be finished. That meant fewer questions, maybe. He knelt, slid the case into the Guild's iron chute, and waited until the mechanism inside clicked and swallowed it whole. One job done. One less debt hanging over him.
Only then did he close his eyes and think the command.
The runes answered.
[Rune Record – Mobility-Class Spark]
Designation: SkyStep (Altered)
Overlay Source: NΞXUS
Domain: Momentum & Spatial Positioning
Primary Function: Spatial compression, short-burst acceleration, heightened agility, and aerial control.
Charge Status: 86%
Integration Type: Overlay applied to existing tether.
Alteration Effects: Uncatalogued. Unknown secondary functions present.
Clean, stripped of half the fine print the Guild usually crammed into their records. No advisory, no penalties cited, no safe-use limits. Just the essentials, and the line marking it as Altered.
No mention of the reaction compression or reflex boost the Guild had logged, either the change didn't see them as separate functions, or it had folded them into something else.
Kaelen stared at the text. Overlay applied to existing tether. SkyStep wasn't supposed to change. It should burn out with the charge, and if fully burnt out, leave him at baseline until the next allotment. But the current still hummed through his limbs, sharp and clean, like it was ready to fire again. Eighty-four percent. Higher than it had any right to be. That shouldn't be possible.
Before the thought could settle, another frame flickered into view, smaller, sharper, the green light edged with threads of pale white.
[NΞXUS]
Fragment Bound: 1 / ??
Status: Incomplete / Integration Unstable
Primary Function: [REDACTED]
Secondary Functions: Acquisition, consume / assimilate / merge.
Linked Sparks: 1 (SkyStep – Altered)
A slow breath left his lungs. So, it wasn't just SkyStep. This… Nexus was something else. A core, maybe. A hub. And SkyStep was now just one spoke on the wheel.
The frame was cleaner than what he remembered from the void. No twisting angles, no wrong-shaped symbols, just words he could read. For a moment he wondered if it had… adjusted somehow. Or maybe his memory was already fraying.
His mind kept going back to that void, to the wrong shapes drifting through it, to the mark that had burned itself into his vision. Origin. The word had been there without letters, understood without language.
Origin. A classification? A warning? Sparks came in Ember through Star, yet this one isn't tiered. The Guild had no "Origin" tier. If they did, it was buried deep enough that couriers never heard of it.
And if this was an Origin Spark, then what kind? A movement Spark, or one that could also… consume others? The thought was absurd, and dangerous. If the Guild even suspected he carried something that could overwrite Sparks, he wouldn't last an hour in their custody.
His gaze slid to the street beyond the arch. The rain blurred the lamps into soft halos. In the black between them, memory began to return.
The woman's eyes when she saw him. The chain biting into her throat. The shard, black and engraved with impossible runes. The way Veyr's face shifted when he recognised it, not fear, exactly, but a professional knowing that something had gone wrong beyond fixing.
Then the soundless pull. The shard rejecting her. That void rushing in, as if it had been waiting for the first gap to slip through. The shapes moving like they existed in a geometry that didn't belong here. And then the mark, burning through SkyStep, folding it into itself.
He pressed a hand to his chest without thinking. The hum beneath his ribs wasn't SkyStep's rhythm. It was slower. Colder. And it didn't feel like it was waiting for him to use it. It felt like it was waiting for something else entirely.
The woman was gone. Veyr too. Whatever happened in that yard, he was the only one left to tell it, or to hide it.
By morning, the Guild would have investigators swarming East Docks. They'd measure scorch marks, rune residue, Spark traces. And they'd notice his Tier Two activation in the same time window as the anomaly.
So, he needed a story.
Not a bold one. Not one that drew attention. A courier's lie, a little truth wrapped tight enough to pass inspection.
Felt a surge. Not close, but close enough to worry. Chose to use SkyStep for a split-second burst to get clear. Conservative use, charge still near full. That's why I'm one of the few couriers sanctioned for Tier Two in the first place: caution, not recklessness.
They'd test his Spark. See the charge. Guild scans targeted the tether, that was standard practice, so if SkyStep looked normal, the rest should stay buried.
Should.
And if the overlay, whatever it was, registered on their scans…
A tight knot formed in his chest. If the Guild saw changes they couldn't explain, they'd dig until they could, and he'd be the one on the slab.
He forced the thought down. They'd never looked past the tether before. Maybe they wouldn't now.
Kaelen pushed off the wall and started walking, keeping his pace even, unremarkable. The city was full of people who didn't want to be noticed. Tonight, he was one of them.
Morning would bring the Guild. And with it, the next lie.
[Cutaway – East Docks, three blocks from Cutter's Row, A few hours later]
The ward-lines hummed faintly, thin arcs of blue light strung between leaning brick walls. The street beyond was empty, but inside the cordon, the yard was a mess, scorched stone, shattered crates, deep gouges that looked like they'd been bitten out of the cobbles.
Two Guild Enforcers and a Handler worked under the watch of a Warden from the Central Branch. He stood near the centre, broad-shouldered under his dark coat, surveying the scene like it was a map. A rune-clerk moved between them, cataloguing fragments in neat, careful script.
Veyr's body lay nearby, crumpled against the wall where he had fallen. The black-and-silver coat was torn, badge dull in the lamplight, his forearms mottled where the Spark-marks had burned out. No movement, no breath, just another entry for the clerk's slate.
The woman's body lay half-shrouded against the wall; wrists still bound by a chain that no longer shimmered. Her eyes were open, glassy, the skin along her throat marked by a deep, unnatural bruise where the links had bitten.
"Identification?" the Warden asked without looking up.
One of the Enforcers, dark hair plastered to his head, checked the slate in his hand. "Name's Jessa Korrin. Informant. Worked for one of the West Dock undercells, nothing big, mostly running intel to the Black Cord."
The Warden's gaze narrowed. "Guild-approved contact?"
"Unofficial," the dark-haired Enforcer said. "Not in the ledgers. Low-level asset kept quiet."
Another body lay on a stretcher a few feet away, a man with a torn coat, blood dried dark on his collar.
"Found him three blocks over," the dark-haired Enforcer added. "Name matches one of Korrin's known associates. Knife work and a binding pattern on the wrists, consistent with Veyr's style. Looks like he got to the friend first."
The Warden crouched beside the woman, brushing his gloved fingers over the faint scorch marks on the stones beneath her. "And then came for her."
"Maybe," said the Handler, the one with a crooked grin and a voice that made even bad news sound like a tavern story. "Or maybe she walked herself into this. Veyr's not usually the one chasing small-time informants."
"We're not here to guess motives," the Warden said flatly.
The rune-clerk straightened from the far wall. "Sir, Spark residue along the eastern side. High-tier signature, but the pattern's… wrong. Compression traces are there, but unstable, like the weave broke apart mid-cast. No full tether mark to match against."
"Could be Veyr's," the Warden said.
The clerk shook his head. "Different weave. Not his chainwork."
That drew a few quiet looks between the Enforcers.
The clerk continued "And whatever else happened here, it's drowned in distortion. Not natural fade, more like something tore the residue and scattered it. Even our best archivists will be guessing at the root ability."
The other Enforcer, broad-shouldered with a weathered face, tapped a boot against the cobbles. "Could be two high tiers crossing abilities, one breaking the other. Seen that twist traces before."
"Or a Spark outside Guild classification," the clerk said, "Wouldn't be the first time something off-ledger showed up in this district."
The Warden's expression didn't change. "Catalogue it anyway. If it's a ghost signature, I want it flagged. And check the perimeter streets for additional marks, if whatever caused this moved, it might've left cleaner residue elsewhere."
The weathered Enforcer nodded. "We'll split. we'll take south and east."
"Get in touch with West Branch," the Warden added. "Find out Veyr's connection with these people. If he was tracking them, I want his last three assignments pulled and cross-checked. And get the list of every contact tied to the Black Cord in this sector, living or dead."
Jerrod stood a few paces off, the gold Handler's badge on his coat catching stray light as his eyes drifted beyond the cordon toward the rain-slick alleys. "You know," he said after a moment, "Kaelen had a run somewhere near here last night."
The Warden looked over. "Who?"
"Kaelen Veris," said Jerrod. "Courier. East Docks branch. Sanctioned for Tier Two sparks, rare for his rank. Keeps his head down, but he's sharp. If he was close, he might've seen something."
The weathered Enforcer made a quiet sound in his throat, halfway between a chuckle and a scoff. "Or bolted before he had to see anything."
The Warden's gaze lingered for a moment before turning back to the scene. "Make a note. Quietly."