The undercity stank of rot.
Kaelen moved through it with steady, deliberate steps, the weight of his Solar Guard plate whispering against itself. His men fanned out in disciplined formation behind him, boots crunching over gravel, puddles rippling where their armored feet disturbed stagnant water. The torchlight they carried cast long shadows, distorting the ruined pillars and collapsed walls into grotesque figures that leered at them from the dark.
"Captain," one of the guards murmured, his voice muffled by his helm, "the tracks end here."
Kaelen crouched, running a gauntleted hand over the damp stone. His fingers brushed a faint smear of blood—fresh, still tacky. Not the dark ichor of an undercity beast. Human blood.
He straightened, jaw tightening.
"They're close," he said. "Fan out, but stay within line of sight. And for the Sun's sake, keep your blades ready. This place is alive with things that don't belong."
The men obeyed without hesitation. Even now, even down here in the dark, his word carried the weight of command.
But beneath his armor, Kaelen felt unease coil like a living thing.
The undercity wasn't just ruins. It was a graveyard. Once, these halls had been a shrine, carved by the ancestors to honor the stars. Now they were a labyrinth of shadows and bones, haunted by things that had never basked in light.
And one of those things walked in a man's skin.
Kaelen clenched his fist. He remembered the Ceremony of Alignment—the chaos, the screams, the sight of Elian drowning in black fire. He had wanted to cut him down then and there, end the threat before it spread. But the Guard had hesitated. Wait, investigate, capture alive. They had given orders wrapped in hesitation. Orders that had cost lives.
Kaelen had no patience for hesitation.
If Elian was touched by the void, if he carried even a sliver of that corruption, then his oath demanded a single course: purge.
A low moan drifted through the tunnel. Not human. Something deeper, wetter, like a wind blowing through drowned lungs.
The guards stiffened. One made the sign of the Sun over his chest.
Kaelen's gaze hardened. "Steady. Whatever made that sound is dead now, or will be soon. Keep moving."
They advanced, torches throwing halos of light that seemed to retreat rather than push back the darkness. Kaelen kept his hand on the hilt of his longsword, its aetherium-forged blade faintly glowing with captured starlight. Each step echoed, swallowed almost immediately by the oppressive silence.
The tunnels narrowed. The stench grew worse. And then, suddenly, the smell changed.
Burnt stone. Charred air. The faint, acrid tang of something unnatural, clinging like smoke after a fire.
Kaelen's throat tightened. He knew that smell.
The void had been here.
"Captain," another guard whispered, "look."
The torchlight fell upon the floor ahead. The stones were cracked, fissures spreading outward in a spiderweb pattern. At the center lay a slick pool of something still steaming. Not water. Not oil. A black ichor that hissed softly when the torchlight neared it, as though resentful of illumination.
Kaelen's lips pressed into a hard line. He touched the ichor with the tip of his sword, then pulled back. The metal smoked faintly where it made contact.
A beast had died here. But not cleanly. Not naturally.
Elian.
"By the Sun," one of the men muttered. "What kind of creature bleeds like that?"
"The kind touched by shadow," Kaelen said. His voice was low, steady, unyielding. "And the kind a heretic would draw to himself."
He didn't say aloud what the ichor's presence meant—that Elian had survived an encounter with it. That he had used the void to do so.
That made him more dangerous than Kaelen had feared.
The trail continued. Smears of ichor, streaks of human blood, bootprints half-slid across stone as though the survivors had stumbled onward, barely able to stand.
Kaelen followed without pause. Every sign of struggle hardened his resolve.
Elian had unleashed power once. That was enough. If he was not purged now, the contagion would spread. It always spread. He had read the histories, seen the records sealed away in the Guard's vaults. Villages swallowed whole. Cities turned to ash. It always began with one.
One man. One heretic. One excuse to stay the hand of justice.
Not this time.
"Captain," a voice called softly from behind. It was Ser Joren, his second-in-command, a veteran knight with silver showing at his temples. "Orders said to capture. Bring him back for judgment. If he's resisting, if he's dangerous, we can—"
Kaelen stopped, turning slowly to face him. Their eyes met, torchlight reflecting off steel.
"Judgment has already been passed," Kaelen said. "It was written the moment he let the void inside him. You've seen what happens when men like that are spared."
Joren swallowed, but said nothing more.
The rest of the men looked uneasy, but none spoke. Discipline held them. Respect bound them.
Kaelen turned back to the trail. His voice was steady, but beneath it his blood burned with the fervor of his oath. "He will not escape. Not while I draw breath."
They pressed on. The tunnels widened into a chamber, its ceiling half-collapsed, rubble strewn across the floor. Pillars lay broken, carved inscriptions worn down to illegibility. The air was heavy with smoke, dust, and the lingering stink of void.
And there—across the chamber, slumped against the far wall—two figures.
Kaelen's breath slowed. His hand tightened around his sword.
The first was unmistakable. Elian, pale and trembling, eyes wide with exhaustion. His cloak was torn, his chest heaving, his very aura unclean—like a candle guttering in a storm.
Beside him crouched a woman, one Kaelen recognized. Lyra Veylan. Once of noble blood, now a pirate and fugitive, blades still slick with black ichor. She was wounded, blood staining her side, yet her stance was sharp, ready.
And both of them looked toward him.
Their eyes met across the chamber—prey and hunter, shadow and oath.
Kaelen stepped forward, raising his blade.
"Elian Thorne," he said, his voice echoing off the ruined walls. "By the light of the Sun and the authority of the Solar Guard, you are condemned. Yield now, or face judgment here."
The torches behind him flared. His men spread into a line, blades drawn, armor gleaming.
Elian's lips parted, but no words came. Lyra shifted, placing herself between him and Kaelen, daggers ready despite the tremor in her hands.
For a long moment, silence stretched. Only the drip of ichor and the crackle of torches filled the air.
Then Kaelen advanced, each step a promise.
This time, there would be no hesitation.