The echo of the word Anchor still trembled in Arin's skull long after the light had thinned back into the mist-choked air. The street returned in fragments—brick shapes, the metallic taste of fog, the distant machinery-hum of the city—but something essential had shifted beneath it all. The ground felt different, as if it carried a faint breath.
Or as if it were listening.
Arin braced a hand against the cold wall beside him, willing his heartbeat to slow. The silvery glow on his skin had faded, but its memory lingered like phantom warmth. Lira stood a pace away, daggers still drawn, eyes locked on the chasm from which the figure had emerged.
Only now, the fissure was closing.
Not with stone grinding or rumble—no, it folded inward, silently, almost gently. Like a mouth deciding it had spoken enough.
Lira exhaled. "We need to move. Now. Before anyone from the Watch—"
"Lira." Arin's voice came out thin. "You heard it, right?"
She didn't answer.
"You did," he pressed.
Only after the last strand of pale energy vanished into the sealed stone did she finally slide her daggers back into their sheaths. Her expression was tight, wary, but her voice was steady.
"I heard something. I don't know if it was a word. And I don't know if it was meant for you." She turned sharply. "Arin, look at me."
He lifted his gaze.
"Whatever that thing was, whatever it wanted, it's gone. The moment is over. And until we find someone who can explain this, you don't engage with anything you can't walk away from. Understand?"
He almost smiled, weakly. "What about things that won't let me walk away?"
"Then you run," she shot back. "Preferably while dragging me with you."
The attempt at humor broke like thin glass. They both knew nothing about tonight was something they could "walk away" from.
A distant burst of static crackled from a patrol node several streets over. The Watch was drawing closer.
Lira grabbed his wrist—warm, grounding—and pulled. "We have to disappear before they sweep this sector. Cloaks up. Keep your head down and don't speak to anyone."
They moved.
Not running, not yet, but swift enough that each turn down the narrow streets cut them deeper into the city's labyrinth. The lights overhead flickered with the usual power fluctuations, but Arin's nerves didn't let him trust coincidence anymore. Every shift in shadow, every pulse of neon, every glint off the wet pavement felt like it might be looking at him.
He forced himself to breathe normally.
But even as he tried to keep pace with Lira, flashes of the floating figure kept resurfacing—its blurred face, the weight of its gaze, the way the threads of light had trembled when his skin had begun glowing.
And worst: that whispered word.
Anchor.
Why him?
Why now?
They crossed a narrow bridge, water rushing dark beneath, and Lira finally slowed to a halt in the shadow of a shuttered tea stall. She tugged Arin into the alcove beside it.
"Show me your hands," she said.
He lifted them.
No shine. No threadlike patterns etched across the skin. Just ordinary hands—shaking only a little.
Lira's shoulders dropped in relief. "Good. Whatever triggered it isn't active anymore." She checked the street again before facing him. "Talk to me. When it said that… word… what did you feel?"
Arin hesitated, but that moment's delay was answer enough.
Lira swore softly under her breath. "Arin."
"It felt like… pressure. Inside my head. Not painful. Just—like a pull. And something else." He struggled for the right description. "Like being recognized."
Her frown deepened. "Recognized by what?"
"I don't know." He rubbed his palms against his knees. "But it felt old. Older than anything I've ever touched through the Weave."
Lira inhaled slowly, as if absorbing this one piece at a time. "Okay. Then we need answers. And there's only one person I know who won't turn you in for having a glowing connection to some unknown entity."
"Your mentor?" Arin asked.
"No. She'd turn us both in before you finished the sentence." Lira shook her head. "We go to Bram."
Arin blinked. "Bram? The archivist Bram? The one who lives under the garden greenhouse?"
"Yes. And don't let the gardening act fool you. He's older than both of us put together and he knows more about Weave anomalies than half the High Circle." Her voice dropped. "He won't like being woken at this hour, but he'll deal with it."
Arin nodded, though unease prickled beneath his ribs.
He and Bram had met only once, years ago—Arin barely remembered the man beyond a long grey coat, mismatched boots, and an air of being mildly irritated that the world refused to organize itself alphabetically.
But if Lira trusted him, Arin would follow.
They moved again.
The streets thinned, winding into quieter districts where thin trees clung to life between slabs of concrete. The sky above the city held a faint green sheen—residual energy drifting like powder across the clouds.
Halfway to the greenhouse district, Arin slowed.
"Lira," he whispered. "Someone's following us."
She didn't turn. She didn't break stride. Her voice was low, even. "How many?"
"One. Left side. Behind the old print shop."
"Are you sure?"
But she already knew he was.
Arin's Talent wasn't combat, or sensing danger, or seeing heat signatures through walls. But tonight, something sharper hummed beneath his perception—like the Weave itself was tugging at him, directing his awareness.
Lira's hand drifted toward her blade but didn't draw it.
"No sudden moves," she murmured. "Keep walking."
They rounded a corner. Fog thickened. Somewhere behind them, a footstep echoed wrong—just slightly out of rhythm.
Lira clicked her tongue once.
Signal.
Three paces.
Two.
On the next step, she shoved Arin behind a parked delivery skiff and spun, daggers flashing.
But before steel could meet flesh, a voice hissed:
"Wait—wait! Lira, you absolute menace, it's me!"
Lira froze.
Arin peered over her shoulder.
A tall figure held both hands up in surrender. Hood back. Breathless. Eyes wide.
He recognized that face.
Barely.
"Kael?" Arin blurted.
Kael had the solid, unyielding presence of someone shaped by the Worker's Quarter itself—tall, broad, and carrying the quiet intensity of a man who trusts only what he can hold with his own hands. His storm-grey eyes missed nothing, his work-scarred skin and cropped coal-dark hair giving him the look of someone who has already survived more than most talk about. Even in stillness, Kael radiated a protective tension, the kind that made people instinctively step aside; he was a shield long before he ever chose to be one.
Kael winced. "Took you long enough. I've been trying not to get stabbed for the last ten minutes."
Lira's mouth tightened. "You've been trailing us. Why?"
Kael's gaze flicked to Arin. "Because half the Watch District just lit up with an alert tied to your name. Anonymous tip. Someone said you triggered a Category-S event on the north side."
Arin's blood went cold.
Lira's daggers lowered only slightly. "Category-S? That's impossible. No one else was there."
"Apparently someone was," Kael replied. "And they flagged Arin as the focal point." He stepped closer, voice dropping. "What happened?"
Arin opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Even saying it out loud felt like it might bring the word back, might call the figure again.
Kael's eyes sharpened. "That bad?"
Lira cut in. "We're taking him to Bram. And you're not coming unless you intend to help us."
Kael huffed, offended. "I didn't risk getting gutted in an alleyway just to abandon you now."
Arin exchanged a glance with Lira.
Then he nodded. "Let him come."
Lira sighed but didn't argue.
They moved as a trio toward the greenhouse district.
And the city, already restless, felt as if it were watching.
*******
The greenhouse sat at the edge of an old botanical research zone, vines crawling over its curved glass exterior like delicate fingers. Warm lights glowed faintly from within, casting green-gold shadows across the ground.
Lira rapped twice on the lower access hatch.
Several locks clacked and shuffled.
The door cracked open an inch.
A single eye glared out.
"Whatever it is," Bram rasped, "it is far too late for visitors unless the sky is falling or the High Circle finally exploded, which I would have heard—"
His gaze found Arin.
Paused.
Then narrowed.
"Oh," he said flatly. "It's you. That explains the lack of sleep I'll be getting. Come in, then. All of you. Mind the orchids—they bite."
Arin stepped inside.
Warm, humid air enveloped them, thick with the scent of soil and something mint-like. Plants of every description crowded the space—some glowing faintly, others pulsing with gentle rhythmic breaths.
Bram followed like a spark carried by wind—lean, quick, and restless in a way that suggested his mind moved faster than the world could keep up with. His amber eyes flickered with sharp curiosity beneath the smudged shadows of too many sleepless nights, and his sand-blond hair stuck out in wild angles as if permanently charged by static. Cluttered layers of coats and pockets marked him as someone who collected secrets as easily as breath, yet beneath the nervous energy lingered a fragile sincerity he tried, and failed, to hide.
He shuffled to his desk—really more a mountain of books and cracked tablets than a workspace—and gestured impatiently.
"Well? Which one of you is about to die or trigger a city-wide evacuation? Because it's always one of those two with you." His gaze pinned Arin. "Judging by the shadows clinging to your aura, I'm guessing it's you."
Arin blinked. "My… aura?"
"Yes, boy, the shimmering field around your very existence. Stop looking at me like I'm mad and tell me what happened."
Arin explained.
All of it.
The fissure. The suspended figure. The threads of light. The word pressed into his skull.
And the glow.
When he finished, Bram sat very still.
Very, very still.
Finally, the old man stood. Walked to a shelf. Pulled down a weathered tome bound in faded leather. Set it on the table. Opened it to a page marked with a ribbon the color of dried blood.
He turned the book toward them.
On the page was an illustration—rough, charcoal-like—of a figure suspended in strands of light.
Lira's breath caught.
Kael swore.
Arin felt his pulse pounding in his ears.
"What is that?" he whispered.
Bram adjusted his spectacles. "That, children, is a Beckoned. An entity tied to the oldest stratum of the Weave. Very few have ever seen one. Even fewer survived the encounter." He tapped Arin's chest. "And you, for reasons that defy good sense, were recognized by it."
Arin swallowed. "Recognized as what?"
Bram's expression shifted.
Not fear.
Nor awe.
Something like dread softened by pity.
"An Anchor," Bram said. "A living point the Weave can tether itself to when destabilizing forces rise. A conduit. A bridge. Or a sacrifice, depending on who is pulling the threads."
The room felt suddenly colder.
Arin's voice shook. "I didn't ask for that."
"No one ever does," Bram replied gently.
Lira stepped closer to Arin, jaw tight. "Can we break it? This connection?"
Bram hesitated.
"There may be ways," he said slowly. "But all are dangerous. Some fatally. And before we even discuss them… we must determine why the Beckoned sought him. They do not appear without cause. Something is shifting in the Weave. Something vast."
Kael crossed his arms. "Then tell us what we do next."
Bram sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Next? We protect the boy. We hide him. And we prepare, because the High Circle will feel this disturbance soon, and when they do—"
A distant rumble shook the greenhouse.
Lights flickered.
An alarm blared from the northern sector of the city.
Bram's head snapped up.
"Oh dear," he whispered. "It seems we're already out of time."