The victory tasted like cold ash.
For three days, the memory of the Gauntlet was a ghost that haunted the sterile air of their domicile. It wasn't the memory of the fight itself—that had been a clean, terrifyingly simple application of theory. The Razormaw, a blur of instinct and obsidian claws, had been a problem. The [Shard Armor] had been the solution. The technician in Kael found a grim satisfaction in the data: the system worked.
No, the ghost was the silence that had followed. The profound, heavy quiet from the observation deck, where dozens of Aethel Frames had gone still. He'd felt their gazes, not as admiration, but as a host of new, complex sensor-pings. He had been scanned, analyzed, and cataloged. In the Forge, Jax had called him a ghost. Here, in the heart of Enclave 3, he had become something far more dangerous. He had become an anomaly.
He ran a hand over the surface of his combat suit, feeling for the microscopic barbs that were no longer there. The armor was a thought now, a potential coiled in the new, strange harmony of his soul. The Hound's relentless drive and the Tortoise's absolute stasis were no longer at war. They were a single, functioning ecosystem. It was his. And he had no idea what to do with it.
"You're pacing," Maya said from her cot.
Her voice was a grounding wire in the static of his thoughts. He stopped, realizing he had been wearing a path in the small space between their beds. She was watching him, her expression a careful, unreadable mask. Her leg was better, the advanced medical tech of Enclave 3 a world away from the patch-and-pray methods of home, but she still favored it. A quiet, constant reminder of the price of their secrets.
"Just thinking," he mumbled.
"About the looks they gave you," she finished for him. It wasn't a question. "They looked at you like you were a new kind of Chimera."
"They're not wrong." The words left a bitter taste in his mouth. He was a collection of parts that shouldn't fit together, a walking violation of the known laws of their world. He was a new kind of monster, and he'd just demonstrated his existence to a city full of hunters.
"We should go to the lower markets," Maya said, swinging her legs over the side of the cot with a slight wince. "Disappear for a bit. We're just two more scrappers from the outer territories. We can get lost in the noise."
It was a good plan. A technician's plan. Find the flaw in the system—their sudden visibility—and apply a countermeasure. Become ghosts again.
The lower market was a different kind of jungle than the Scar. It was a chaotic, organic thing, a sprawling bazaar crammed into the lower levels of a residential spire. The air was thick with the smell of recycled water, cheap nutrient paste, and a hundred different kinds of sweat. It was a place of freelancers, of independents, of the people who lived in the cracks between the great Houses. It felt more like home than any other part of this city.
They found a small noodle stall tucked into an alcove, the steam from the broth a welcome warmth in the chilled, recycled air. They sat on low stools, their backs to the wall, a habit learned in blood and terror. For a few minutes, surrounded by the haggling of merchants and the low grumble of off-duty Users, they could almost believe they were anonymous.
The feeling didn't last.
It started as a ripple in the crowd. A sudden parting of the way, a space clearing as if by an invisible force. The noise of the market didn't stop, but it seemed to bend around the silence that was approaching. Kael felt it first through the Hound, a low growl of warning in his soul. Threat. Not a Chimera's hot, chaotic energy, but something colder. More disciplined.
Two figures walked into the space they had cleared. They wore the immaculate deep-blue armor of House Valerius, the stylized lion's head on their shoulders seeming to drink the dim light of the market. Their Aethel Frames were a clean, powerful hum, the energy of a perfectly maintained, high-performance engine. They moved with an easy, fluid confidence that had nothing to do with combat prowess and everything to do with a lifetime of never being questioned.
They stopped in front of the noodle stall. They didn't look at the stall owner, who suddenly seemed very busy with a pot that wasn't boiling. They looked directly at Kael.
"User Kael, of Enclave 7," the lead one said. His voice, filtered through his helmet's external speaker, was a polite, impersonal baritone. It wasn't a question.
Kael's own Frame went on high alert. The Hound snarled, wanting to meet the challenge. The Scuttler chittered, looking for an escape route that didn't exist. The Stalker, the cold, quiet ghost, was the most terrifying. It saw the two men not as a threat, but as a system. It was analyzing their armor, their stances, the subtle flow of their Aethel energy. It was looking for the weak point.
He pushed them all down. He was the zookeeper. He was just Kael, a boy from a frontier fort, a long, long way from home.
"I am," he said, his voice steadier than he felt.
The Valerius User nodded, a single, economical gesture. "A summons. Lord Valerius extends to you an invitation. He wishes to discuss your recent performance in the Gauntlet."
He didn't offer a datapad. Instead, his partner stepped forward and produced a physical object. It was a rectangle of thick, cream-colored card, impossibly anachronistic in this world of plastek and recycled composites. A crimson wax seal, stamped with the same lion's head crest, held it closed.
Kael stared at it. It was a weapon of a kind he was only just beginning to understand. It wasn't a spear to threaten his body. It was a piece of paper to claim his future.
He didn't move. He felt Maya shift beside him, a subtle tightening of her muscles, a quiet preparation for a fight she knew they couldn't win.
The User holding the invitation didn't seem to notice. Or perhaps, he simply didn't care. His patience was the absolute, unshakeable patience of a man who knew the outcome was already decided. "Lord Valerius is a connoisseur of unique talents. He believes a Frame User of your… demonstrated creativity… should not be dwelling in the Outer Ring."
The implication hung in the air, as heavy and cloying as the market steam. A promise and a threat, woven together.
Slowly, Kael reached out and took the invitation. The card was heavy, the edges sharp. The wax seal was cool and smooth under his thumb. It felt more real, more dangerous, than any Echo he had ever touched.
"Tell your Lord… I am honored," Kael said, the formal words feeling like a betrayal in his own mouth.
The lead retainer gave another curt nod. "He will expect you at the Valerius estate tomorrow at noon. Do not be late."
They turned and walked away, the crowd parting before them and closing in their wake, as if they had never been there. The noise of the market returned, a little too loud, a little too forced. No one looked at Kael or Maya. To see them was to be involved, and in Enclave 3, involvement was a liability.
Kael looked down at the ornate card in his hand. The wax seal felt like a drop of blood. He had won the test in the Gauntlet. He had proven his new power. He had survived Chimeras that could walk through walls and shatter reality. But sitting in a grimy noodle stall in the bowels of Enclave 3, he felt a dread colder and deeper than any he had known in the Scar.
He had wanted to hunt for the truth, to find the ghosts of the past. He had succeeded. But in doing so, he had drawn the attention of the living. And he was beginning to suspect that the monsters who built walls were far more dangerous than the ones who threw themselves against them. The unwanted notice had been served. His life as a ghost was over.