The flat smelled of ash and old secrets.
Smoke curled through the shattered ceiling like a living thing—slipping past burned curtains and broken pipes, eager to escape the ruin Lucien had left in his wake. Outside, sirens rose in the distance, weaving their cold cry through the city like banshees summoned to witness the death of a house.
Lucien stood in the middle of it all, motionless.
The walls around him were blackened. The windows fractured. Light flickered uncertainly from a ceiling panel that sparked with each failing pulse. His breath came shallow, his hands sticky with blood—his brother's blood.
But the boy stirred in his arms now. Warm. Breathing.
Alive.
Lucien closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, the storm inside him briefly lulled. You're safe. That was all he cared about. For now.
A cough broke the silence.
His eyes opened.
His uncle—bruised, cut, half-scorched—had dragged himself behind the shattered dining table. The man's robe, once grand and gold-trimmed, now hung from his body in tatters. His face was ash-streaked, his eyes glassy with fear.
Lucien moved slowly, carefully lowering his brother onto the couch's half-burned cushions. His fingers lingered, brushing the boy's brow with trembling gentleness.
Then he turned.
His feet crunched glass as he approached the wreckage.
"I gave you a choice," he said, voice low. "Family could've meant something. Still, you pulled the trigger."
His uncle coughed again, spat blood. "I—I warned them. Before you came. The Authority. They'll be here soon—you won't make it far."
Lucien's gaze darkened. "So this is your legacy? Selling blood for favour?"
The man struggled upright, bracing himself against the wall. "Don't pretend you're different!" he snarled, though it was clear he feared every breath Lucien took. "You don't know what it's like—the Authority, the Registries, the blacklists. I did what I had to. For the name. For survival."
"For yourself," Lucien said coldly.
"They offered me clemency," his uncle snapped. "Do you understand that? They said they'd wipe the record clean—everything. All I had to do was tell them where you were."
Lucien didn't speak. Not at first. He simply raised one hand.
A single black seed hovered above his palm, turning gently in the still air. It pulsed like a tiny heart, and for a moment—even in the smoky ruin—it was the only light in the room.
"This one," Lucien whispered, "isn't for sale."
He released it.
The seed drifted downward, soundless.
The moment it touched his uncle's chest, it did not pierce. It unfolded. A ripple of black light blossomed outward—elegant, swift, utterly silent. The scream that should've followed never came.
When it cleared, Lucien stood alone.
Where the man had crouched, there was nothing but a scorched shadow. A black smear on the floor. The smell of charred silk.
No remains.
No body.
No forgiveness.
A hum rose in the distance.
Lucien looked toward the fractured window. Down below, black hoverpods began to descend from the clouds like vultures, each bearing the crimson crest of the Mutant Retrieval Unit. Their lights swept across buildings, scanning for heat signatures. Doors opened. Armed figures dropped with mechanical precision onto rooftops—metal boots clicking in perfect rhythm.
War had arrived.
Lucien turned back, scooped up his brother.
The boy murmured in his sleep, eyes twitching beneath the lids. Lucien brushed the soot from his brow. "Stay asleep," he murmured. "Dream of something better. Something clean."
There was no time left.
He kicked open a side panel in the corridor wall. The metal groaned as it gave way, revealing a narrow maintenance shaft choked with cables and grime. It smelled of rust and old water. But it would do.
He slipped inside, the boy cradled close to his chest.
A minute later, the mutants in black armor burst through the front door, rifles raised, visors scanning the smoke. One of them knelt beside the scorched shadow on the floor, running a gloved finger through the ash.
"Confirmed," the soldier muttered. "He was here."
But Lucien was already gone.
The apartment lay in ruins, silent except for the dying flicker of flame and the distant, echoing ring of steel boots.