Kaelen left before the sun cleared the low roofs, his coat buttoned high against the salt breeze drifting in from the docks. The streets still carried the hush of early morning, the quiet before the shouting started.
He'd spent half the night lying awake, rehearsing his answer until it sounded like something the Guild would approve of:
A sudden surge of energy in the area, not close enough to see, but close enough to worry. Used SkyStep for a split-second burst to get clear. Charge stayed high because I didn't push it.
That part was simple enough. It was the other questions he couldn't predict. What if they wanted him to explain exactly where he'd been? What if someone else claimed to have seen him? What if they'd found residue close enough to tag?
He walked faster.
Every scenario he ran in his head ended the same way: stay calm, stick to the lie, don't elaborate unless asked. The Guild liked short answers, they could only twist what you gave them.
It wasn't fear that kept him focused now. It was calculation. Survive the next hour, and the whole thing would fade into background noise, another forgotten anomaly in the East Docks.
The East Docks district woke in layers. First came the smell, brine from the harbour, coal smoke from the early risers firing their stoves, and the faint sourness of yesterday's fish guts swept into gutters but not yet washed away.
Kaelen's building stood in a row of narrow, four-storey tenements built from mismatched stone, their mortar patchwork from years of repairs. The paint had long since peeled from the shutters, leaving bare wood to weather and warp. Lines of damp linen sagged between windows, dripping onto the street below.
It wasn't a bad place to live, not if you knew which corners to turn and which to avoid. There were streets here where strangers disappeared without much fuss, but those were easy enough to steer clear of. Most trouble in East Docks came from petty theft, quick hands and quicker exits.
The people were used to watching out for themselves. A nod here, a muttered greeting there, neighbours who wouldn't remember your name but would remember if you didn't belong.
The cobbles underfoot were uneven, slick from the morning mist, and the air carried the muted clang of cargo cranes down at the harbour, already creaking into motion.
The Guild sat on the other side of East Docks, a forty-minute walk if the streets were clear. They never were.
Kaelen kept his pace steady, weaving through the early crowd. Vendors were already staking their ground, voices climbing over each other in a battle for attention.
"Fresh mackerel! Still kicking when I pulled 'em up!" one man shouted from a fish cart that smelled like the opposite of fresh.
Across the way, a woman in a patched wool coat waved a handful of copper trinkets at passersby. Authentic relics from the Third Trade War, her sign claimed in thick, uneven paint. Kaelen gave them a glance, pressed tin, barely worth the ore they were stamped from. Someone would still buy them. Someone always did.
A boy darted past carrying a basket of meat pies, hollering the price like a challenge. Two dockhands stopped him, each grabbing one without breaking stride, tossing coins in without counting.
He passed a stall selling rune-etched ore stones, each glowing faintly through their glass cases. The seller swore they were charged for "personal enhancement", but stones like that could never fuse with Soulfire. At best, they burned like a charge, fit for lamps or trinkets. Judging by the muddy etchwork, these ones would barely light a lamp. Guild-charged ore could power a carriage for a week; these were scrap pebbles daubed with cheap sigils, a gutter-market imitation of the real thing. Any dockhand with a few coins could burn one out, but only Soulfire let you command Sparks directly, and the Guild kept that stream sealed tight.
Half the market's selling lies, the other half's selling things you don't want to know the truth about.
The main road toward the Guild widened enough to fit the spark carriages. They hissed softly as they rolled by, their undercarriages thrumming with stored momentum from low-grade mobility Sparks. A driver sat high at the front, steering with a pair of brass-handled control rods linked to the wheel runes, occasionally glancing at the faint glow in the meter beside him. Utility Sparks like these had more in common with market stones than the kind the Guild hoarded, predictable, replaceable, and dead the moment the charge ran dry.
Overhead, the streetlamps glowed against the mist, each fed by the city's Spark grid: tall black posts inlaid with pale blue runes, powered from a central reservoir of replaceable ore. The energy ran through ore-channels beneath the paving stones, unseen, but always there, humming like veins under the city's skin. Those same channels formed the ward-lines: protective nets and boundary marks threaded into every district. The city claimed them as civic infrastructure, but everyone knew the Guild kept them running. They lit the streets and held the creatures back, and if the Guild ever stopped, the whole city would go dark by nightfall.
Kaelen walked past it all without slowing, the rhythm of the streets as familiar to him as the inside of his coat pockets.
Brassrest's streets narrowed again as Kaelen left the main road, the noise of the market bleeding into a lower, steadier hum. The East Docks branch sat three streets in from the waterfront, close enough to reach the ships but far enough to keep the salt air from eating through the sign out front.
The building was older than most of the district, two storeys of dark stone reinforced with rune-scribed iron struts, the Guild crest mounted above the door in weathered brass. The inlaid runes caught the light, faint but steady, tied into the same spark grid that fed the streetlamps outside.
Brassrest had four Guild offices. Central Branch handled command, high-tier assignments, and anything that touched the city's politics. West Docks took the merchant quarter, the freight lines, and most of the smuggling cases the Guild pretended not to know about. Two smaller posts worked the manufacturing and residential districts. And then there was East Docks, his branch, where most jobs were more about getting something from one end of the city to the other without anyone stabbing you for it.
He'd been here often enough to know the rhythm. Mornings were loud, messy, and full of arguments. Afternoons quieted as assignments went out. Evenings were a mix of returns and complaints.
Kaelen stepped up to the worn stone steps, taking one last breath before pulling the door open.
The noise hit first.
The East Docks branch was never quiet in the morning, not when half the district's couriers, runners, and low-rank operatives were fighting for jobs, Sparks, or both.
The main hall was a long, high-ceilinged room divided into two levels. The lower floor swarmed with bodies: small knots of operatives huddled over posted contracts, couriers waving stamped job slips in clerks' faces, a pair of runners arguing over who'd get to borrow the last Ember-grade sprint Spark for the day.
"…told you it burns uneven, use it in bursts or you'll twist your ankle!" one voice cut over the rest.
"…three jobs in a row with that thing and it's still running. Best damn Focus I've ever,"
"…someone had a Flare-grade lift Spark last week, swore it nearly tore his arms off,"
"…heard Black Cord's been moving last few days. Agitated. Don't know what they're stirring,"
Kaelen threaded his way through without slowing, sidestepping a man who gestured wildly with a rolled contract and nearly clocked him in the head. He didn't linger to eavesdrop; gossip about Sparks was as common here as the ink on the paperwork, and usually just as embellished.
The counter at the far end was manned by three clerks, each juggling job slips and ledgers. The one in the middle, Lira, mid-twenties, beautiful and sharp-eyed, and quicker with her pen than most people were with their tongue, spotted him as soon as he approached.
"Kaelen," she said, not looking up from her ledger. "Haven't seen you in a few days."
"Busy," he said.
"You and everyone else." She flicked a paper aside, scribbled a note, and pushed another toward a courier waiting beside him. "They're waiting for you in the back. Manager's orders."
Kaelen kept his answer short. "Delivered on time."
Her eyes flicked up, quick and assessing. "Mm. Heard you lit up your SkyStep last night."
He gave a small shrug. "Surge in the area. Didn't stick around to see what caused it."
Lira made a sound that wasn't quite agreement. "Well, Bram probably just wants a word."
The name carried weight here, Bram was the East Docks branch manager, and he didn't call people in for friendly chats. Still, he wasn't Central Branch. Bram had a way of making it clear when you were in trouble, and this didn't feel like one of those times.
"He said it's just a check-in," Lira added, already turning back to her ledger. "You know how it is. Guild logs a power use after hours, someone upstairs ticks a box, and we must make sure the paperwork lines up with the story."
"Story matches the paperwork," Kaelen said with an awkward smile.
"Good. Saves everyone time. He's in his office."
Kaelen gave her a short nod and moved past the counter, weaving between desks and stacked crates of Guild-issued supplies. The low roar of the hall dimmed as he reached the back offices.
Bram's door was open. The manager was a heavyset man in his forties with thinning hair, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and a habit of keeping a pen tucked behind each ear. He glanced up from the paperwork spread across his desk.
"Kaelen. Come in." He waited until the boy had shut the door. "How was your run last night?" His tone was casual, but the pen in his hand had already stilled. "We clocked your Spark flaring around eleven. You know the drill, standard procedure. I need to know why you used it, where and what for."
The questions were quick, where he'd been, what he'd felt, how long SkyStep had been active. Kaelen kept his answers clipped and steady, matching the lie he'd been rehearsing since last night. Bram listened, made a few notes, and leaned back in his chair.
"Doesn't sound like anything worth a write-up. You did the right thing clearing out if something felt off."
"Appreciated," Kaelen said.
Bram grunted, then glanced toward the window. "That said… Central is sending someone down this morning. Warden from the main office. They'll want to hear it from you directly."
The weight in those words was subtle but there.
Kaelen didn't have time to reply before a knock sounded at the doorframe.
The Warden stepped in, tall, coat immaculate, Platinum-trimmed badge catching the light. The Guild's highest operational authority in Brassrest City.