Ash clung to Embermark like breath on glass.
Not dust. Not decay. Something alive. It knew the streets better than those who walked them.
Hatim ran.
Boots slapped stone, a frantic rhythm against the city's pulse. Heat clawed down his throat, raw and scalding. Every gasping breath pulled in the fine, white-gray soot, a constant, whispering presence stirred by every breeze – never settling, always listening.
Behind him, the merchant's curses ripped through the air, swallowed by the roar of Embermark, a city built atop molten veins of Akar.
Faster.
He darted between bodies. A woman spun past, syrup-glazed pastries precariously balanced. Hatim veered, ducking beneath a butcher's hook, nearly colliding with a man draped in cloth shimmering like caged starlight. Spices stung his lungs—sweet, sharp, metallic. His breath tore ragged, every muscle screaming.
He didn't stop. Not for pain. Not for fear. Not when survival had sharper teeth.
He plunged into a narrow cut between leaning tenements, the alley's shadows swallowing him whole. The merchant's shouts faded, replaced by the low hum of Embermark—the city breathed, pulsed, remembered. Ash settled here, thicker, clinging to soot-stained walls and cracked cobblestones.
Hatim pressed himself against the rough stone, breath still sawing in his chest, the heat from the Akar veins beneath his feet a familiar, unwelcome throb.
"Still running like a streetrat," a voice drawled from the gloom.
Lugal leaned from shadow, half-smirking, his presence a ghost of charcoal against the deeper dark. "Took you long enough."
Hatim straightened, wiping sweat from his brow. "You followed me?"
"Watched you lose him. Sloppy. You're lucky he was slower than you."
"What do you want?" Hatim gritted out.
Lugal held up a vial, no longer than a thumb. Inside: golden light, swirling and alive. Pure Akar.
Hatim froze. His gut twisted. "Where'd you get that?"
"Not mine. Yet. It's payment—for whoever finishes the errand."
"What kind of errand?" The word felt heavy.
"For an Ancient."
Hatim swore under his breath, the heat of the alley suddenly stifling. The Ancients rarely reached down into the Middens, let alone the Sinks where he lived.
Their world—the clean, cool, tiered spires of the Crowns, or the unimaginable Sanctums floating above—was a universe away.
A breeze swept through the alley, carrying a faint chittering. The sound of wings. A Bab. Then two. Then five. Their ember-lit wings whispered through the ash, circling the vial, drawn to its purity like moths to flame.
Lugal pocketed it, the golden glow vanishing. "You in?"Hatim hesitated. This was more than just coin. "That job might cost you," he muttered.
"So might hunger." Lugal tossed him a crust of stale bread.Hatim ate slowly, eyes drifting to the ash curling at their feet. He didn't speak right away.
Lugal studied him, then sighed. "Didn't think you'd bite. Not yet. You're not ready to deal with their kind anyway."
Hatim looked up. "Then why show me that?"
"So you know what's coming." Lugal stepped back, already fading into the deeper shadows. "But for now... try Bolun. He works near the old glass furnaces, in the lower Middens. Deals with runoffs, scrap hauls, small lifts. It's grunt work, but safer. He might have something more your speed."
Hatim nodded, a quiet pact made in the ash-filled air. They parted ways without ceremony.
Hatim followed the winding veins of ash toward the furnace quarter. The city shifted with him, familiar and alien all at once.
Embermark thrummed, a slow heartbeat beneath his boots. He passed beneath rusted arches, their iron filigree warped by centuries of heat. The smell of molten sand and old fire filled the alleys. Here, the ash clung heavier—coating faces, clothes, memory.
Children darted between barrels of scrap and vats of cooling slag. Traders barked from under lean-tos made of stitched hide and bent pipe. The glass furnaces loomed ahead, chimneys weeping red smoke like wounded gods.
Hatim kept his head down. Too many faces. Too many eyes that didn't blink.
Then—
"Oi, Whispered Void!"
Hatim froze.
Ahead, at the mouth of a cracked square, Tiri leaned against a scorched pillar, arms folded. Masad stood beside him, silent and sharp. The way they stood, the way their gazes pinned him—too familiar.
The first time, he'd run. The second, he'd fought. Neither had ended well.
Tiri flexed his fingers, rolling his shoulders with practiced ease. But beneath it—tension, ready to strike.
"Still pretending?" Masad sneered, his voice a low growl.People slowed. A vendor paused mid-haggle. A woman drew her child close. Heads turned ever so slightly. Watching. Waiting.
Hatim's mouth went dry. He was trapped in the lower Middens now, a long climb back to the warrens of the Sinks if he wanted to escape.
Tiri tilted his head, voice soft. Dangerous. "Maybe we toss you off the cliff. Let Asha sort through your lies."
Hatim turned to leave.
A mistake.
The first blow caught his ribs, a dull thud that stole his breath. He staggered. A fist cracked across his back, pushing him forward. A boot slammed into his side. The heat of Akar flared with each hit, pulsing brighter—as if the city fed on his pain. Hatim curled in, teeth clenched, protecting his head.
Then—the ground shifted. Not just the veins. Something deeper. Something watching.
The pulse beneath him matched his heartbeat.
Then—a gasp from the gathered onlookers.
Fingers gripped his arm. A voice, steady, calm amidst the chaos. "Enough."
The pressure changed. The heat. The crowd. Time itself hesitated, holding its breath.
Hatim cracked one eye open, chest heaving, lip bloodied.
The grip tightened—not violent, but firm. Warning. Whoever stood above him wasn't just another face.
Tiri's sneer faltered, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. Masad stepped back, a wary stillness about him. The veins of Akar flickered in the dust, responding to the subtle shift in the air.
The city watched. Waited.
Hatim swallowed, his throat raw.
Then—"We need to go. Now." Not a request. A command.
Before he could protest, before his mind caught up, he was being pulled away—dragged into the shadows, the firm grip on his arm unwavering.
Behind him, the market roared back to life, voices rising to smother his absence.
But Hatim knew. Something had changed.