Fog choked the gaslamps outside the Gloomspire Orphanarium, shrinking their light into dim, dying halos. Azerath moved through the hallway like a ghost, old floorboards groaning under his weight as if the building itself resented him being there.
Something inside him was shifting again.
Not pain. Not quite.
More like something waking up. A pulse beneath his ribs. A whisper threading through his bones. The marrow he'd swallowed days ago was still settling, still changing him in ways he didn't fully understand.
It wasn't a voice.
It was more like a memory trying to claw its way to the surface, pressing against the inside of his skull, asking to be let in.
Azerath ignored it and kept walking.
The portraits lining the walls watched him pass. Their painted eyes caught the dim light strangely, almost reflective, like they were tracking his movement.
A cold breath rolled down the hallway.
Except it wasn't cold.
It was aware.
Azerath stopped.
The whisper curled through his marrow like smoke:You are close…
He let out a slow breath.
Let it speak. But he wouldn't answer. Not yet.
His gaze drifted to the forbidden door at the end of the corridor. The brass handle was shaped like a serpent eating its own tail—a symbol he'd seen before, carved into stone beneath the Sin Bridge the night everything changed.
Tonight, the handle trembled.
Like it was waiting for him.
Azerath reached out.
The metal bit into his fingertips, cold enough to burn.
The whisper slid along his spine:Open.
He pulled.
The door groaned, exhaling a breath of dust that had been trapped for years. Inside was a cramped study—books stacked in teetering piles, scrolls spilling across the floor, brittle maps covering the walls like old scars.
At the desk sat Lady Verradine, her thin spectacles perched on the edge of her nose. She looked up—
—and went still.
"You," she breathed. "You shouldn't be able to open that door."
Azerath said nothing.
He stepped inside, watching her.
Her eyes gleamed with something that looked like fear. And something else. Awe, maybe.
"…So you felt it, then," she whispered. "The stir beneath your bones."
The whisper inside him purred, smug.
Azerath kept his face blank.
Verradine swept aside her papers and pulled out a piece of parchment from beneath a stack of books.
"Then you need to see this."
She unrolled a map.
Azerath's eyes narrowed.
It was Marrow City. But wrong.
Streets ran in different directions. Districts didn't line up. Landmarks he knew were missing entirely. And cutting through the city, thin as a thread, was a line that looped around everything like a noose.
"The Severance Line," Verradine said quietly. "Carved into the world when Marrow split from the Depth Realms. When everything tore apart."
Azerath leaned closer, his voice steady.
"And the Sin Bridge crosses this line."
Her breath hitched—just barely.
"Then it has called to you."
He didn't answer.
Silence was safer.
The whisper, though, let out a pleased hiss.
Chosen.
Verradine's voice dropped lower.
"Whatever touched you beyond that bridge… Azerath, it's older than the split. Older than the empire. Older than the Depth Kings themselves."
The lamp flickered.
Azerath kept his tone calm."What kind of consequences?"
She hesitated.
Before she could answer, footsteps echoed down the hall.
Heavy. Deliberate. Predatory.
Her face went white.
"No… not him. Not tonight."
"Who?"
She shoved something into his palm—a brass token shaped like a leaf with an eye carved into the center.
"Hide it. And go. Now."
The footsteps stopped right outside.
A knock followed—three sharp, ritualistic taps.
Verradine's whisper was urgent:"Do not answer the thing inside your marrow. No matter what happens."
Azerath slipped into a narrow maintenance corridor just as the study door opened.
A tall man stepped inside.
Violet coat. Silver gloves. A cane topped with black stone that seemed to swallow the light around it.
Everything about him warped the room. The air thickened. The wooden beams bowed slightly. Shadows stretched too long.
Inspector Halewick.
Lady Verradine bowed so deeply her spine curved.
"Inspector… I wasn't—"
Halewick raised one gloved finger.
Silence fell like a blade.
"Someone opened a sealed door tonight."
His voice was smooth. Calm.
Too calm.
"No mortal child should be able to do such a thing."
Azerath stayed frozen in the shadows, barely breathing.
Halewick glided across the room, fingers trailing through the air like he was feeling for something invisible. A scent. A trace.
"The Sin Bridge stirred recently," he murmured. "That only happens when it chooses someone."
Verradine's hands tightened in her robes.
Halewick's head tilted slightly, almost curious.
"Whoever that chosen is… will either serve the Empire or die beneath it."
Azerath's grip on the brass token tightened until his knuckles went white.
He moved fast and quiet, descending the narrow staircase into the orphanarium's cellar. Rats scattered between broken crates. Rusted pipes groaned overhead.
The token in his palm grew warm.
Then hot.
Then burning.
Azerath hissed through his teeth and dropped it onto a crate.
The eye engraved on it blinked.
Not alive. Not conscious.
Something else. A projection. An imprint.
A calm, ancient voice echoed through the cellar:
"You carry a sin not yet named."
Azerath froze.
The whisper inside him recoiled—startled, maybe even afraid.
The voice continued:
"Return to the Sin Bridge at sundown, Azerath. Or the Bridge will come seeking you."
The eye closed.
Silence returned.
Azerath stared at the token for a long time, heart pounding in his chest.
Then he picked it up.
Pocketed it.
Climbed the stairs without looking back.
Upstairs, the orphanarium was silent.
Too silent.
Lady Verradine's study door hung open.
A single gaslamp flickered.
And on her desk, scrawled in rushed ink, was a message:
"Do not meet him at the Bridge.Do not trust the Bridge.It lied to us once."
Azerath lowered the note, face unreadable.
For the first time, the whisper inside him didn't speak.
It waited.
And outside, the city exhaled a long, ominous breath.