Heavenbreaker
Chapter 2: Smoke in the Alley
"Rebellion," they said, "was a spark."
But in Altaris, sparks were smothered before they ever touched the air.
That's what made Kaien's footsteps feel heavier that night—each one a defiance, each breath a challenge to a world that no longer deserved his silence.
He walked with blood still wet beneath his bandages and ash clinging to his sleeve. Mira's ash.
The flyer had led him to the Lower Ring, where curfew bells never reached and priests dared not walk. The buildings here leaned like dying things, their bones creaking, their walls speaking in graffiti—painted prayers, curses, and names of martyrs long erased.
Kaien followed the symbol on the flyer: a broken sun, cracked down the middle, hidden beneath a sewer grate.
The entrance was crude. He kicked it open and dropped into darkness.
---
Underground – The Hollow Nest
A corridor stretched before him, lit by flickering blue lamps. Smoke curled through the air—burnt spice and oil. Whispers echoed, unintelligible but alive.
Then came the voices.
Three figures emerged from the shadows—faces masked, cloaks tattered. Each of them wore the symbol of the broken sun stitched into their sleeves.
"You're late," one said, voice sharp and female.
Kaien raised a brow. "Sorry. Had to dodge divine judgment and crawl through piss water."
She stepped forward. Eyes gray like stormglass. Scar along her jaw.
"You're the one from the square, huh? The one who smiled."
Kaien said nothing.
"You got a name?"
"…Kaien."
"Kaien Valis." Another voice came from deeper within the hollow—old, gravelly, tired and burning at the same time. A man walked out, hunched and cloaked, eyes glowing faintly red. "I watched you."
The air shifted. Authority radiated off him like heat from a forge.
"Who are you?" Kaien asked.
"They call me Ashar the Unspoken. I burned my name away the day the gods took my family."
He stopped a foot from Kaien. "And you… carry a death wish."
Kaien looked him dead in the eyes. "No. I carry a promise."
Ashar smiled, and it was not a kind thing. "Good. That's the kind of madness we can use."
---
Ashar led him deeper. The Hollow Nest wasn't just a hideout—it was a growing organism. Rebel cells, underground libraries of forbidden lore, maps of citadels and divine strongholds. This was a war decades in the making.
And yet, the fire was dimming.
"We've lost dozens this year," Ashar admitted, motioning to a wall of names scratched into steel. "People are afraid. The gods don't just kill your body. They erase your story."
Kaien's hand clenched.
Then Ashar led him to a chamber lined with relics—blades, charms, armor. Most were rusted or broken. But in the center, wrapped in cloth, was something that hummed.
"You want to make them kneel?" Ashar asked. "You'll need a weapon they fear."
Kaien stepped closer.
The cloth unraveled on its own, like answering a call.
Inside was a chainbound blade—twisted metal, scorched black, humming with a heartbeat not its own.
> FELLCHAIN.
Ashar's voice turned reverent. "Forged from the soul of a fallen god. Cursed. Alive. Hungry."
Kaien stared at it. The moment his fingers brushed the handle, something woke up.
Visions exploded behind his eyes—flashes of screaming stars, a god's death scream, a battlefield in the sky.
His knees buckled. But he didn't let go.
Ashar's voice was distant now. "If you take it, there's no going back."
Kaien stood.
"I never planned on going back."
He gripped the hilt, and the chains snapped off with a wail of steel.
---
Later that night, Kaien stood on a rooftop overlooking the city.
Fellchain was strapped to his back, still radiating heat, still watching him.
He lit a stolen cigarette. Smoked in silence.
Altaris burned quietly beneath the moonlight.
> "They took everything."
> "So I'll take everything back."
> "Even the sky."