They had already lost him twice. Cael hated losing more than anything.
The thief moved like he had been born inside the arteries of the city, cutting through bodies without slowing, slipping between market stalls, turning his shoulders at the last second to miss collisions by inches. There was no panic in him, no wasted motion, no stumble that looked accidental. Every stride carried intent, like the chase existed for his amusement and the city itself had been arranged for his convenience.
A grin spread across Cael's face. Finally, something worth chasing.
Ten strides to the left, Riven tracked angles instead of footsteps. His attention kept shifting past the thief and into the city around him, measuring windows, rooftops, fire escapes, elevation changes, and the shape of alleys narrowing ahead. The route was not random. The thief was bleeding them out of the market and into tighter streets where fewer witnesses would matter and collateral could become pressure.
"He's steering us," Riven called.
"Good," Cael shot back. "I was getting bored."
Metal clinked at the thief's belt as he vaulted a fruit stand. Morning light caught on polished steel for half a second before it vanished again. Riven's new knuckle plate. Clean, fitted, expensive by their standards. Meals skipped for that shine. Pride hidden under practicality, the kind he would never talk about and Cael would never forget.
Cael cleared the stand in pursuit, boots scattering apples across stone. A woman screamed and stumbled back. A broom swung from somewhere to his right and caught nothing but air. Behind them, a shopkeeper started shouting about damages before realizing the damage was still running. Heat rolled beneath Cael's skin, restless and impatient, answering the thrill of motion with a hunger that made his hands flex.
The thief glanced back and smiled. It was sharp, bright, and pleased.
"He wants space," Riven warned. "Stop feeding it."
"Then stay close."
Instead of following the alley's turn, Cael drove shoulder first into brick. The impact shattered mortar in a concussive burst, dust exploding outward as heat pulsed through him and into the wall. Shutters rattled on both sides of the street. A second-floor window cracked from the force. Somewhere deeper in the block, a dog started howling.
The shock traveled through bone and spine hard enough to sting. Cael laughed anyway.
"That was faster."
"That was loud," Riven answered as he stepped through the settling debris. "And unnecessary."
"It worked."
Iron boots rang overhead as the thief climbed a fire escape two buildings up. Wind snapped loose banners between the rooftops, turning strips of faded fabric into warning flags. Cael did not slow. Three vertical strides carried him up the wall, brick splintering beneath his boots while his fingers caught a broken ledge and momentum hauled him upward. Crumbling stone scraped his palms and knuckles raw. He barely felt it.
The rooftop greeted him with loose tile, shifting wind, and one sharp skid before he corrected. Then the thief turned, and for the first time since the chase began, the game changed.
Lightning flickered around the thief's hands in thin, tightening threads. The arcs were not wild. They were controlled, coiling with practiced intent around his wrists and fingers. Sweat ran along his temple now, and his breathing had grown harder, but not enough to matter.
Cael stepped forward, grin widening. "Oh good. You're interesting."
The first bolt split the air.
"Down."
Instinct dropped him flat an instant before lightning struck the tiles behind him. The blast shattered stone in a violent spray that cut across his cheek and jaw. Ozone burned sharp in his lungs as fragments skipped across the roof. He rolled, came up half crouched, and saw the second strike already forming.
He went forward instead of back.
Heat surged out of him in a rough counter, not clean enough to stop the bolt but enough to bend its path. It missed a direct hit by inches. Even so, the impact punched through his guard and rattled down his arm into his ribs, leaving his fingers spasming around empty air. The pain made his pulse kick harder. It was worth it.
He drove a heated fist toward the thief's ribs. Leather caught the blow instead of flesh, but the force still staggered the man half a step. Lightning snapped point blank in retaliation, white-hot and vicious, and for a fraction of a second Cael's muscles locked hard enough to betray him.
That was when the tremor began.
Not from the city. Not from the roof beneath him. From him.
His nerves misfired as heat spiked too high and too fast, familiar warmth sharpening into something harsher. His forearms burned wrong. Control started to fray in the way he hated most, not with spectacle, but with slippage. Reserve was still there, but it was moving badly. Too fast in some places, not enough in others. His body knew before he admitted it.
Riven landed beside him with practiced precision, sigil lines cutting crisp geometry through dust and morning light.
"You are overextending," he said.
"I'm managing it."
"You are not."
The thief broke contact and sprinted across the rooftops, one side favoring where Cael's punch had landed. The smile was gone now. What remained was calculation and speed. Cael chased without hesitation.
A gap between buildings disappeared beneath his leap. He landed harder than intended, and the roof gave under the impact with a crack through old stone. His reserve was burning faster than expected, not larger, just sloppier. He launched again, clipped a chimney, and felt balance slip when the brick shifted.
For one weightless second there was only open air beneath him.
His fingers caught the roof's edge at the last possible moment. Pain tore through his shoulder as his weight yanked downward. Dust and broken grit spilled into the alley below while his boots scraped uselessly against the wall. Above him, Riven's voice cut through the rush in his ears.
"Stabilize your breathing."
Cael dragged in a rough inhale and hauled himself upright. The tremor had crawled from wrist to elbow now, small but persistent, the kind that did not look dramatic until it mattered. He shook his hand once and pushed on.
The hesitation had not gone unnoticed.
The thief turned and released a full arc this time instead of a single bolt. It spread wide and bright, filling too much space to avoid cleanly. Cael tried to answer with a defensive flare, but the response came slow. The strike slammed into his raised guard and drove him backward across the rooftop and into a low ridge hard enough to crack it beneath him.
Air fled his lungs. Vision narrowed. The world compressed into ringing impact and a pulse of pain that made thought briefly useless.
Then heat spilled out of him without permission.
It burst in a wild wave that shattered windows below and sent glass raining into the alley. Someone cursed and dove for cover. The sound broke the rhythm of the rooftop for a crucial second, and the thief stumbled.
Riven moved in that opening without shouting or rushing. Binding geometry ignited beneath the thief's boots and snapped upward in tight bands of controlled light. The fall redirected cleanly. The man hit cobblestone hard and final, all momentum stolen from him at once.
The chase ended there.
Cael dropped into the alley less gracefully than he would have preferred. His boots hit stone unevenly, balance wavering before stubbornness corrected it. His breath came harder than it should have. His hands shook more than pride wanted visible.
"See," he said, forcing a grin. "Perfect."
Riven did not look at him right away. His eyes were on the fracture lines in the brick behind them, the shattered glass, the evidence of output that had gone wider than intended.
"You burned through reserve in under three minutes."
"I'm fine."
"You're completely depleted. Your output spikes when control slips."
Arcane sirens echoed through distant streets, the city's response already moving toward the block. Cael rolled one shoulder and hated how heavy it felt. The tremor still had not stopped. It lived in the joints now, subtle and ugly, harder to deny because of how small it looked.
Riven caught his wrist before he could pull away and checked pulse and heat with efficient pressure.
"Your rhythm is unstable."
"It always is."
"Not like this."
Cael pulled free more sharply than he needed to. The bound thief, breathing shallow against the cobblestones, watched them both with narrowed eyes and said, "You fight like you want to die."
Cael crouched until they were eye level. The grin had faded by then. What remained was quieter and meaner.
"No," he said. "I fight like I don't want to."
The thief held his stare for a beat, then looked away first.
An arcane carriage rounded the end of the street, blue sigils burning across its reinforced frame.
"We move," Riven said.
Cael straightened and forced his shoulders loose, making the motion look easier than it was. "Next time I'll pace it."
"You will listen."
Side streets swallowed them just as officers flooded the block. By the time the first voices started barking orders, all that remained behind them was fractured brick, shattered glass, and the kind of damage that passed for excess rather than evidence.
Cael laughed again while they ran, but the sound came thinner than before. The tremor still had not fully stopped, and Riven had felt exactly how close collapse had come. That worried him more than the lightning ever could.