---
The humming in Kael's chest wouldn't stop.
It beat under his ribs like a second heart, a rhythm that didn't belong to him. Each pulse sent a faint chill crawling through his veins. The mark burned faintly—black, faintly luminous beneath the skin of his collarbone.
He'd tried covering it. Bandages, scrap cloth, even a strip of old polymer tape, but the light kept leaking through, faint enough to see in the dark.
Outside, Citadel 9 was waking. Or what passed for morning here. The upper tiers buzzed with generator hums and ration bells; down in the Gutter the air carried the stench of boiled grain and metal rot. Kael sat by his narrow window, staring at the smog-drowned skyline, trying not to think of the shadow woman's words.
> You have my mark.
His sister's voice—or something wearing it.
A knock rattled the bunkhouse door.
"Verran! Open up!"
Kael stiffened. That tone—authority, sharp, rehearsed. He unlatched the door a crack. Two figures waited outside, both wearing the matte-gray armor of the Relic Enforcement Corps.
"Kael Verran," said the taller one. "You're being summoned to Intake Nine for resonance testing. Step out."
Kael's stomach dropped. "I haven't registered—"
"That's the point," the officer cut in. "You tripped a Shade-echo on your last run. That means contact. Contact means a potential Resonance."
He considered bolting. Then he saw the sidearm leveled casually in the other man's hand. No choice.
He followed them through the twisting alleys until the slums opened into a wide avenue of cracked glass and neon pipes—the border between the lower and middle tiers. Overhead, air-trams droned like wasps.
At the checkpoint, the guards scanned his wrist tag and confiscated his staff. Then came the scanner arch: a circle of humming plates that shimmered with blue static.
"Step in," the officer ordered.
Kael swallowed and obeyed.
A surge of cold rushed through his body, like falling into ice water. The arch screamed an alarm tone that made the soldiers flinch. His vision filled with flashes—dark spirals, fractal veins crawling across the display.
"Confirmed Marked subject!" a technician shouted. "Eclipse resonance, high density!"
The taller officer turned to Kael, eyes narrowing. "Congratulations, Diver. You're officially contaminated."
---
They dragged him into Intake Nine—a windowless chamber lined with humming resonance pods. Each one held someone inside, suspended in glowing fluid. Some screamed silently; others didn't move at all.
Kael's throat went dry. "What happens to them?"
"Testing," the officer said flatly. "If they live, the Corps recruits them. If they don't—well, fewer mouths to feed."
He wanted to punch the man. Instead, he forced his voice steady. "And if I refuse?"
The officer grinned. "Then we toss you back outside. The Shades can test you instead."
Two med-techs strapped him into a chair surrounded by black cables. One pressed a shard of dull crystal to his chest where the mark lay.
"Relax," she murmured. "Let the resonance flow."
The world vanished.
---
He was falling again—through endless dark. The twilight sky melted away, replaced by a swirling sea of lightless clouds. Shapes moved beneath them: titanic silhouettes, wings the size of cities, eyes like dying stars.
In the distance, he saw her. The shadow woman.
She stood on nothing, hair floating in the gloom like ink dispersing in water.
> "They'll call it corruption," she whispered. "But it's a gift. The Eclipse doesn't destroy—it remembers."
Kael reached toward her. "Who are you?"
> "You already know."
When her fingers touched his, a torrent of memories surged through him—his sister laughing on the balcony the night before the sky fell, the flash of black light swallowing her whole, his own scream breaking in his throat.
> "Find me in the heart of the Eclipse," the voice said. "Citadel Nine is only the first cage."
The vision shattered.
---
Kael gasped awake. The cables were gone. The room was empty. His restraints had melted like wax, leaving only a faint scorch on the metal.
An alarm klaxon wailed outside. Boots thundered down the corridor.
He rose shakily, noticing the crystal shard still clutched in his hand. It had fused with his skin, glowing faintly with the same black light as the mark.
The first soldier burst through the door. "Subject Nine! Stop—"
Kael raised a hand on instinct. The air thickened, and the man froze mid-stride. His shadow peeled off the floor, solidifying into a mirror-image silhouette that wrapped around his body. The soldier's scream turned to a gurgle as darkness devoured him.
Kael stumbled back, horrified. "No… no, no, no."
The shadow reabsorbed into him like smoke sucked into a lung. The mark pulsed again, stronger now.
He didn't wait to see who else was coming. He ran.
---
The corridors of Intake Nine twisted like veins through the Citadel's underbelly. Sirens painted everything red. Through shattered windows he saw Shade Divers gathering, weapons ready. Overhead, automated drones swarmed like steel birds.
Kael darted into a maintenance shaft and slid down until he hit a service tunnel. The smell of ozone and oil burned his throat.
> You can't hide from them forever, the whisper returned.
He hissed through his teeth. "Then help me!"
Silence.
Then the shadow stirred. His own reflection detached from the wall and pointed ahead—to a small, half-collapsed door with the insignia of the old Relic Forge.
Kael forced it open. Inside lay forgotten machines and cracked power conduits. And in the center, an inactive relic pod—half-buried in debris.
He approached it. The pod's surface flickered, reacting to the mark on his chest.
> Feed it, the whisper urged.
He pressed his wounded palm to the surface. Darkness spilled from his veins into the metal. The pod groaned to life, cables sparking. A voice crackled through the dusty intercom.
"Unregistered Diver detected… initializing Bond Protocol."
Kael's pulse raced. "Bond? With what?"
The pod opened.
Inside floated a weapon—black steel twisted with veins of silver, shaped like a blade fused to a rifle stock. Its core glowed faintly with the same black flame.
> Yours, the whisper said. The first of many.
Kael gripped the weapon. Energy surged through him, linking man and machine. The relic pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Outside, soldiers shouted, drawing closer.
Kael looked at the door, then down at the weapon. For the first time, he didn't feel like prey.
He raised the blade-rifle. Shadows rippled around him, responding to his thoughts.
"Let's see," he murmured, "if destiny can bleed."
He stepped into the corridor as the first soldiers turned the corner.
The hallway vanished in a storm of black light.