The city had not changed overnight, but Kael had.
He woke beneath the half-collapsed archway where the fight had ended, the air thick with the scent of ash and old rot. The sky above was choked by storm-dark clouds, streaked with veins of lightning that did not strike. They only lingered, frozen, like the world itself was holding its breath. His body ached, yet every nerve hummed with unnatural clarity. The world looked sharper. The world smelled sharper. Even the silence pressed harder against his ears.
But deeper than that clarity was something else—something cold lodged inside him, moving in his chest where warmth used to be. His first thought was not of survival. It was of hunger.
The memory of last night burned across his vision: the moment he reached, the soul he dragged into himself, the shuddering ecstasy and the hollow ache that followed. It had been more intoxicating than any breath, more filling than any meal. And yet the aftertaste was bitter, as though he had swallowed ashes that clung to the edges of his spirit.
Kael pushed himself up, his hands trembling. They were steady in strength, but inside, he felt fractured. His fingers brushed the old blade beside him. It looked duller now—less a weapon, more a tool, and even that fragile compared to the new weight in his veins.
He staggered to his feet. The city stretched out before him, broken buildings leaning like corpses against each other. Somewhere out there were supplies, water, maybe survivors. Somewhere out there were answers.
And somewhere out there, there were more souls.
---
Kael moved quickly, the world bending to his stride in a way that unsettled him. He could hear the faint scrape of bone and sinew from streets away, the whispers of the dead moving through alleys. Every sound was too loud. Every scent too vivid. Hunger gnawed sharper with each step.
He turned a corner—and froze.
Ahead, a pack of the dead had cornered someone. Four of them, their bodies stretched thin and brittle, eyes black with nothingness. Their prey, a lone girl no older than twenty, held a rusted pipe in her hands, swinging desperately whenever one lunged. She was fast, but she would not last.
Kael's breath caught. His first instinct was not to help. It was to feed. The flickering embers of their souls blazed in his sight, dancing in the gloom. Four lights. Four feasts.
His blade slid into his hand. His hunger shoved him forward.
The fight lasted less than a minute.
His body moved before his mind caught up. Each slash cut deeper, faster than he remembered being capable of. His eyes saw openings he had never seen before. When one undead lunged, he twisted aside with ease, the world slowing as his arm brought the blade up to carve through its spine. Bones cracked. Ash scattered. He drove the second one into the wall, blade pinning it there before ripping upward in a spray of gray dust. The other two followed, and he cut them down with savage efficiency, each kill burning brighter in his vision.
And when the last fell, Kael stood trembling. Not from exhaustion. From restraint.
The four souls lingered, swirling faintly in the air like wisps of light. They called to him, every flicker a whisper clawing at his mind: take me, take me, take me. His chest ached with the need. His hand reached, trembling.
"Don't—!"
The girl's voice snapped him back. She stood only a few feet away, pipe still in hand, but her eyes were not wide in gratitude. They were wide in fear.
Kael froze. He could see himself reflected in her gaze: eyes glinting wrong, his breath heavy like a beast caged in human skin.
Slowly, painfully, he lowered his hand. The souls flickered, fading. But one—the nearest—burned too brightly. Kael's chest twisted. His throat clenched. And before he could stop himself, he reached.
The soul burst into him.
It was fire and ice, power and void. His heart hammered. His vision sharpened again. And something inside him cracked, a hairline fracture spreading deeper.
The other three souls drifted away, untouched. Kael forced himself to let them go. He forced himself to breathe, to unclench his fists.
When he looked back at the girl, she was gripping her pipe like a lifeline, her knuckles white.
"Who… what are you?" she asked, voice trembling.
Kael swallowed the dryness in his throat. "Just… someone trying to live."
Her eyes narrowed, suspicion tangled with gratitude. "I've seen a lot of people try to live. None of them looked like you."
Silence stretched between them, filled with the sound of his ragged breathing. The hunger was still there, clawing. But so was shame.
He finally nodded toward the street. "You'll die if you stay here. There's safety ahead?"
The girl hesitated, then nodded slowly. "Thorne's Keep. A settlement, fortified. Not far."
She edged past him, keeping her distance. Yet she did not run. She did not leave.
"Name?" Kael asked quietly.
"Mira."
Her voice carried strength beneath the fear.
They walked together through the ruined streets, though she always kept a few steps away, glancing at him as if waiting for proof that he was more monster than man. Kael said nothing. He didn't trust his own voice, not with the hunger still gnawing.
But as they passed under the broken spires of the city, Kael felt something else.
A gaze.
It lingered on the back of his neck, cold and deliberate. Not Mira's. Not human. Something watching from the shadows, patient, calculating.
Kael gripped his blade tighter. The hunger in him stirred again.
And above them, the sky rumbled, as if warning of a storm still waiting to fall.
As Kael and Mira moved through the rubble-strewn street, the air grew colder, though no wind stirred. Mira hugged her arms against herself, muttering, "The Keep is close… just a little farther."
Kael didn't answer. His gaze kept drifting to the corners of ruined buildings, to the alleys too dark for the dying sun to reach. The sense of being watched pressed tighter now, heavier, suffocating.
Then he saw it.
At the far end of the broken avenue, where the shadows pooled deepest, a figure stood. Tall, still, draped in black.
No breath. No movement. Just watching.
The eyes—Kael couldn't see them clearly, yet he felt them. Cold, deliberate, as if peeling away every layer of his being. For a heartbeat, Kael's hunger flared wild and violent, like the presence itself was feeding it.
Mira gasped softly, clutching his arm. "Kael… do you see—?"
But when Kael blinked, the figure was gone.
Only shadows remained, whispering against the ruined walls.
Kael exhaled, his grip tight on the blade. His heart hammered, though not with fear alone. Something else stirred—recognition.
Whoever it was… they were waiting for him.
And next time, they wouldn't just watch.