Chapter 15
The alleys of Irontide twisted like a bad dream—narrow veins of rot and shadow, sharp corners and rust-slick walls.
Rain had fallen earlier, and the cobbled streets still glistened in patches, catching the orange flicker of neon signs above like dying embers.
Riven moved low and silent, every step calculated, his breath barely audible as he stalked through the city’s underbelly.
Kieran moved quick, but not careful. That was his mistake.
He wove between vending stalls and stairwells, glancing back only once as if he suspected a tail—but not long enough to spot the two shadows flanking him from a distance.
They’d kept just far enough to stay invisible, just close enough to strike.
“He’s fast,” Thane murmured in the comms.
“He’s sloppy,” Riven replied, eyes narrowing as Kieran rounded a bend into another passageway between a crumbling tenement and an old spirit-glass shop that had gone out of business years ago.
They didn’t run. It wasn’t time. They’d agreed to let Kieran get comfortable, think he was in the clear. Then they would strike.
Riven’s fingers brushed the wall as he leaned into the corner, listening for footsteps. He could tell from the rhythm of them that Kieran didn’t know he was being followed. He was nervous, yes, but not panicked. Riven would know the difference.
Thane came up beside him without a sound, eyes scanning ahead. “He’s cutting through the choke point.”
“Amateur,” Riven muttered.
The choke was a mess of three intersecting alleys that funneled into a single, narrow corridor. Anyone with half a brain would avoid it when being followed—it was a trap waiting to happen. But Kieran darted in like a rat bolting for a hole it didn’t realize was already watched.
Riven moved first. He slipped between shadows with practiced ease, his footfalls soundless, his body low.
Years in the Seam had taught him more than how to survive—they’d taught him how to disappear.
He followed the rhythm of Kieran’s movement like a second heartbeat, tracking each shift of sound, each drag of a boot against stone.
A loose panel underfoot here, a barking dog to the east, the clink of a coin tossed to a street vendor—every sound painted a map.
He remembered this part of Irontide, and not fondly.
The smells hadn’t changed—urine, old grease, ozone, wet magic that clung to the air like smoke after a spellfire.
The buildings loomed above like leaning corpses, wires crisscrossing like veins.
Riven ghosted under them, a specter in his own city.
“He’s turning north,” he murmured, eyes flicking up to a rust-streaked fire escape where a cat watched him from above, tail twitching. “Into Brine Alley.”
Thane followed without question, his presence a silent force beside him.
For a moment, they lost sight of Kieran entirely.
Riven held up a hand.
The alley here split in three. Kieran could’ve taken any of them. Riven crouched, fingers brushing the ground. A footprint. Still wet. Headed left.
“He went toward the canal,” Riven said.
Thane tilted his head. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
They veered left. Riven took point, body coiled tight as a tripwire. Every cell in his body was alert now. He didn’t get tunnel vision—he let the whole world bleed in. A rat scurried past. A flickering lamp above sputtered. And through it all, he followed the ghost of Kieran’s presence forward.
Then—movement ahead. A figure ducking around a corner. Riven pressed against the wall and held his breath. Kieran again. He slowed now, approaching a rusted chain-link fence behind an old building with shattered windows.
A motel.
Riven and Thane crouched beside a dumpster overflowing with half-burned charms and refuse. The air stank of mildew and cheap wards. Riven wiped sweat from his brow, watching through the chain-link as Kieran pulled his hood lower and shoved open the dented motel door.
“Cheap place,” Thane muttered. “Fitting.”
Riven nodded once, lips pressed tight.
They waited, eyes on the numbered doors. Kieran moved down the hall visible through the lobby window—then stopped. Room 12. He knocked once. The door opened and someone pulled him inside.
Riven’s heart thudded, but he stayed still, focused. “He’s not alone.”
Thane’s expression darkened. “So the rat has friends.”
Riven’s mouth twisted. “Or contacts.”
They stayed crouched in silence a moment longer. The city noise flowed around them—distant traffic, laughter, a baby crying in some apartment above, the mundane chaos of Irontide.
Then Thane looked over at him, voice too low for anyone but him to hear. “Nice work.”
Riven blinked. “What?”
“Tracking him. You didn’t miss a beat.”
A flicker of pleasure passed through him, stupid and unexpected. He pushed it down; he would not fawn at a compliment lazily given, especially when it could cut more like an insult.
“I know how to follow a trail,” Riven said pointedly. “That’s why you brought me.”
Thane didn’t deny it.
They returned their focus to the motel, where Room 12 now sat quiet, unremarkable from the outside.
But Riven’s skin prickled with anticipation. This was it, their first real lead. Something was about to break.
“We wait too long, he’ll vanish,” Thane murmured, scanning the narrow strip of units. “These kinds of rats always know the bolt-holes better than we do.”
Riven didn’t respond at first. His focus was locked on the room—door closed, curtains drawn. The tension in his gut hadn’t gone away. He could feel something. Not fear. Not nerves. Wrongness.
“He’s not alone,” Riven said. “You want him alive, right? You go in loud now, you risk spooking anyone else inside—or getting your squad torn up by something waiting for us.”
Thane considered that, his jaw tightening.
“If he slips the net, it’s worse. He knows something.
Maybe not much, but enough that he’s been in touch with people moving Soulglass.
Enough that he might know whether the Hollow Hand’s really gone or just hiding.
I need that information more than I need another clean op. ”
He signaled the strike team. “We go in. Riven, flank left. Keep eyes sharp.”
The four soldiers in matte black armor moved into position—efficient, silent, their rifles already drawn.
Riven slipped around the corner of the building opposite, heart starting to race—not from adrenaline.
From that sense again. His gut had saved his life more times than he could count, and he never ignored it.
He swept his gaze across the adjacent units. Boarded windows, burnt-out lightbulbs. The whole building stank of rot and abandonment, and yet…
There. A sound.
A low groan—barely audible through the thin motel walls. He paused, his head cocked, straining to hear it again.
Groaning. Then a soft, rhythmic thud. Not exactly footsteps. More like…breathing? Heavy, dragging, wrong.
He opened his mouth to warn them, but it was too late.
The lead soldier had already moved on the door, slipping a ward-disruptor talisman from his belt. A crackle of blue shimmered around the doorframe—wards, old ones, but active. That alone should have been a sign. Kieran didn’t have the magic for that.
“Wait,” Riven said, louder now, moving back toward them. “Something’s—”
The door exploded open, and a man—bare-chested, wide-eyed, foam flecking his lips—barreled into the nearest soldier. He lifted the man like a rag doll and bent him backward until his body snapped. The crunch of spine shattering was audible even over the scream.
Gunfire erupted from other doors. Armed figures in helmets flooded the hall. It was a trap. A fucking trap.
“Engage!” Thane barked, already moving.
The berserker swung a piece of splintered door like a club, smashing another soldier’s skull against the wall.
Blood sprayed in an arc. Riven drew his blades in the same breath he ducked a bullet, rolling across the carpet and burying steel into the thigh of one of the masked assailants.
The man cried out—good, not tweaked out on Soulglass—and Riven yanked the blade free with a twist.
Behind him, Thane collided with the berserker.
The man was amped—too fast, too strong. His skin glowed faintly with the wrong kind of shimmer, the glitter of corrupted magic seeping through his pores. The motel corridor became a warzone—tile shattering, bodies colliding, bursts of gunfire lighting up the flickering overhead fluorescents.
Riven caught a glimpse of Thane, being driven back by the berserker’s brute strength. The man was relentless, snarling and inhuman. But Thane was fast, matching the man’s attacks blow for blow, though he bled from a gash above his temple, a bruise already blooming on his jaw.
Riven had no time to help.
Another masked assailant lunged at him. He parried a blow, twisted under an elbow, and stabbed up into the soft space beneath the attacker’s chin. Blood sprayed, and Riven let the body collapse.
He scanned the hallway. Two of the Virellien strike team still fought—one with a rifle, the other with knives—and they had almost dealt with the ambushing force.
A crash at the end of the hallway drew Riven’s attention. Thane had pinned the berserker against the wall, one forearm under his chin, the other driving a dagger repeatedly into the man’s ribs. Blood poured, but the fucker didn’t stop. He laughed maniacally, wetly.
Thane dropped the dagger and pulled his sidearm. One shot to the knee. The man staggered but didn’t fall.
Another punch to the throat. Riven winced at the sound.
Then Thane swept low, taking the berserker’s legs out. He crashed down with a snarl, and Thane straddled him, pummeling him. The gun pressed to the man’s temple, Thane’s voice like steel.
“He’s not coming back,” Thane said. His words were low, tight, for Riven’s ears. “Soulglass burned him hollow. This isn’t a man anymore. It’s a shell.”
Riven didn’t argue. He could see it too. The berserker’s eyes had no light, no recognition, just fury.
Thane pulled the trigger.
The body jerked once, and then went still.
In the aftermath, the silence was deafening.
The hallway was littered with corpses, enemy and Virellien both. Smoke hung thick in the air, tinged with copper and magic.
“Strip the bodies,” Thane ordered, voice sharp and cold. “I want anything—tattoos, IDs, jewelry. Anything we can run through Leron.”
One of the surviving soldiers knelt by the nearest corpse, already digging into pouches. “Nothing on this one. No tags, no sigils.”
“Keep going.”
Riven approached, wiping his blades clean on a discarded jacket. He looked at the two men they’d lost. One of them was barely recognizable.
“What about our own?” he asked quietly.
Thane didn’t look at him at first. When he did, his eyes were blazing. “I’ll take care of it.”
The finality of his voice was chilling.
Riven nodded. He didn’t push.
Thane turned, holstered his weapon, and looked back once at the berserker’s corpse. His jaw was clenched so tight it looked painful. “This was coordinated. Soulglass. Hollow Hand remnants, maybe. Someone sent these men.”
“And baited us with Kieran,” Riven added.
Thane’s smile was razor-edged. “Then they’re going to learn what happens when you bait a Beast.”