By the time they reached the water towers, the fighting had already begun.The northern edge of the district did not look like a battlefield. It looked like every other narrow street in Novara Prime's poorer quarters—tight buildings leaning toward each other, laundry strung overhead, the air thick with the smell of stale water from the old tower cisterns. That ordinary appearance made the violence happening there feel wrong, like someone had taken a knife to the middle of a marketplace.Two scavengers were already dead.Frankie saw them before the rest of the scene made sense. One lay half inside a collapsed drainage grate, its limbs twisted where someone had crushed it against the metal bars. The other had been split open across the ribs, its body dragged several feet across the stone as it tried to crawl after whatever it had been hunting.The third scavenger was still moving.It had a woman cornered against the base of the tower stairs. Her back pressed flat to the stone while she swung a broom handle wildly to keep the creature from getting close enough to claw her throat. Each strike was desperate rather than skilled, and the scavenger slipped past the wood with animal patience.Frankie didn't slow."Marco," she said quietly.He was already stepping forward.The scavenger lunged the moment it sensed a new target. Its claws raked toward Marco's chest with the same mindless aggression all half-turned creatures seemed to share.Marco shifted half a step.The blow landed against him with a dull thud that echoed through the narrow street. The creature seemed surprised when the impact failed to do anything at all. That moment of confusion lasted exactly as long as Luca needed.Red Oath moved like a flash of dark metal.The spear struck through the scavenger's shoulder and drove it sideways into the wall. The force of the blow cracked brick and pinned the creature long enough for Yara to step in from the side and slice cleanly across its throat.The body collapsed at Marco's feet.Frankie felt the faint pull of dominion again, a subtle current flowing through the air and settling somewhere inside her bones. It did not feel as strong as the executionor's death had been earlier in the tunnels, but it was still enough to remind her that every fight here was shaping something.The woman with the broom sank down against the tower stairs and began laughing in shaky bursts."I told them I didn't need guards," she said between breaths. "I told them the district could handle itself."Rafe crouched beside her and carefully removed the broom from her hands before she could accidentally swing it again."You did handle it," he said gently. "You lasted until we arrived."Frankie's attention was already drifting down the street.Callista stepped beside her and followed her gaze."You feel it again," she said.Frankie nodded once."It isn't just here."Callista glanced back toward the square where Tomas still lay beside the well."The circle is widening faster now," she said quietly. "They're pushing farther each time."Marco wiped the scavenger's blood from the end of his cane against the stone."That means more of them," he said."Or fewer," Callista replied.The group looked at her.Callista crouched beside the broken grate where the scavenger had crawled up from the drainage channel. She studied the brickwork carefully, then traced the edges of the metal frame with two fingers."This one forced its way out," she explained. "The last one we saw emerged from a prepared channel. The tunnels beneath the warehouses were organised."She stood and brushed her hands off."These feel rushed."Luca frowned."You're saying they're losing control?"Callista shook her head."I'm saying they are increasing pressure."The words settled over the group.Frankie could feel the mark beneath her ribs again, that steady tightening warmth that told her something nearby was wrong with the world. It was not as intense as it had been when the watcher appeared, but it was growing stronger with every street they crossed.Someone was moving pieces across the district.Testing.Watching.The realization made Frankie turn toward the rooftops automatically.Rafe noticed the movement and followed her gaze."You see something?" he asked."No," Frankie said.But she did not stop looking.Above them the roofs were quiet, broken tiles scattered across sagging beams and crooked chimneys. Laundry hung between buildings, stirring lazily in the wind.Nothing moved.And yet the back of Frankie's neck prickled with the same feeling she had experienced in the tunnels when the watcher studied her through the dark.Callista spoke again before the silence stretched too long."The next street will be the merchant gate road," she said.Yara glanced at her."You're sure?"Callista nodded."It's the next expansion point if they are spreading outward from the warehouses."Tomas would have made a joke about following a gifted girl into another fight. The absence of that voice made the group feel smaller.Luca adjusted his grip on Red Oath."Then we move," he said.They left the water towers behind and cut through a pair of alleys that wound toward the merchant district. The sounds of the city grew louder again as they moved closer to the main road—vendors shouting prices, carts rattling across stone, the distant ring of temple bells marking the hour.Normal life.The kind of life that continued even while monsters crawled through the streets beneath it.Halfway down the second alley, Frankie stopped.Marco nearly walked into her before catching himself."What is it?" he asked.Frankie raised her hand slowly."Listen."At first there was only the usual city noise echoing between the buildings.Then something else crept beneath it.A scream.Not the ragged cry of someone fighting a scavenger.Something sharper.Shorter.Cut off halfway through.Luca's eyes hardened immediately."That wasn't far."Callista pointed toward a narrow staircase that climbed between two warehouses and disappeared toward the merchant gate road above them."Up there," she said.Frankie started running.The rest followed without hesitation.They reached the top of the stairs just in time to see a man stumble backward into the middle of the street with blood running down his arm.Behind him, something climbed slowly out of the gutter drain.This scavenger looked different from the others.Its limbs were longer.Its movements steadier.The faint glow in its eyes burned brighter than the half-turned creatures they had fought earlier that day.Marco stepped forward automatically.Frankie caught his arm before he could move."Wait."The creature raised its head.And for the first time since the fighting began in the district, Frankie felt something other than hunger radiating from a scavenger.Recognition.Not of her.Of resistance.It looked at them like an animal that had finally realized the prey in this city fought back.Luca lowered Red Oath into a ready stance.Frankie felt the mark beneath her ribs tighten again."Careful," she said quietly."This one learned something."
