Kael Merin always checked the corpse's pockets twice.First for Shards. Second for secrets. Sometimes there wasn't a difference.
Tonight, the corpse was a boy barely older than him, half-buried under rusted scaffolds and ivy roots. Kael crouched in the ruin's hush, fingers raw from prying scrap metal loose, breath fogging in the cold draft leaking from the vault's cracked mouth behind him.
No Orders here. No guards. Just ruin rats and old lies — and Kael, scraping for just enough metal to trade for stale bread by dawn.
He told himself he'd never crawl this deep again. He always lied.
He slipped the boy's satchel off stiff shoulders, careful not to tear the seams. Inside: three iron nails, a bent clasp, a single silver Token hidden so deep it nearly bit Kael's thumb when he found it.
Not much. Enough for half a meal, maybe a patch for his boot. He slid the Token into the inner seam of his coat. Better hidden than pocketed — pockets got cut.
A chill wind crept through the cracked wall behind him. The ruin felt like it was breathing.
Kael turned his head. A sliver of broken stone yawned wider than it had last week — or maybe he'd just never noticed it. A gap between collapsed pillars, black as a buried well.
He looked at the boy's frozen face one last time. No glow under the skin. No sign he'd ever touched a Spark.
Kael's stomach growled. He hated that the dark inside the crack felt warmer than the streets above.
He scooped the last scraps into his rucksack. Tucked the Token deeper into his lining. And before he could change his mind, squeezed through the broken stone and vanished into the dark.
Puff. Puff.
Kael stumbled out of the ruin's broken ribs and back onto Ashveil's broken streets. His breath scraped his throat raw. His shoulders ached from the rucksack cutting into bone.
Ashveil always smelled like coal smoke, stale fish, and too many people packed too close. The buildings leaned like they were tired of holding themselves up. Rainwater dripped from sagging gutters. Loose dogs nosed at old rubbish piles that never got cleared.
Kael kept his head down. Kept moving past crooked doorways and cracked walls painted with old notices nobody bothered to read. Somewhere, a drunk cursed at the shadows. Somewhere, glass broke. Nobody cared.
He slipped down an alley that stank of rotting crates and damp brick. Hopped a crumbling wall. Pushed through a gap in splintered planks patched with tar paper.
Inside, the air smelled of cold ash and damp cloth. But it was his.