The hour crawled by, each drip of water in the aqueduct tunnel seeming to stretch time thinner. Kaelen and I shifted positions, stamping our feet against the chill that seeped from the stone. Finally, two hooded figures melted out of the deeper shadows – Elara and Roric, our relief. Elara, a wiry fetch with eyes that seemed too large for her face, gave a curt nod. Roric, a broad-shouldered man whose lineage was a mystery but whose fists were legendarily hard, merely grunted.
"All quiet?" Elara whispered, her voice raspy.
"One patrol, standard," Kaelen reported. "Screamer Cage activation, Merchant Quarter, approx 2100 hours."
Elara's lips thinned. "Another one. Zuriel's dogs grow bolder." She looked at me. "Commander wants immediate debrief. There's movement near the Old Weaver's District. Ecclesiarchy cordon, heavier than usual. He thinks it might be related to the Veritas convoy attack two nights ago."
My heart gave a lurch. The Veritas attack – whispers had reached us even here. A bold, devastating strike against a shipment of spirit-cages right in the Cathedral City. Effective, brutal… and solitary. No known Resistance cell operated with that level of focused destruction. Some whispered it was infernal intervention, others a sign of celestial wrath. I just felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damp tunnel.
"Let's move," I said, pulling my hood lower.
We navigated the labyrinthine tunnels, emerging into a disused cellar beneath a crumbling tenement building on the edge of the Old Weaver's District. Commander Valerius stood hunched over a flickering lumen-stone map, his stony dwarf face grim. Two other Resistance fighters, armed and ready, stood near the boarded-up doorway leading to the alley outside.
"Report," Valerius grunted without looking up.
Kaelen gave the same report he'd given Elara. Valerius traced a thick finger across the map. "The cordon is tightening. Three squads of Templars, at least one Inquisitor by the energy signature readings, and… something else. Something heavy." He finally looked up, his gaze sharp. "Scout team went silent an hour ago. We need eyes in there. Azara, Kaelen. Skirt the cordon, find a high vantage point, see what they're after. Do not engage unless compromised."
"Understood, Commander," Kaelen said.
My hand instinctively went to my scarred shoulder. Something heavy. That usually meant constructs – animated suits of blessed armour powered by trapped spirits – or worse, Hunters from the Ordo Maleficum, specialists trained to take down mythics like us.
We slipped out into the rain-slicked alley. The storm that had bruised the sky over Veritas seemed to have followed us here. Rain lashed down, turning the cobblestones into dark mirrors reflecting the occasional flicker of lightning. Keeping to the shadows, using recessed doorways and overflowing refuse bins for cover, we moved towards the cordon.
The air grew thick with tension, the familiar hum of blessed energy prickling my skin. We heard it before we saw it – the rhythmic clang of armoured boots, the sharp commands of a Templar sergeant. Peeking around the corner of a derelict dye house, we saw them. A solid line of white-and-gold clad Templars blocking the narrow street, glaives held ready, their polished helms gleaming wetly. Behind them, deeper within the district, an ominous blue light pulsed rhythmically.
"Inquisitor Orlan," Kaelen breathed, recognizing the sigil on a nearby banner. "He commands the regional Hunters. What are they digging for here?"
"High ground," I whispered back, pointing towards a partially collapsed weaver's loft three buildings down. Its upper floors looked dark and abandoned, offering a potential vantage point over the sealed-off area.
Getting there required crossing an exposed section of the street further back. We waited for a particularly violent gust of wind and rain, then dashed across, boots splashing in puddles, pressing ourselves flat against the grimy brickwork on the other side. My heart hammered against my ribs. Using Inferno Dash here was too risky; the faint ozone scent or visual distortion might give us away.
The loft's side door was rotten, hanging open on rusted hinges. Inside, the air was heavy with the smell of mildew and decayed fabric. Broken looms lay like skeletal remains in the gloom. We moved cautiously up the rickety stairs, floorboards groaning under our weight.
From a shattered window on the third floor, we finally got a clear view. The blue light emanated from a complex energy cage being erected in the center of a small, rain-swept plaza. Templars secured the perimeter while robed technicians adjusted humming conduits. Inquisitor Orlan, a severe man with a face like chipped flint, oversaw the operation. And beside him… something heavy.
It was a Judicator-class construct, a hulking brute of articulated steel and blessed enchantments, nearly twice the height of a man. Its single cyclopean eye glowed with malevolent blue light, scanning the surrounding buildings. My breath caught. A Judicator was overkill for a simple containment. They were searching for something – or someone – specific. And powerful.
Suddenly, chaos erupted below.
From the opposite side of the plaza, a streak of darkness blurred down from a rooftop. It moved with impossible speed, landing amidst the technicians working on the cage. Twin blades, darker than the storm-lashed night, flashed out. Two technicians fell, their robes instantly stained crimson.
Templars roared, turning towards the attacker. Glaives swung, blessed bolts fired from wrist-mounted launchers. The figure moved like a phantom, a whirlwind of lethal grace. Blades parried blessed steel, deflected energy bolts. He ducked under a glaive sweep, driving a blade up under the Templar's gorget. He flowed around another attack, his movements unnervingly fluid, brutally efficient.
"Who is that?" Kaelen breathed beside me, stunned.
I couldn't answer. My blood had turned to ice water. The way he moved, the sheer deadly focus… it was terrifyingly familiar, yet utterly alien. He wore dark leather, not the shining armour I remembered, but…
Lightning flashed, illuminating the plaza in stark white relief. For a single, heart-stopping second, the figure's face was thrown into sharp focus as he spun to meet another attacker. Rain slicked back his hair – white-gold, not the innocent gold of my memory, but unmistakably his. His features were sharper, harder, carved from ice and fury, but they were features I had traced in the dirt by the Singing Falls, features I saw every time I closed my eyes and remembered Havenwood. His eyes, fixed on his next kill, were not the sky-blue of memory, but a piercing, glacial blue that held no warmth at all.
And on his back, furled tight but undeniably there, scarred but immense, were wings.
"Caelum?" The name escaped my lips as a choked whisper, devoid of sound, lost in the roar of the storm and the clang of battle below. It couldn't be. He was dead. Dust. A ghost made of guilt and memory. He died saving me. I knew he died.
But the ghost below moved with lethal purpose, cutting down Templars with a ferocity that stole my breath. He wasn't just fighting; he was executing. This wasn't the gentle boy from Havenwood. This was… a storm. A force of nature fuelled by pure, cold rage.
He must have felt my stare, or perhaps Kaelen's gasp beside me. Amidst the swirling melee, his head snapped up. Those glacial eyes met mine across the rain-swept distance.
For a fraction of a second, the relentless killing stopped. The impassive mask cracked. His eyes widened, not with warmth or recognition, but with stark, shattering disbelief. The ice in them fractured, revealing something raw beneath – shock, confusion, a flicker of an emotion I couldn't name. It was as if he, too, were seeing a ghost.
"Azara?" His voice reached me, impossibly clear over the din, rougher, deeper than I remembered, laced with utter incredulity. "It… cannot be."
That moment of stunned silence broke the spell. Inquisitor Orlan, seeing the unexpected attacker momentarily distracted, bellowed, "Hunter Squad! Target the skyborn! Judicator – engage!"
Crossbows loaded with blessed bolts were levelled. The hulking Judicator construct lumbered forward, its blue eye fixing on Caelum, weapon systems whining to life.
Caelum reacted instantly, the cold mask snapping back into place. He shoved off the ground, wings flaring – scarred, yes, but powerful – lifting him momentarily airborne as blessed bolts scorched the cobblestones where he'd stood.
"Azara, move!" Kaelen yelled, grabbing my arm, pulling me back from the window as stray energy bolts impacted the building facade, showering us with plaster and rotten wood.
My feet felt leaden. My mind reeled. Caelum. Alive. But twisted into this… vengeful spectre. How? Why? He thought I was dead? The questions crashed over me, drowning out the sounds of the renewed battle.
The Judicator fired a blast of concussive energy. Caelum evaded it, diving behind a sturdy market stall which promptly disintegrated under the impact. He was powerful, deadly, but he was outnumbered and facing heavy ordinance.
Another volley of Hunter bolts streaked towards him. He wouldn't be able to dodge them all.
Without thinking, driven by an instinct older than grief, older than guilt, I reacted. I shoved past Kaelen, back towards the window. Focusing past the roaring confusion in my head, I drew on the coiled fire within me. Not the destructive pyre, but a focused burst.
I exhaled. Not flame, but a wave of pure, shimmering heat, visible only as a distortion in the rain-slicked air. It hit two of the incoming blessed bolts mid-flight. The wood fletching smoked, the blessed enchantments flared erratically, and the bolts wobbled, veering wildly off course, embedding themselves harmlessly in a nearby wall.
Caelum, glancing up in surprise at the unexpected intervention, didn't hesitate. He used the opening, launching himself towards the Judicator, blades flashing.
"Azara!" Kaelen hissed, pulling me down again as the Judicator swivelled its glowing eye towards our window. "Commander's orders were clear! Do not engage!"
"He'll be killed!" I shot back, my voice trembling, not just from fear, but from the impossible reality of Caelum being alive, fighting, here.
Below, Caelum landed on the construct's shoulder, driving one dark blade into the complex joint. Sparks flew. The Judicator roared, a mechanical sound synthesized from tormented spirit energy, swatting at him like a bothersome insect. Caelum leapt clear, landing lightly, blades ready.
He was good. Terrifyingly good. But Orlan was directing the Hunters, trapping Caelum between their fire and the construct. He wouldn't last.
The ghost of the boy who died for me was about to die again.
"We have to help him," I said, my voice shaking but firm. Guilt warred with disbelief, but the instinct to protect him, buried for seven years, surged to the surface.
Kaelen stared at me, his elven eyes wide with confusion and alarm. "Help him? Azara, do you know who… what that is?"
"He's…" My voice caught. I didn't know what he was now. But I knew who he had been. "He needs help."
Before Kaelen could argue, before I could second-guess the madness of it, the decision was made for us. The Judicator, tracking the source of the heatwave that had deflected the bolts, raised its arm-mounted cannon towards our loft window. The blue eye pulsed brighter.
There was no time for stealth, no time for orders. Only survival.