Ash breathed through Embermark.
Not like smoke. Not like dust.
It moved.
It slipped through alleyways like gossip half-whispered, curled in gutters like regret left to rot. It clung to the seams of cloaks, slid beneath fingernails, drifted across rooftops like a spy. The ash didn't just fall from the sky—it listened. It watched. It remembered.
And Embermark? Embermark knew everything that moved through it.
Hatim ran.
Bare feet slapped the cobbles in hurried percussion, the soles tough from a life spent racing across stone and fire-warmed iron. Each step echoed between the buildings—towers of dark glass and twisted steel that leaned toward each other like conspirators. The city's breath burned in his lungs, each gasp drawing in more of the ash, dry and bone-fine. It coated his throat. It crept into his chest. It whispered in languages his blood had long since learned not to question.
Behind him, curses flew.
A merchant's voice tore across the street, thick with fury and phlegm. "Thief! Rat-born little—"
Hatim didn't look back. Didn't need to.
The city shifted around him, a maze that never stayed still, alleys folding into alleys, walls crowding close as if eager to swallow the weak. He ducked beneath a sagging canopy lined with dripping glass bottles—each one glowing with a faint green light, the bottled breath of some ancient root. The shopkeeper hissed and raised a hand, but Hatim was already past.
He cut through a row of food stalls. A woman balanced three trays of pastries, their tops glistening with syrup and crushed blossom. He dodged just in time, stomach twisting at the scent. Hunger stabbed him clean. Clove. Sugar. Yeast. Memory.
The hook came out of nowhere.
A bloody thing, still wet, swinging on a rusted chain from a nearby stall. He ducked, breath hitching. The ash pressed tighter. Everything stank—burnt fat, spice, acid from the alchemists' workshops that smoked above the roofs. There was something floral under it all, too—jasmine, maybe, curling into rot.
The city was a wound that had learned to perfume itself.
A glimpse of motion—silk caught in the corner of his eye. A figure cloaked in layers of shimmer-cloth passed before him, their presence weightless and chilling, like moonlight dressed in funeral garb. No face. Just scent. Something about that figure—Hatim's bones shuddered.
He sprinted past.
Stomach hollow. Ribs aching.
Didn't matter.
He slid between two buildings—walls slick with old soot, close enough that he scraped skin. The light behind him vanished. The alley welcomed him like a tomb.
Here, the ash hung thicker. Older. It had settled, undisturbed, like it was waiting. Hatim pressed a hand against the stone wall to catch his breath. The bricks were warm. Not from sunlight—there wasn't any—but from the veins of Akar that ran just beneath the city's skin. Alive. Pulsing. Humming low and deep like the voice of something ancient dreaming in the dark.
A sound.
A breath not his own.
"Still running like a streetrat."
The voice curled from the shadow like smoke from a blade.
Hatim didn't need to look.
Lugal stepped from the dark, all smirk and sharpness, as if he'd been carved from alley-stone and bad decisions. He leaned casually against the wall, arms folded across his chest, boot pressed to the bricks like he owned the foundations of the city. His coat was worn but sharp, stitched with faint glyphwork—symbols that flickered like thoughts you tried to forget.
"Lost him," Lugal said, not bothering to hide the amusement. "Sloppy work. Lucky he was fat."
Hatim spat dryly onto the stones, catching his breath. "You followed?"
Lugal didn't answer. Just held up a vial.
Thin. No longer than a finger.
Inside it danced something that didn't belong in glass. Liquid gold—not reflected, not refracted, but alive. It spun in slow, hypnotic curls, like it was trying to remember a shape.
Hatim tensed.
His whole body locked like a drawn bow. His gut twisted.
"Where'd you get that?" he asked, voice flat.
Lugal's grin widened, wolfish and tired. "Doesn't matter. Not mine. Yet."
He turned it once between thumb and forefinger.
"It's payment. For whoever finishes the errand."
Hatim stared at the vial, the glow dancing in his eyes.
The glow of pure Akar. Unmixed. Untouched. Untamed.
His mouth went dry.
"What kind of errand?" he asked, but he already hated the answer.
Lugal's grin thinned. The space around them seemed to shrink.
"For an Ancient."
Everything stopped.
The city hushed.
Even the ash stilled, caught mid-swirl like breath held too long. Something shifted beneath the stone, deep in the city's bones. Hatim felt the cold touch of fate brush the back of his neck.
Then—fluttering.
Tiny wings.
Babs. One, then two, then five. The insect-like creatures spiraled down in glowing arcs. Their wings shimmered ember-red, shedding dust like falling stars. They circled the vial, drawn to its purity.
Predators. Or pilgrims.
Lugal snapped the vial into his pocket.
The light died.
"You in?"
Hatim's heartbeat thundered in his ears. His stomach clawed for food. But this? This wasn't a meal. This was an invitation to be burned from history.
"That job might cost more than it pays," he muttered.
"So does starving."
Lugal tossed him something. Hatim caught it.
A wedge of stale bread. Hard. Bitter. But real.
He bit in. Didn't thank him. Didn't need to.
Lugal turned, coat flaring slightly. "You're not ready," he said. "Didn't think you'd bite."
A pause.
"Try Bolun. Near the furnaces. Scrap work. Dirty. But safe."
Hatim didn't answer. They parted without words. No goodbyes. Just ash swirling behind them like ghosts trying to catch up.
The streets narrowed.
Hatim walked now, breath slower. Each step pressed down into the cobbles, tapping the rhythm of the city's slow, grinding heart. He passed rusted grates, cracked mosaics of ancient glyphs. Metal vines crawled up old towers, half-swallowed by soot. Embermark had never been clean. It had grown, like a scar or a tumor—beautiful in its ruin.
Here, the ash drifted heavier. It painted everything. Faces wore it like masks. Children played in it. Old men smoked it. Beggars drew sigils in it with broken fingernails, hoping some forgotten god might still answer.
He passed a girl in a broken mask who whispered into the mouth of a dead pipe.
A man cradling a cage of glass, inside which flickered a single flame.
Vendors shouted over slag-pots, their arms blackened to the elbow. Towers bled smoke into a sky already bruised purple, veined with veins of light too faint to name.
Hatim kept his head down.
Then—
"Oi. Whispered Void."
The voice snapped like a whip.
Hatim froze.
Two shapes.
Tiri. All grin and grease and jagged teeth. And Masad—taller, thicker, silent as stone. Muscle draped in layered armor, fists like wrapped anvils.
Hatim didn't move.
Tiri clicked his tongue. "Still playing pretend?"
Masad cracked his knuckles, slow and heavy. "We should toss him. Let Asha sort the truth."
The market stilled.
No one interfered. But no one left.
This was Embermark justice. Quiet. Ugly. Personal.
Hatim shifted weight. Just enough to breathe.
Too late.
The blow landed.
Ribs.
Then shoulder.
Then ash.
The world swam. The heat from the stone surged into his bones. The veins of Akar pulsed faintly beneath him, echoing his heartbeat—fast, frightened, furious.
Then—stillness.
A presence.
A hand. Calloused. Strong. Not cruel—certain.
"Enough."
Not loud. But the word carved silence from the air like a blade through silk.
Tiri flinched.
Masad hesitated.
The crowd watched.
From beneath the grime, the street-glass shimmered faintly. The glyphs of the square—long buried, mostly forgotten—flared like a dying breath. Pale fire. Cold and real.
Hatim opened one eye.
A hooded figure stood over him.
No definable badge. No rank. Just a worn hood and hidden golden eyes like forged steel.
"We need to go," he said.
And without asking, he followed.
They vanished into the alleys, the ash closing behind them like breath exhaled.
The crowd blinked, and the market resumed. Words returned. Fire hissed. A child laughed. The city remembered how to move.
But deep below, where the veins of Akar twist and knot—
Something watched.
And something remembered.