The docks of Port Aero were no longer loud. The shouting merchants, the haggling sailors, the steam whistles—everything had gone quiet.
It was the silence of a forest when a predator enters the clearing.
"Move faster," Vera hissed, her hand hovering over the hilt of her dagger. "The crowd is thinning out too fast. They're clearing the kill box."
Zain kept his head down, matching her rapid pace. "I thought you said the Temple has no jurisdiction here."
"They don't," Vera muttered. "Unless they send the White Cloaks. Jurisdiction doesn't apply to fanatics."
They turned the corner toward Pier 4, where The Rusty Bucket was docked.
They stopped dead.
The pier wasn't empty. Standing between them and the ship was a line of six soldiers. They weren't the usual city guards in leather armor. They wore gleaming plate mail covered in white tabards embroidered with a golden sun.
In the center stood a man with a shaved head and a heavy mace resting on his shoulder. His eyes were milky white—blind, but seeing everything.
"Inquisitors," Nox hissed, his voice vibrating with genuine hatred. "The dogs of the light. They smell the mark."
"Halt," the blind man said. His voice was soft, yet it carried across the wind like a bell. "The boy. Leave him. You may go, girl."
Vera looked at the Inquisitors, then back at the ship. The gangplank had been pulled up. The Rusty Bucket was drifting ten feet away from the dock, engines idling. Captain Silas was on the deck, hand on his harpoon cannon, but he didn't fire. He couldn't fire into a crowd of Inquisitors without starting a war.
Vera drew her daggers. "And if I say no?"
The blind Inquisitor smiled. "Then you are a heretic. And heretics burn."
He raised his mace. "Seize them."
The six soldiers drew their swords—blades that glowed with a faint, holy light—and charged.
"Run!" Vera yelled, shoving Zain back toward the alley.
"There's nowhere to go!" Zain shouted. "They blocked the street behind us too!"
He looked back. Another squad was closing in from the market. They were trapped in a pincer movement.
Vera spun her daggers, deflecting a sword strike from the first soldier. Clang! She was fast, weaving under his guard and slashing at his knee, but the plate armor was too thick.
"Zain! Do something spooky!" Vera screamed, ducking under a shield bash.
Zain froze. He looked at the soldiers charging him. He looked at the ship drifting further away.
"The Step," Nox commanded. "Focus on the shadow behind the leader. Visualize the destination. Tear the space between."
Zain focused. He stared at the shadow cast by a stack of crates behind the blind Inquisitor.
I want to be there.
He felt the new slit on his wrist burn.
"Void Step."
Zain didn't run. He didn't jump. He simply... ceased to exist in his current spot.
The world turned inverted for a microsecond. Colors vanished. Sound stopped. He felt a sensation like being pulled through a straw.
POP.
Air rushed back into his lungs.
Zain stumbled, nearly vomiting. He was standing ten feet away, directly behind the blind Inquisitor.
The soldiers who had been charging him skidded to a halt, hacking at empty air.
"What?" one soldier gasped.
Zain didn't wait to celebrate. He saw the Inquisitor raising his mace to crush Vera, who was occupied with two other guards.
Zain lunged. He didn't have a weapon, but he had the Touch.
He slammed his open palm onto the back of the Inquisitor's neck armor.
"Rust."
The black seal flared.
The heavy steel gorget protecting the Inquisitor's neck turned grey, then brown. It crumbled into flakes of rust instantly.
The Inquisitor sensed the danger. He spun around with supernatural speed, swinging his mace.
Zain ducked, but he wasn't fast enough. The handle of the mace clipped his shoulder.
Crack.
Zain cried out, spinning away. The pain was blinding, but he had done his job. The armor was compromised.
"Vera! Neck!" Zain screamed.
Vera didn't hesitate. She saw the exposed flesh where the armor had disintegrated. She threw her dagger.
The blade flew true, burying itself in the Inquisitor's shoulder, right near the neck.
The blind man grunted, dropping his mace. Light flared from his hands—healing magic—but he was distracted.
"To the ship!" Zain yelled.
He grabbed Vera's arm.
"The ship is too far!" Vera shouted. "It's twenty feet out!"
"Trust me!" Zain gritted his teeth.
He looked at the shadow of the ship's anchor chain hanging over the water. It was a long jump. Impossible for a normal human.
"Again," Nox warned. "Your stamina is low. A second jump will hurt."
Do it!
Zain tightened his grip on Vera. He focused on the shadow on the deck of The Rusty Bucket.
"Void Step."
The world inverted again.
This time, the pain was excruciating. It felt like his veins were filled with ice water.
POP.
They appeared in mid-air, five feet above the deck of the ship.
Gravity took over. They crashed onto the metal floor, tumbling over each other.
"Go! Go! Go!" Silas roared from the helm.
Torque slammed the throttle forward. The engines screamed. A cloud of black smoke erupted from the exhaust, blinding the Inquisitors on the dock.
The Rusty Bucket shot forward, tearing through the water and lifting into the sky.
On the dock, the blind Inquisitor pulled the dagger from his shoulder. The wound was already closing, glowing with golden light. He turned his milky eyes toward the retreating ship.
"Mark them," he whispered to his lieutenant. "Notify the Grand Temple. The carrier of the Onyx Seal has been found."
Zain lay on the deck, staring at the clouds. His shoulder throbbed where the mace had hit him, and his entire body felt drained, as if he had run a marathon without breathing.
Vera sat up, rubbing her head. She looked at the dock fading into the distance, then at Zain.
Her eyes were wide.
"You..." she breathed heavily. "You teleported. twice."
Zain groaned, clutching his arm. "Yeah. Ouch."
Boz walked over, helping them up. The giant looked at Zain with a newfound respect—and a hint of fear.
"That wasn't a defective seal trick," Boz muttered. "Shadow-stepping? That's Assassin-Class magic. Rare stuff."
Captain Silas stomped down from the bridge. He didn't look happy. He looked furious.
He grabbed Zain by the collar of his cloak and slammed him against the railing.
"You brought White Cloaks to my ship!" Silas snarled, his mechanical eye whirring angrily close to Zain's face. "Do you know who that was? That was Inquisitor Kaelen. The Blind Butcher. He burns entire islands to find one heretic!"
"They were waiting for us!" Zain choked out. "They knew!"
"Because you bought that damned rock!" Silas released him, pacing the deck. "Old Man Rictus... that snitch. He sold you the artifact and sold your location to the Temple in the same breath."
Silas stopped pacing. He looked at Zain.
"You have a target on your back now, boy. A big one. The Temple doesn't stop. They will chase us to the end of the Sky Sea."
"Then let me off," Zain said, straightening his cloak. "Drop me at the next island. I won't drag you down."
Silas stared at him. Then, a slow, grim smile spread across his scarred face.
"Drop you?" Silas scoffed. "And lose the only person who can rot Inquisitor armor with a touch? Not a chance."
The Captain turned to the crew.
"Listen up, dogs! We are officially enemies of the State! The Temple wants our heads!"
The crew looked nervous.
"But," Silas shouted, pointing at Zain. "This boy just made a High Inquisitor bleed! And we have a hold full of Mana Cores! We are rich, and we are dangerous!"
The crew cheered, though some voices were shaky.
Silas turned back to Zain. "You stay. But you work double shifts. And you're going to learn how to fight. If you're going to be a magnet for trouble, you better learn how to kill it."
Zain nodded, touching the black seal on his arm. The new line—the Void Step mark—was pulsing faintly.
"The Blind Butcher..." Nox mused in his head. "I remember his order. They killed my previous host. Next time we meet him, Zain... we aim for the head."
Zain looked back at the shrinking silhouette of Port Aero.
The hunt had begun. But for the first time, Zain wasn't just the prey. He had teeth now.