The oar creaked in Lyra's hands as she guided the skiff into the black throat of the canal. The water smelled of oil and fish rot, its sluggish ripples carrying broken crates and bits of cloth. Above them, the ruined arch of an aqueduct rose like a broken rib, its stones slick with moss.
Elian stirred, wincing at the pull of stitches across his ribs. His tunic clung clammy with sweat and blood. He tried to push himself upright but his muscles betrayed him, trembling as though the weight of his own body were too much.
"Lie down," Lyra snapped without looking at him. Her eyes stayed on the narrowing passage ahead.
"I don't want to lie down," he muttered.
Her lips twisted in something that might have been a smile if it weren't so sharp. "You're free to bleed out upright if you prefer. Just don't fall into the water. These canals eat more than refuse."
As if summoned by her words, something bumped against the side of the skiff with a hollow thunk. Elian looked over, his breath catching when he saw pale fingers drifting just beneath the water's surface. A face followed, half-eaten by river creatures, eyes wide in a silent scream.
He recoiled, bile rising in his throat.
Lyra gave no sign she noticed.
The skiff slipped beneath a hanging bridge, where lanterns glowed faint orange. The air thickened with smoke and spice, the sound of haggling voices carrying down from unseen markets above. Shadows flickered across the water as smugglers dragged crates along narrow planks, their faces half-hidden by scarves. The stink of stale beer and incense clung to the stones.
"This is… the undercity?" Elian asked, voice weak.
Lyra snorted. "This is the part they don't paint on maps. You could say it's where the city comes to rot. Or to thrive, depending who you ask."
Her oar angled, turning them into a smaller tunnel lit only by faint phosphor moss clinging to the walls.
Minutes stretched in silence. Elian pressed a trembling hand to his side. The pain was sharp, but not as sharp as the memory of the Guard's screams. The shadows that had crawled from him, writhing like hungry beasts, still lingered in his mind. He saw their faces every time he blinked—their fear, their confusion.
He whispered before he could stop himself. "I killed them."
Lyra's oar slowed. She glanced at him, her eyes glinting in the faint light.
"I killed them," he repeated, louder now. "They were knights. Sworn to protect. I—" His throat closed. The air seemed to shrink in his lungs. "What kind of monster takes twenty lives in one night?"
For a long moment, only the lapping of water filled the silence. Then Lyra said, almost lazily:
"The kind that survives."
Elian stared at her. "You think this is survival? That slaughter?"
Her mouth curved into a humorless grin. "You think the Guard would have spared you if you'd just knelt nice and begged? No. They'd have slit your throat and dumped you in this same river, and the Athenaeum would have scrubbed your name from their records before your blood dried. That's what oaths and law are worth in Aetheria."
Her words hit like stones.
Elian wanted to argue, but he remembered the High Magister's cold eyes, the spears leveled at his chest. They had not seen a man in pain. They had seen a threat to be erased.
Still, his voice came out hoarse. "Maybe they were right."
Lyra barked a laugh that echoed off the canal walls. "If you believe that, then I should've left you bleeding on the docks."
They drifted into a cavernous chamber where the canal widened. Ramshackle platforms clung to the walls, stitched together from wood and rusted metal. Rope bridges sagged between them. Children darted across beams above, their laughter shrill, while men with knives at their belts watched silently from the shadows.
Elian shivered. The air reeked of damp straw, frying grease, and too many unwashed bodies.
Lyra rowed toward a narrow stair cut into stone. She tied the skiff to a mooring and slung her pistol at her hip.
"Come on," she said.
Elian hesitated, but her glare dared him to resist. He dragged himself upright, pain knifing his side, and followed her onto the steps.
The climb was short but steep, leading to a crooked door set into the wall. Lyra knocked twice, then once more in a rhythm that seemed like a code. After a moment, the door creaked open, revealing a gaunt man with skin pocked from old burns.
He eyed Lyra, then Elian. "You bring me trouble again?"
Lyra smirked. "When have I ever brought anything else?"
The man sighed, muttering under his breath, but stepped aside. "Fine. Inside. Quickly."
The space beyond was little more than a hollow carved into stone, lit by sputtering lamps. Mats lay scattered across the floor, along with crates stacked high with bottles and weapons wrapped in oiled cloth.
Elian sank gratefully onto a mat. The burn of his wound eased only slightly, but exhaustion dragged at him heavier than chains.
The gaunt man poured something into a tin cup and thrust it toward Elian. "Drink."
Elian sniffed. Bitter, sharp, acrid. "What is it?"
"Does it matter?" Lyra asked, already unbuckling her coat. "Drink or bleed. Your choice."
Elian lifted it with shaking hands. The liquid scorched his throat, his stomach turning. Heat spread through him, not pleasant but numbing, blurring the edges of his pain.
As the fire in his gut settled, he glanced at Lyra. She had shed her pistol belt and was scrubbing soot from her face with a rag, her movements brisk but weary. Without the smirk or the swagger, she looked younger, almost fragile. But the hardness in her eyes never left.
"Who are you, really?" he asked before he could stop himself.
She looked up, one brow arched. "What do you mean?"
"You're not just some smuggler. The way you move, the way you fight, the way you stitched me up… you've done this before. Many times."
Her rag paused mid-motion. For the first time, her smirk faltered.
Then it returned, sharper than before. "Ask fewer questions, scholar. Live longer."
Elian swallowed. The warmth of the drink dulled his body but not his thoughts. He wanted to press, to understand the woman who had dragged him from death. But her eyes warned him the door to her past was one he wasn't yet welcome to open.
Lyra crossed the room, dropping onto a crate across from him. "Here's how it is. You've got something inside you. Something the Guard wants dead. I don't care if it's curse, prophecy, or demon—what matters is that it makes you valuable. Which means we stick together."
Elian stared. "Valuable? To who?"
Her grin flashed, all teeth. "To the right buyers? To enemies of the Guard? To me."
The words chilled him. "You saved me… to sell me?"
"Not sell," she corrected smoothly. "Trade. Leverage. But until then, you stay breathing, because dead men don't bargain."
He clenched his fists. The shadows stirred faintly at his fingertips, writhing like smoke. "I'm not a tool."
Lyra leaned forward, her voice soft but edged with steel. "Then prove it. Live long enough to decide what you are."
Elian sagged back against the wall, chest aching. His guilt gnawed at him, but beneath it something else throbbed—fear, yes, but also a strange pull. The shadows in his veins whispered, coiling, restless. The black star pulsed behind his eyes like a heartbeat.
And he wondered, not for the first time, if Lyra was right.
If survival had already chosen him, whether he wanted it or not.