The howling wind carried more than just the stench of smoke and rust through the half-ruined streets of Aetherlane. It carried the city's fear. People walked with their heads down, their steps quick and uncertain. The Clocktower's awakening had left a wound on the world, and every person felt it. Clocks on the walls of homes and shops stuttered and skipped, sometimes losing entire minutes, sometimes gaining them in a frantic, jarring burst. For most, this was a creeping madness. For Kairen, it was the sound of a living battlefield, an enemy he could now feel in the air he breathed.
He moved through the twisting alleys with a new, calculated precision, his cloak drawn tight. It was a shield, but not from the chill; it masked the gleam of his shortsword, a constant reminder of the fragile peace he now walked. A few paces behind him, Safaa moved like a ghost, her face pale and her silence heavy. The words "I was made for this" hung between them like a shroud, a ghost neither could banish. They were partners, yes, but the truth had driven a wedge between them, a chasm of purpose he couldn't yet understand.
The city's underbelly had fractured overnight. The Ashen Guild, once a unified front, had splintered; some of its lords fled into exile, their faith in a higher order shattered, while others clung to their forge-born power with a desperation that was a new kind of madness. The Glass Order, robbed of their central ritual, were scattered and hunted, their shattered masks reflecting a new reality they couldn't control.
But the most dangerous shift was subtle. The Veiled Ones, no longer content to remain shadows, now walked with form, tall and cloaked figures whose steps echoed like broken bells on the cracked cobblestones. They didn't attack openly—not yet—but their presence gnawed at the sanity of anyone who caught a glimpse of their form, their movements strangely disjointed and unnatural.
As Kairen and Safaa turned a corner, they found themselves at the mouth of the Gearwright's Quarter, a place where once artisans built fine mechanisms. Now the forges were cold, their embers long dead, the streets empty—except for one figure. A child, barefoot and dressed in rags, sat on the steps of a rusted workshop, humming. The sound was wrong, not melodic but dissonant, like a gear grinding against itself, yet it was so mesmerizing that it drew them to a halt.
Kairen stopped instantly, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword. Safaa's breath caught in a sharp gasp. "That's… not a child," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the dissonant humming.
The sound grew louder, echoing in the confined space, bouncing off the brick walls as though the city itself was grinding to a halt. The figure lifted its head, and beneath the hood, its face was not human. It was a hollow clock dial, the hands spinning wildly and unevenly, an impossible, maddening sight. This was no mere Veiled One. This was a Herald.
The ground shivered beneath their feet. Doors slammed shut down the alley on their own, a chorus of final, metallic thuds. The erratic ticking from the dial-face suddenly aligned with the beat of Safaa's pendant. She clutched the silver gear at her chest, a silent struggle in her eyes as she tried to steady her breathing. "They're… calling me," she said, her voice strained.
Kairen stepped forward, placing himself between her and the Herald. His voice was flat and cold, but it was edged with a resolve born of a new, grim purpose. "They'll have to get through me first."
The Herald rose, its small body stretching unnaturally, limbs bending with the sound of warped cogs and cracking joints. The air grew thick, the alley narrowing as though the city itself was resisting their passage. And then, in a voice that sounded like hundreds speaking at once, like a chorus of unhinged ticking, it intoned:
"Daughter of the Watchmaker. Come home."
Safaa froze, her eyes wide with a terror Kairen had never seen. His grip on his blade tightened until his knuckles went white. He had known this day would come, a day when the cults would come for her, but not this soon. And as the shadows began to close in and the sound of a thousand ticking clocks filled the alley, he realized something chilling: this was no ordinary encounter. This was the first hunt.
The war for Safaa's soul had begun.