The world was iron. Iron bars. Iron boots. Iron stares.
Kael sat shackled in the back of a rust-stained Enforcer transport, his wrists bound in steel cuffs that buzzed faintly with low-grade suppressor magic. The floor beneath him trembled with every grind of the wheels. Across from him sat two Enforcers, helmets on, rifles across their laps. Neither spoke. Neither needed to.
Kael's face was bruised. Blood crusted under one nostril. Yet the grin hadn't left.
He tilted his head lazily, gazing through the slotted window as Ironspire crawled by—its broken towers, flickering signs, and choking black smog. The city he knew, the city that hated him, dragged on outside like a dying beast.
His thoughts wandered—not to the boy he killed, not to the blood, or the screams. But to the voice. The system. The pulse beneath his skin.
"Cruel Clarity active," the system had whispered earlier. "Stress recognized. Emotional dampening engaged."
But it didn't feel like dampening.
It felt like he was waking up.
Still, something gnawed at him. A question: Why him? Why now?
Why had some buried chip decided he was worthy of whatever "MERCY" was supposed to be?
He closed his eyes, but the thoughts wouldn't stop. They spun, and twisted, and the chip beneath his skin throbbed faintly—an itch in his bones. Something deeper than programming. Something watching.
The transport shuddered to a halt. One Enforcer nudged him forward. "Out. No sudden moves."
Kael stepped onto cracked stone steps slick with oil and rain. Before him rose the Ironspire Magistrate's Court—an ugly building of soot-black marble and jutting metal girders, looming like a funeral pyre. Unlike the factories or scrapyards, this place was clean. Sterile. No life, only order.
Inside, he was dragged through hallways lined with security cameras and arcane sensors. The walls hummed with power. Strange glyphs shimmered underfoot—detection circles, truth wards, suppression fields.
No one spoke to him. No one asked questions.
There was no trial.
He was thrown into a small chamber, metal walls bare except for a single table bolted to the ground. A man was already waiting.
He wasn't an Enforcer. He wore a long black coat, not armor. No badge, no rifle. Just a pen and a stack of yellowed paper beside a steaming cup of synth-coffee.
He looked up. Pale eyes. Thin, graying hair. Skin like dry parchment.
Marshal Thorne.
"You're the boy who killed Garron Reist?" he asked without emotion.
Kael blinked. "He slipped," he said, voice calm.
Thorne didn't react. He simply clicked his pen. "Interesting. You see, Kael Veyne, I've read your records. Factory work since you were nine. Parents—dead in the 3rd Sector collapse. Multiple hospital visits. No friends. No school."
"Sounds accurate," Kael replied, leaning back in his chair. "What's this, a therapy session?"
"No," Thorne said quietly. "This is judgment."
He stood and walked behind Kael, who tensed but didn't speak. There was no heat in the man's presence, only the cold press of precision. Kael felt like he was being dissected, not interrogated.
"You have no advocate. No hearing. No coin to pay for legal shields," Thorne said softly. "And Ironspire no longer wastes resources on gutter scum."
Kael's smile faltered slightly.
"You've been sentenced to conscription," Thorne continued. "Effective immediately. The front lines need bodies, not justice."
Kael's throat tightened. "What front lines?"
Thorne finally met his gaze again. "The Rebilon frontier. You'll be sent to Camp Hollowmere for conditioning. If you survive the training, you fight."
"And if I don't?" Kael asked.
"Then your corpse gets recycled for spare parts," Thorne said without blinking.
A long silence.
Then Kael's laughter broke it—dry, cracked, too loud for the room.
Thorne didn't smile.
"You find that funny?" the Marshal asked.
Kael wiped a tear from his eye, still grinning. "I find everything funny these days."
Thorne leaned closer. "Then let's see how long that laugh lasts."
He tapped the comm panel beside the door. "Ready him for transfer. No sedation."
Later that night, after Kael had been thrown into a transport cell bound for Hollowmere, Marshal Thorne remained in the chamber. He stared at the chair where Kael had sat, then turned to the papers again.
He flipped one open. An old medical report. Brain scans. Trauma diagnostics.
Anomalies. Neural interference. Signs of something... external.
His lips thinned.
"Activate internal surveillance protocol," he said aloud. "I want every moment of Subject Veyne monitored. No contact with classified systems without clearance."
He looked out the grimy window toward the slums.
"Something's wrong with that boy," he muttered. "And I intend to find out what."