The city sighed in its sleep.
A slow exhale of mist slithered through the crooked alleys, curling around rusted fire escapes and abandoned vendor stalls. The streets of Blackthorn Slums were forever damp, slick with old rain that reeked of metal and decay. Neon signs blinked weakly above shattered pavement, casting bruised reflections on puddles that never dried. The air was thick with the stench of burnt ozone, lingering like the whisper of a spell half-forgotten.
Far beyond the slums, across the cursed veil of the Grayscale Shroud, a living wall of whispering mist and fleshless memories, the towering shadows of the capital and Crimson Bastion loomed, a monstrous fortress of glass and steel where The Duskwatch Dominion held court. But here, in this part of the city, their reach was looser, loose enough for the desperate to run, to hide, to believe they could outrun fate. One may the Grayscale Shroud is a curse, one that provided a little safety from the hands of the capital and its powers.
Tonight, one such fool was learning otherwise.
The rogue mage ran.
His breath was ragged, uneven, leaving wisps of steam in the night air. He stumbled through the ruins of a half-collapsed chapel, his boots crunching over shattered stained glass. The fractured faces of forgotten saints stared up at him, their painted eyes dulled by time and dust. A shattered altar lay ahead, its surface defiled with dried blood and discarded offerings.
He reached the inner sanctum, collapsing to one knee. His fingers trembled as he drew the curve of a sigil across the cracked stone floor. Ink and blood mingled as the mark took shape, an ancient glyph not written in any known language, pulsing faintly with violet light. The mark seemed to resist being drawn, as if the air itself rebelled against its form.
"Just a little more..." he rasped, not sure if he was speaking to himself or someone else.
But it was certain that he wasn't alone.
The shadows behind him stretched unnaturally, moving without a source, curling around the broken pews. Their footsteps echoed in the empty nave. They were soft as silk and deadly as a whisper.
"Stop running." The voice was neither cruel nor kind. It was flat, patient, inevitable.
The mage whirled, his hands wreathed in crackling green fire. His face was gaunt, sunken eyes wild with exhaustion. He had been running for a few hours now. His robes, once lined with golden thread, were torn and filthy.
"You don't understand," he rasped. "She's not what you think." His voice shook.
Something shifted in the darkness, just beyond the reach of the moonlight. A shadow detached itself from the wall, fluid and soundless. The shape was tall, wrapped in flowing black, its face lost beneath the hood of a tattered cloak.
Not an Umbral Blades assassin. Worse.
The mage swallowed. "P-please—"
The figure did not answer.
The candlelight flickered violently, bending toward it, as if the very air feared to touch this thing.
The mage raised shaking hands, fingers trembling as he prepared a spell. He would fight, beg, trade his soul if needed, anything to see another sunrise.
The shadow moved before he could speak.
A single step.
That was all.
And the world unraveled.
The mage's spell died in his throat as pain exploded inside him. One swing of the sword and his lungs locked, his mind fractured, and a pressure beyond human comprehension crashed down upon him. Like something had reached into him, found the thread that tethered him to existence, and simply… pulled.
He collapsed to his knees. His vision blurred. His heartbeat stuttered. The shadow loomed closer.
The mage tried to scream but nothing came out. His lips moved, forming words without sound. A desperate prayer, a curse, a final plea. His last breath left him, drawn from his body like a stolen whisper.
He fell forward, eyes still open, staring sightlessly at the small shape hidden in the wreckage.
And then he was gone.
The chapel fell silent again.
The shadowed figure vanished, leaving the lifeless body behind. The mage's blood did not spread. His skin remained untouched by decay. As if death had not claimed him, but something older, something that did not belong in this world.
A faint sound. A breath, barely there.
At the foot of the shattered altar, buried beneath the folds of a golden cloth, something stirred.
A flicker of silver-white hair, barely visible in the shifting firelight.
It has watched the mage die.
The candles guttered out.
Darkness swallowed the chapel once again.