The nights in Ironhaven's Dregs were never silent, but after the Judicator's fall, the air hung heavier, thick with the ash of broken Order Spires and the weight of truths too sharp to swallow. The chaos had dulled to a murmur, the kind of quiet that settles after a storm, when the world holds its breath. The moon, fractured by the Eclipse Belt, cast a pallid glow over the skeletal remains of the city, its light filtering through the smog like a tarnished coin. Kael sat on the roof of a gutted tenement, his back against a rusted ventilation shaft that groaned in the wind. His corrupted arm lay bare in the sickly moonlight, the skin now a grotesque tapestry of black veins and faint gold scars—ghostly remnants of his brief, violent fusion with the Law Branch energy. It throbbed dully, a constant hum beneath his flesh, a reminder of power that had seared through him like a wildfire before leaving him hollow.
He flexed his fingers, watching the tendons shift like serpents under his skin. The numbness had begun at his fingertips, creeping inward, and now his hand felt like a stranger's appendage—distant, foreign. Below, the slums sprawled in a jagged mosaic of flickering neon signs and pooling shadows. A vendor's cart, overturned during the truth-pulse, lay abandoned in the street, its cargo of rotten fruit spilled across the cobblestones like offal. The stench of decay mingled with the acrid tang of Oblivion rain, the puddles glowing faintly green where Shard residue had pooled, their surfaces iridescent with oily rainbows.
Gutter lay at his feet, her crystalline fur dimmed to a smoky amber, the usual sharp glint of her body dulled by exhaustion. She'd been restless since the implosion, her ears twitching at phantoms only she could hear, her muzzle pressed to the ground as if tracking whispers in the earth. Occasionally, she'd lift her head and stare into the middle distance, a low, almost imperceptible growl vibrating in her throat before she settled again.
Inside the tenement's skeletal remains, Ryn crouched amidst the debris, his hands moving with mechanical precision over the innards of a broken music box. He'd salvaged it from the rubble of a collapsed hab-unit, its lacquered wood splintered and its brass hinges corroded. His fingers worked methodically—cleaning gears with a grease-stained rag, testing springs, aligning pins—but his eyes were distant, fixed on some unseen horizon. The data chip from Veyra's logs sat beside him, its surface scratched and smeared with ash, its encryption still unbroken. It seemed to pulse faintly, a malevolent heartbeat.
The music box chimed suddenly, its melody frail and off-key, the notes warped by damaged gears. Ryn froze, a tiny screwdriver slipping from his grip. It clattered against the concrete, the sound echoing sharply in the hollow space. The tune was familiar, a folk ballad once common in the Dregs, its rhythm a lazy sway that tavern singers had slurred over synth-liquor and the clatter of dice. Liss had hummed it once, her voice soft and cracked, as she'd stitched a knife wound on his shoulder after a botched scavenge run.
*"You're terrible at this,"* he'd said, wincing as the needle tugged at his flesh.
*"And you're terrible at dodging knives,"* she'd replied, grinning through the grime on her face. *"Guess we're even."*
The memory surged unbidden, vivid and merciless. Ryn's hands trembled as he slammed the music box shut, the melody cutting off mid-note. He stared at the thing, its splintered edges digging into his palms, until the pressure bordered on pain.
---
Kael found him there hours later, the data chip pinched between his fingers, his gaze fixed on the cracked wall ahead as if it held answers. The tenement's shadows stretched long and thin, the air thick with the scent of mold and old metal.
"We need to move," Kael said, his voice graveled by exhaustion. "The Inquisition's sweeping the sector. Patrols every block."
Ryn didn't look up. "Where?"
"Does it matter?"
A beat of silence settled between them, heavy and brittle. The music box sat on the floor between them, its lid half-open, the brass gears inside catching the dim light. Gutter nosed it cautiously, her muzzle brushing the wood, and the mechanism sputtered to life again. This time, the melody dragged, the notes slurred and mournful, as if the box itself were grieving.
"She's gone," Ryn said, so quiet the words nearly dissolved into the stagnant air.
Kael hesitated. He'd seen grief before—in the hollow eyes of Shardblight victims shuffling through the streets, in mothers cradling collared children gone limp from Compliance drugs—but this was different. This was a wound left to fester, raw and unacknowledged, its edges curling inward.
"We keep moving," Kael said finally, the lie smooth and practiced. "That's all we can do."
---
They left at first light, threading through alleys strewn with the detritus of the pulse. A child's doll, missing an arm, its porcelain face cracked into a hollow smile. A shattered Compliance Collar, its edges still smoldering faintly, the stench of burnt flesh clinging to it. The air tasted metallic, like blood or rust, and the wind carried the distant wail of a siren—a sound that never quite faded in Ironhaven.
Gutter led them to a derelict tram station on the outskirts of the Dregs, its tracks swallowed by Shard-fed ivy that glowed faintly violet in the half-light. The vines pulsed rhythmically, as though breathing, their tendrils creeping over rusted rails and crumbling platforms. Inside the station, the walls were papered with layers of faded wanted posters, their edges curled and yellowed. Jarek's face stared out from one, younger and less hardened, the ink blurred by time and damp. Kael tore it down, crumpling it in his fist before letting the shreds fall to the ground.
Ryn watched, silent, his expression unreadable.
---
That night, they camped in the belly of an abandoned freight tram, its carcass tilted precariously on the tracks. The air inside was thick with the smell of old oil and damp upholstery, the benches ripped open to expose foam bleeding from gashes in the fabric. Kael's arm ached, the gold veins receding but leaving behind a numbness that had begun to creep past his elbow. He traced the corruption's edge with his good hand, the skin there cold and waxy, wondering how much longer he'd feel anything at all.
Gutter curled beside him, her warmth a feeble shield against the tram's chill. Across the narrow space, Ryn sat with his back to the wall, the music box cradled in his lap. He'd reassembled it, the gears aligned and the hinges oiled, but it no longer played.
"You ever think about stopping?" Ryn asked suddenly, his voice rough from disuse.
Kael looked up, the question hanging in the air like smoke. "Stopping what?"
"All of it." Ryn's thumb brushed the music box's lid, the motion absent, almost tender. "Finding Jarek. Fighting. Just… stopping."
The words lingered, fragile, as if speaking them might make the idea real. Kael thought of the Judicator's implosion, the way the city had screamed its truths into the void. He thought of Jarek's face in the fog of his nightmares, always just out of reach, always smirking.
"No," he lied, the word ash in his mouth.
Ryn nodded, as if he'd expected the answer. He didn't press.
---
By dawn, the numbness in Kael's arm had spread to his shoulder.
---
Somewhere in the tram's shadows, the music box chimed once—a broken note, half-remembered—before the darkness swallowed it whole.