Drip. Drip.
Water echoed into the basin as Nyxia stirred.
The dim artificial dawn of Serath'Kai pulsed along the ceiling's runic seams. The city's breath—a constant hum of pressure valves and arcane regulators—muttered through the stone like a heartbeat trying not to be heard.
She hadn't meant to sleep. She never meant to.
Her head still rested on Perseus's shoulder, knees tucked beneath her like a forgotten weapon. The ache in her muscles had dulled to a heavy throb, manageable but constant, clinging like old memory. The kind that hurt worse once you stopped running from it.
Perseus hadn't moved.
He sat motionless—half-guard, half-exhausted sentinel. His eyes were barely open. His hand rested loosely over hers, warm and weighty. That heat did something strange to her. Made her feel like something other than a tool. Like something still alive.
She listened to him breathe. Counted it. She didn't know why.
For a moment, she didn't move. Let herself exist there, caught between breath and silence. Metal. Sweat. Stone. It was rare, this stillness. This quiet didn't feel like waiting.
It felt like the kind of moment that gets taken.
She eased his hand away. He stirred, blinked once, and gave a quiet grunt—already pulling himself back from the edge of sleep. Always ready. Just like her. Just like they had to be.
"Time?" he asked, voice rough.
Nyxia reached for her bow. "Time."
He stood with a soft clink of armor and lifted the pouch containing the artifact shard Boo had confiscated and returned. Even sealed in void-silk, it pulsed faintly. Like a heart still beating inside a coffin. She hated the way it seemed aware. Like it knew things it shouldn't.
Loque prowled near the door, tail twitching. His ears were up. He knew.
Perseus rolled his shoulders. "You ready?"
Nyxia snapped on her vambraces, felt the armor sync to her breath. It moved with her now—subtle but alive, like it was waiting. Like it was hungry.
"No," she said. "But I'm going anyway."
He smiled faintly. Not a full grin. The kind of smile soldiers gave when the only alternative was retreat.
"That's the right answer."
They didn't need Boo's attendants. The halls were quieter. The lights along the walls had dimmed, colors shifted to wary tones like the sanctuary itself knew the mood had changed.
As they descended through the veins of Serath'Kai, the air thickened with rust and ghost-smoke. The temperature dropped with every level they passed. Beneath the neon top-layers, this part of the city was older, rougher. The kind of place people disappeared into.
The glowstones faded.
And somewhere ahead, the scent of Hollow things began to bloom.
This wasn't a walk to a fight.
It was a walk to an answer.
And whether it bled or burned—they were ready.
The Drainpipe District reeked of rust and broken promises. Steam hissed from fractured pipes, spilling tired ghosts of vapor through the alleys. Neon lights flickered like nerves under strain. Overhead fans groaned, some hanging askew on fraying chains.
Graffiti covered the walls in overlapping layers—gang signs, religious curses, warnings in dialects that hadn't been spoken in centuries. A place of echoes and afterthoughts.
Perseus led, the shard casting a crimson trail over the stone. They followed it down through collapsed canals and fractured bridges, the path twisting toward the Warrens' edge.
"Stay low," he murmured. "They're fast, but not quiet."
Nyxia moved beside him like fog through static. Her new armor adjusted to her steps, whisper-silent. It made her skin crawl. The sensation wasn't pain, exactly. It was like being watched from within.
She didn't like how it felt.
She loved how it moved.
"Two riders," Perseus said, scanning the trail. "One cart. Small escort. Heat signatures are spaced. They're not expecting company."
"Smugglers," she muttered. "They're carrying something they don't want seen."
Loque sniffed the air. His ears twitched.
Then he vanished.
No more words. They descended a corroded stairwell, spiraling into a runway that had once carried trams but now lay buried in fungal overgrowth and rusted metal limbs. The air down here buzzed. Not just with insects, but with static. Something arcane and wrong.
Faint laughter ahead.
A fire burned low in a barrel. Around it: five figures. Two humans. One ogre. A void-touched elf, eyes covered by a crusted blindfold. And the last—mechanized legs, smoke trailing from a neck port, and a welded crown of bone on his head.
Nyxia signaled. Perseus nodded.
They split. She took the scaffolding, her bow already drawn. Perseus disappeared into the wreckage.
Thirty paces out, the elf's head snapped up.
"We're not alone," he rasped. Voice hollow. Inhuman.
Too late.
Loque fell from above like a curse, his claws tearing straight through the elf's throat.
The fire scattered. The ogre stood—Perseus hit him with a hammer strike that cracked the air, Light detonating on contact. The ogre flew into the fire with a scream.
Nyxia dropped, landed hard, and loosed her arrow before her feet had settled. It buried into the mechanic's skull. He fell sideways, twitching.
The human twins moved together, blades drawn. One fast. One wide.
Perseus caught both with his shield, slammed them backward into a wall that cracked on impact. Stone crumbled. Dust bloomed.
Loque circled. Still ready. Still dangerous.
It was over in seconds.
Nyxia exhaled sharply, eyes on the cart.
A tarp covered the back. Glyphs stitched into it to block heat signatures. She tore it away.
Not artifacts.
People.
Six of them. Gaunt. Unblinking. Skin stretched. Veins lit with faint violet. Strapped down by belts that had long since frayed.
Whispers.
Not in Common.
Not in any living tongue she knew.
"Perseus."
He joined her. His jaw locked.
A boy—maybe fourteen—blinked slowly, lips parting. Black ichor trickled down his chin.
"…They fed them something," Perseus said.
Nyxia's fists clenched. "Or someone."
One of the women snapped up—her bindings falling as if they were never real. Her fingers were spined. Her mouth, wrong.
She lunged at Nyxia.
The armor moved before she could.
Violet force burst from her shoulders, sent the woman slamming against the far wall. She crumpled, twitching.
Silence.
Perseus stared. "…What was that?"
Nyxia didn't speak.
She didn't know.
Then—
"I warned you not to wear it."
A voice, weak.
One of the twins—the man—wasn't dead. He coughed blood. Eyes wide.
"She marked it," he rasped. "Her sigil. Buried in the weave. You don't know what you're wearing."
Nyxia grabbed his collar. "Whose sigil?"
He laughed. A gurgle. Then seized. Twitched. Died.
Perseus swore.
Loque padded back, fur wet with ichor.
They turned to the cart.
The prisoners weren't whispering anymore.
They were staring.
At Nyxia.
"She sees us," one murmured. "She sees us wearing her gift."
Nyxia's gut turned.
She thought of Boo's grin, of Skivv's showmanship, of the moment the armor had touched her skin like it already knew her.
Perseus: "We bring this to Boo."
Nyxia: "No. We burn it. All of it."
A pause.
Then a nod.
They lit the cart. Flames rose, hungry. Loque howled once. The shadows twisted.
Far beneath the city, in some place neither of them could name, a single rune glowed to life.
It matched the one stitched beneath Nyxia's skin.
And this time, it pulsed back.
Above, somewhere far from the slums, Boo sat in her throne-room loft surrounded by screens and scrying pools. One of the crystals flickered. Dimmed. She leaned forward, lips pursed.
"That's new," she murmured.
She tapped a rune. The sigil appeared. Twisting. Changing.
Her brows knit.
She reached for a bottle of bloodwine, stopped halfway, and called instead for an attendant.
"Get me everything we have on pre-Veil stitching," she said. "And find out who last modified the threads in Skivv's inventory."
The screen pulsed again.
Boo stared at it for a long moment.
Then she whispered: "Oh, Nyxia. What have you done?"