Jorem moved like a phantom through the flames, his sword carving arcs of silver through the smog-choked air. The city was burning, and he was one of the torches.
He heard the screaming in the streets, the clang of weapons, the bark of gunfire. He saw the light of the fires dancing in the puddles of blood pooling on the cobblestones. His hands were slick with red, his breathing steady, his movements precise. He had done this for years now—had fought, had killed, had burned.
And yet, tonight, the tears wouldn't stop falling.
A child's cry pierced the chaos. Jorem's gaze flickered toward a crumbled building where a woman dragged a boy into the shadows, away from the fight.
He should have looked away. Should have let them be.
Instead, he thought of himself—of a boy much like that one, curled in the dirt, ribs jutting out beneath paper-thin skin, bruises blooming over his arms. A boy who had dreamed of being strong, who had longed for a day when he would no longer have to cower at the boot of a master.
That boy is dead, Jorem reminded himself.
He turned away and slammed his blade into a man's chest, twisting it before wrenching it free. The soldier crumpled. Just another body in the carnage.
Jorem had not always been a killer.
No, once—once he had dreamed of something better.
He had wanted to be a hero.
It was laughable now. The idea of it, the foolish hope of a starving orphan who had clung to the pages of old knightly tales, believing that one day, someone would come to save him.
No one ever did.
Instead, he was bought. Owned.
Trained to kneel.
He had known the taste of dirt and blood and iron chains, had learned quickly that the world did not reward goodness. The world rewarded those who took.
So he took.
He stole his own freedom—first with trembling hands, then with bloodied ones. He learned that if he was going to survive, he would have to become something worse than the men who had caged him.
And in the end, he had.
Jorem cut through another soldier, barely even registering the weight of the life he ended. His face was expressionless, but his heart twisted painfully beneath his ribs.
What would that boy—that dreamer, that younger version of himself—say if he could see what Jorem had become?
Are you proud of this?
Are you happy?
No.
But it didn't matter.
He was too far gone for it to matter.
The Syndicate surged forward like a tide of shadows, their numbers sweeping through the ruined streets, crushing resistance, laying the groundwork for what was to come. Jorem moved as one of them, a piece of a greater machine, a cog in an unrelenting wheel.
And yet—
Above it all, the moon watched.
A pale, distant eye in the sky.
Jorem paused, standing for a brief moment amid the wreckage, tilting his head back. The fires still burned. The blood still ran. The screaming still echoed.
But the moon remained untouched by it all.
Serene. Distant. Beautiful.
Even here, in the filth and the ruin, the sky still stretched vast and endless. The stars still hung in their eternal silence.
For the first time in what felt like years, Jorem let himself breathe.
Not for survival.
Not for necessity.
But just to breathe.
How long had it been since he had done that? Since he had allowed himself to simply exist, not as a weapon, not as a fighter, but just as a man?
For a brief second, he could almost pretend that he was not standing in the ruins of a city he had helped destroy. That there was still something pure left in the world.
That he could still be something more than what he had become.
Then he felt it.
The sharp, sudden sting of steel sliding between his ribs.
His eyes widened.
A rusted blade, shaking hands, a civilian emerging from the debris. A man who had lost everything tonight, whose desperation had made him bold enough to strike.
Jorem staggered, feeling the knife sink deeper, piercing flesh, scraping against bone. His breath caught in his throat as he looked down.
The civilian was crying, his face twisted in fury, in fear, in grief. Tears streaked down his dirty cheeks, his body trembling.
"You—" the man choked. "You… monsters."
Jorem stared at him.
The blade wrenched free.
He fell to his knees.
The pain was distant. A dull thing.
He felt warmth spilling from him, spreading out onto the cracked stone.
The civilian stepped back, horrified. Maybe he had expected Jorem to fight back. To strike him down.
But Jorem only knelt there.
He touched the wound at his side, his fingers coming away slick with blood.
It was strange.
He had killed so many people. Had seen so much death.
And yet, as he stared at his own blood, pooling between his fingers, all he could think was:
So this is how it ends.
The tears on his face had not dried.
The moon above was still so beautiful.
At least I got to see it.
He exhaled.
And Jorem, the man who had tried to survive, the man who had abandoned all hope, all dreams, all humanity—finally let himself go.
*
Callen's breathing came ragged as he circled Ivara. His body screamed in protest, wounds weeping crimson, muscles quaking, yet he did not stop. He could not.
The battle around them was chaos—Marin and Tess struggling against the last four Syndicate fighters, unable to break through, their voices distant shouts of anger and pain. The scent of iron and ash clogged Callen's throat.
Ivara stood before him, calm and poised. Predatory. Her lips were curled in a smirk, her twin daggers gleaming in the firelight, her movements fluid and deliberate, as if she was toying with him.
He spat blood onto the cracked stone.
She tilted her head. "Still standing?"
"I am. But you won't be for much longer, bitch..."
She laughed. "Brave words for a man on his last legs."
She lunged.
Callen barely saw the flash of steel before she was upon him. He twisted, dodging left, feeling the edge of her dagger kiss his ribs—a shallow wound, but a warning. She was faster than him. More precise.
But he had something she didn't.
He had nothing to lose.
Gritting his teeth, he lashed out, feinting a punch with his left before driving his knee into her side. He felt the sharp exhale of breath leave her lungs, but she rolled with the impact, spinning and slashing toward his throat.
Too fast.
He barely managed to raise his arm, and the dagger carved into his forearm, slicing deep. White-hot pain flared through his body, but he didn't let himself hesitate. He drove forward, swinging hard.
Ivara dodged again, but he anticipated it—using his Afterimage skill, his form flickered in place, disorienting her for half a second.
Just enough.
His fist collided with her face.
A sickening crunch.
She stumbled back, blood dripping from her nose.
Callen pressed forward. No time to breathe. No time to think.
A punch to her gut. A sharp elbow to her jaw. She reeled, but she did not fall.
And then she grinned.
"Good," she said, wiping her mouth. "That makes this more fun."
She surged back with a vengeance.
The next minute was a blur of agony.
She came at him fast, vicious, relentless. Her daggers sliced and stabbed with the precision of a viper. Callen blocked what he could, dodged when possible, but she was carving him apart.
A dagger rammed into his thigh.
Callen choked on a scream.
She twisted it.
He saw white.
His leg buckled, but he didn't fall. Didn't give her the satisfaction. He swung wildly, forcing her back, staggering forward even as his body threatened to collapse.
Ivara raised a brow. "You should have gone down by now."
"Then try harder," he spat.
She did.
A brutal slash across his chest.
A dagger rammed into his shoulder.
A crack—a brutal kick to his ribs sent him stumbling.
Still, he refused to drop.
Callen had felt pain before. Had been beaten, broken. But he had never given up.
Not when his father abandoned him.
Not when he had starved on the streets.
Not when he had fought for scraps, when the world tried to grind him down into dust.
He would not fall now.
With a roar, he lunged, reckless, furious, desperate. His fist smashed into her jaw, sending her reeling back.
His opening.
With everything he had left, he drove his knee into her gut, grabbed her by the collar, and yanked her down—his fist pulling back, ready to end this.
But then—
A whisper of steel.
The sudden burning agony.
His eye.
A scream tore from his throat, raw and animalistic, as fire erupted behind his skull. His body lurched, his vision blackening with pain, his hands instinctively flying up—too late.
Ivara slammed him to the ground.
He gasped, his body convulsing, blood pouring down his face, pooling beneath him. The world spun, tilted, blurred.
Through the haze of agony, he heard Marin and Tess screaming his name.
But they couldn't reach him.
Ivara crouched over him, dragging her blade down his cheek, slow, savoring.
"You're interesting," she mused. "Most men break long before this."
Callen panted through the pain. "Go to hell."
She chuckled. "Oh, I like you."
Then she leaned close, whispering in his ear:
"I think I'll keep you alive."
Callen felt dread coil in his stomach.
"You'll make such a lovely little plaything," she murmured.
Then—darkness.
*
The laughter had been honest, bright, and full of warmth.
Rook sat at the head of the table, a drink in one hand, his other arm lazily draped over the back of his chair as he watched the three girls giggling amongst themselves, whispering with mischievous smiles.
The food before them was extravagant by their usual standards—thick slices of roasted meat, warm honeyed bread, fresh fruit dripping with juice. A rare indulgence, paid for with the coin of their latest job.
It had been Rook's idea to treat them, though he could hardly remember why.
Had it been a good haul? Had he simply wanted to see them happy?
It hadn't mattered.
What mattered was the way their eyes had lit up when they saw the feast. The way they devoured every bite, making noises of satisfaction that bordered on indecent.
Then, just as he had leaned back, satisfied with their joy, the three of them exchanged glances—and suddenly, the room dimmed.
Rook blinked.
A cake was placed before him, a pathetic little thing—crumbly and uneven, the candle atop it barely holding its flickering flame.
He stared at it.
"…What is this?"
"Are you serious?" One of the girls, the one with the sharpest tongue, rolled her eyes. "You forgot again, didn't you?"
"Forgot what?"
"Your own gods-damned birthday, idiot."
He frowned, looking at the cake again. "It's not—" He stopped. Blinked.
Then sighed. "…Shit."
They burst into laughter.
It was the kind of laughter that hurt—the kind that pulled at old wounds, the kind that made something deep in his chest feel warm and raw at the same time.
"You're a disaster, you know that?" One of them teased, nudging his shoulder.
"A loveable one," another grinned.
The third leaned forward, her voice softer, teasing but genuine beneath it all.
"Happy birthday, Rook."
And for once—
For once in his damned life—
He had felt truly celebrated.
And then Rook's eyes fluttered open.
His vision swam. His head pounded with a vicious, deafening ringing. The world around him was shifting and unstable—tilted sideways, blurred by smoke and heat.
Something was wrong.
Something was burning.
Pain seared across his face. His skin felt raw and wet, his body aching from head to toe. He pushed himself up from the rubble, groaning as dust and debris slid from his back.
His breath hitched. Half of his face felt…wrong.
His gloved hand rose to touch it.
Skin. Blistered. Torn. Flesh peeling away in strips.
Burns.
He'd been burned.
The cluster.
The explosion.
Rook sucked in a breath. Memories flooded back in fractured bursts.
Grendon and Harker. The rain. The panic in his chest when he'd seen the gleam of red beneath the crates.
Running for it.
Then—
Nothing but fire and force.
He wrenched his head up.
And saw hell.
The Whispers—his home—was burning.
Flames crawled along the streets, licking at old stone and wood, twisting in eerie, unnatural reds. Magic-laced fire. It clung to everything—rooftops, wagons, bodies. The air itself felt choked with embers and heat.
Beyond the flames, the eastern gate loomed, its heavy frame already fractured, crumbling, barely holding on.
It's going to fall.
The realization sank in, cold and deep.
This wasn't just an explosion. This was destruction.
And then—he turned.
And saw his house.
Or rather, what was left of it.
The structure had been half-reduced to rubble, the wooden beams splintered and charred, the front completely caved in. The once-familiar windows, the home he had built for them—
Gone.
Rook's stomach dropped.
No.
His feet moved before he could think. Stumbling, nearly falling over broken stones, he rushed forward, breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps.
No. No, no, no—
And then—
His world ended.
Because there, just beyond the ruined steps, half-buried under collapsed wood and dust—
A body.
Or what used to be one.
Charred beyond recognition, limbs curled inward, fingers blackened and skeletal.
But he knew.
He knew.
A sound left him—low, broken, strangled. He staggered, his knees nearly giving out beneath him.
His lips moved, but the words never left.
No.
No, no, no—
This wasn't happening.
The city burned. The gate trembled. The night was breaking apart at the seams.
And Rook—
Rook fell to his knees, the sound of a birthday song echoing in his mind.