The market didn't crawl so much as it spasmed—like a half-dead thing twitching on a slab, trying to remember how bones were supposed to move. Wyrmhollow Exchange slumped beneath the fractured spine of an old skyrail, its ribs of rusted steel wrapped in wire fungus and time-worn grief. Everything here felt like it belonged in a crime scene photo—yellow-lit, crooked, and doomed.
Lucien Blackmoore moved through it like a memory sharpened to a blade. Crimson coat trailing ash and heat, eyes colder than a ledger's balance sheet. He wasn't blending in—not here, not anymore. Places like Wyrmhollow remembered the weight of names.
Aether runoff dripped from fractured vents, pooling in iridescent sludges that hissed when touched.
LEDGER STATUS: Active Deal
Target: Zek Korrin
Crate: Vault-sealed, Aether-bound
Risk Assessment: 73% volatile cargo contamination
Threat Flag: Marked sigil matches previous Cassian identifier
Informant Reports: Last contact with Cassian's proxy—Undergleam sector collapse, 3 days prior
Pending Collection: One soul-debt from Jace Vell's estate, overdue by 14 days
Lucien didn't blink at the update. The Ledger's pulse beat faint against his ribs, just enough to make its presence known. The thing never rested. It didn't let him, either. He passed vendors hawking relics and ruination: prayer cubes that whispered sins not your own, black-market graft kits that twitched with leftover nerves, soul-splinter vials that pulsed faintly in wax-sealed tubes like trapped fireflies dying slow.
One stall vendor—a hunched figure wrapped in tattered synth-leathers and old teeth—raised a box of jagged ivory. "Sin-matched! Aligned to your birth-curse!" they croaked.
Lucien didn't bother slowing. His smile, razor-thin and quiet, said he could find a worse mistake cheaper and meaner.
He ducked behind a half-collapsed drone recharger, the thing sagging like it had confessed something shameful and gave up breathing. Mold crawled up its sides in spidery veins. Behind it, swaddled in tarp and half-shadow, waited the crate.
He crouched. Slapped the metal casing once with the flat of his palm.
It thrummed.
The sound wasn't mechanical. It was alive. Not in the breathing way—but the twitchy, twitching way. Like a trapped heart still fighting a war in its cage. Lucien's coat brushed metal as he leaned closer. The crate pulsed faintly in response, its casing stitched tight with old sigils, some faded, others still wet enough to sting.
He tapped the Ledger inside his coat. Glyphs surfaced over his knuckles.
Secondary Confirmation: Aether-Core Active
Soul-binding residuals: Detected
Origin: Crossed plane signature—Valthara Prime
Contamination Probability: 61%
Internal Threat: Unverified. Advise minimal contact.
Last Contact Note: Zek Korrin, contract pre-signed, pending thumb-seal.
"You always this early to your own funerals?" came a voice behind him. That voice had smoke in it. Zek.
Lucien tilted his head, already smiling. "Zek, darling. I was starting to think you'd gotten tangled in your own reflection."
Zek stepped from the shadows like carved granite. Knuckles looked like they'd torn through bone, Syndicate ink mapped across his arms like someone tried to draw out a curse mid-fight. Scars still healing. Breath fogged like smoke, though the air was hot and thick with damp current.
"You're late."
"Gunpoint," Zek replied, like that explained everything. It probably did.
Lucien gestured at the crate. "Still humming. Untouched. Even sang a note or two when I tapped it."
Zek stepped forward, fingers trailing along the surface. When his palm met the metal, it jerked—like something inside was offended.
He scraped the edge clean, clearing a thumbprint's worth of soot. His hand stopped. Shoulders stiffened.
A sigil. Burnt into the casing. Crooked. Sloppy.
Familiar.
Lucien didn't need to ask. His breath cooled.
"Problem with the packaging?" he said flatly.
Zek didn't respond, not at first. Just stared. "Cassian."
Lucien clicked his tongue. "Lovely. There goes my evening."
"This mark showed up on a crate out of Nexus B. We lost people."
"You lose people like cheap gloves, Zek. That night was just another mistake dressed in fire."
Zek loomed closer, shoulders like slabs. "He marked it."
Lucien stepped in too, head tilting, matching heat with chill. "Or he wants you to think that. This?" He tapped the sigil lightly. "This is theater. Sloppy, loud, meant to be seen. He wants us rattled."
"You working with him now?"
Lucien laughed. Not a happy sound. "He left me for dead in Veilshade, remember? Eighteen. Ribs shattered. Throat split. Said I was a liability." He wiped his fingers clean against his coat. "If I'm working with him, he forgot to send the apology card."
Zek's jaw tensed, fists twitching. The kind of tension that didn't wait long before swinging.
Lucien sighed, pulled a thin wafer from his coat. Its edges shimmered faintly—sigil-etched, twitching like nerves beneath skin. "Sign this. You get the crate. Simple terms."
"You always script betrayal in triplicate?"
Lucien's smile cracked wider. "Only with friends."
Zek moved. Too fast. Lucien ducked left, sidestepped. The punch hit the recharger instead—sparks spat outward like fireflies startled out of sleep.
The market flinched.
A vendor shrieked. Someone dropped a bottle. Far off, glass shattered. A hush settled. The kind that happens before blood hits the ground.
Lucien crouched low, shimmerglass sliding from his sleeve. More a promise than a weapon. The sigils etched into its edge weren't just for show—they were warnings, receipts of past mistakes.
"Zek," he said calmly. "He's haunting your memory. Not this deal."
Zek raised a fist again. Lucien didn't flinch.
"This crate's cursed."
"It's marked," Lucien corrected. "That's different. Marked to scare you. He's been leaving these around like breadcrumbs. You think you're hunting him? He's got you circling."
Zek's jaw twitched. His breath came rough. Then slower. Then still.
"He wants me chasing ghosts," Lucien said, voice lowering. "He wants you doubting me."
Silence. Zek stared at the wafer. Then pressed his thumb.
The sigil glowed. Locked.
"We done," Zek said.
Lucien nodded. "For now."
Zek hoisted the crate with a grunt and vanished into the tangle of metal and mist. The moment he passed the lightless arch of the Exchange, the humming stopped.
Lucien crouched again. Fingers brushed the sigil's scorch.
The Ledger shifted against him. He felt it before it moved.
INTERNAL ALERT: Source confirmed
Cassian marker: Identified
Strategic Implication: Proxy engagement imminent
Observation: "He hunts me,"
Status: Collection window narrowing. Suggest diversionary tactic.
Lucien lit a cigarette. Let the thought sit there.
He remembered the crew they lost—the old vault job, the scream that never made it out, the shard that cracked too loud. Cassian's mark had been on that too. Half-burned. Just enough to be blamed, not enough to be confirmed.
Lucien exhaled slow, dragging the ash out of his lungs like it owed him.
"I burned it down first," he whispered.
The Ledger pulsed again.
Observation: You chose this.
He stood. Let the smoke curl up into the broken steel rafters above. One more secret fed to the dead air.
The sigil faded behind him.
Above, the skyrail groaned—metal warping like bone beneath pressure. In the distance, smog rolled in. Too slow to be wind, too thick to be natural. Something stirred deeper in the Exchange. Another ghost.
Lucien's coat flared behind him as he walked. The street didn't feel like it had a floor anymore—just decisions stacked on regrets.
Cassian wasn't just moving pieces. He was drawing Lucien in. Personal, pointed, loud. Always louder lately.
The Ledger buzzed again.
TASK UPDATE: Proxy engagement suspected. Local informant "Tess" has gone dark. Last ping: Four blocks north of Bazaar.
Suggest retrieval or sacrifice.
Warning: Cassian's network escalating.
Lucien narrowed his eyes and flicked the ash off his cigarette.
"No more running," he muttered. "No more ghosts."
He tapped the side of the Ledger with two fingers.
Then he turned down the alley, already working the first strings of his next sting.
"Log this," he said. "Next move's mine."