Ironhaven's slums wheezed like a dying beast—a heaving, gasping mass choking on rust and rot. Thick smog clung to the cracked concrete and corroded steel like mold on a corpse. Kael crouched beside the skeletal hull of a collapsed cargo hauler, fingers clenched around a stolen vial. Inside, the neurotoxin glowed faintly, a ghostly shimmer in the moon-choked gloom.
He barely breathed. Somewhere beyond the tangled alleyways and drooping wires, Ironjaw's laughter echoed—deep, jagged, like broken glass grinding in a furnace.
The Shardbearer was no mindless brute. He was a monster, yes—but with a mind sharpened by pain and experience. His Shard pulsed in his chest: a serrated emerald crystal, cracked like a starving heart. It converted poison into power—adapted, evolved, transformed any toxin into fuel. He'd seen Ironjaw walk through nerve gas, lungs steaming with acid breath. He'd watched his skin bubble under necrotic venom only to slough away, healed anew beneath. No potion, no antidote—just the Shard adapting, retaliating, countering every attempt to kill him.
But Kael had noticed the pause. A half-second lag. A flicker. The Shard wasn't instantaneous. It adjusted—yes—but it needed to recognize the threat first.
Tonight, Kael would exploit that sliver of time.
The ambush was set with careful malice: a twisted lattice of pilfered nerve-agent canisters crisscrossed the alley floor, while a rusting barrel of necrotic sludge swayed above, suspended from a creaking pulley. Beneath, puddles shimmered with diluted venom, silent and hungry.
Then—footsteps. Ironjaw's boots slammed against the cracked pavement like war drums, his bulk clearing the mist with every breath. Each exhale left a faint hiss, poison breaking down into harmless vapor. The Shard in his chest glowed like swampfire, veins lit with emerald light.
Kael's heart slammed against his ribs. He didn't move. Not yet.
Ironjaw stopped in front of a mangled corpse of a stray hound. He bent low and hawked a glob of acidic spit onto its stiffened form. The flesh sizzled. Steam rose. The Shard pulsed again, feeding on the decay.
Kael's fingers brushed the tripwire.
Now.
The canisters exploded. A wall of gas screamed to life, enveloping Ironjaw in choking vapor. The monster inhaled—then laughed, Shard veins flaring as the toxin broke down, shifting into a shimmery fog that licked the air like fire-tongues.
Kael didn't wait.
He cut the pulley. The rain barrel fell with a screeching groan, unleashing a torrent of necrotic venom. It splashed over Ironjaw in waves, blistering his skin—only for the Shard to surge once more, repairing the damage in seconds.
Ironjaw roared. His claws scored molten lines into the wall beside him as he tore free from the assault.
"Who do you think you are?" he bellowed.
Kael stepped from the shadows. "A rat hoping to kill a lion."
He hurled the vial.
Ironjaw caught it midair and crushed it in his palm. The shards cut deep—but he licked them clean, swallowing the venom like wine. For a breath, his muscles locked, his snarl freezing. Then the Shard adjusted, evolved, and he laughed again—this time with murder behind it.
"You think I wouldn't notice you?"
Green light surged from his chest. The Shard began to weave something new—Kael saw it in the way the fog thickened, in the way Ironjaw's pupils flickered like flames.
Kael turned and ran.
Ironjaw followed, slow but steady. Not because he couldn't catch him—but because he wanted Kael to rot in fear.
The slums gave way to the underbelly of Ironhaven: the sewers. A putrid cathedral of rot and filth. Dead water lapped at the stone, and the air reeked of old blood and older corpses.
Kael limped through it, lungs burning, skin tingling with the aftertaste of airborne poison. He could barely smell the decay—only the scent of death following him. Heavy. Unavoidable.
He kept running.
His mind churned.
Why? Why did he think he could kill a Shardbearer?
And why had he wanted to?
A face flickered in his memory—his old friend, grinning beneath the rising sun. Jarek. The one who could crush stone with a casual punch, shatter ribs with a backhand. Shardlit. Untouchable.
He wanted that power. Not to serve. Not to assist. To rise above. To be at the top.
A step behind him.
Kael turned left, heart pounding.
"I have to survive. To spite them all."
And then—
BOOM.
The tunnel behind him erupted in necrotic light. Kael screamed as searing pain raced through his left side. He stumbled, glanced down—his arm, or what remained of it, hung in ribbons of scorched flesh. Bone gleamed through like ivory carved from hell.
Ironjaw was close now, steps echoing like a hammer on his coffin.
Kael ducked behind a shattered wall. His breath came in gulps.
When Ironjaw stepped into view, Kael launched forward.
A last, reckless attack.
Ironjaw caught him mid-leap, lifted him by the throat. His eyes were molten emeralds.
"You're done."
But Kael's hand found the Shard in Ironjaw's chest.
It called to him.
Not a tool. Not a weapon. A wound in reality.
His fingers closed around it.
He pulled.
Ironjaw howled, the sound inhuman, his body convulsing as the crystal tore free. Blood sprayed in arcs. Kael hit the ground, the Shard clenched in his trembling hand.
"You little rat," Ironjaw hissed, staggering. "I'll rip you apart—"
But his legs buckled. He dropped to one knee. And Kael ran, limping, bleeding, barely conscious.
He collapsed into the darkness.
Time passed. He woke with a gasp, alone in a slime-slick tunnel.
The Shard burned in his grip.
He didn't hesitate.
He pressed it to his chest.
Agony bloomed. His back arched. Black bile spewed from his mouth, and his veins glowed a poisonous green. The Shard drilled through skin and bone, embedding itself in his sternum.
And then—
A voice. Serpentine. Ancient.
"Once every five months, your venom will serenade your most hated foe. They will hunt. You will bleed."
A vision seared behind Kael's eyes: Jarek, standing in a ruined vault, coins in one hand, a smoke grenade in the other.
"Good. Better one of us alive than both of us dead, eh?"
Kael screamed.
The venom surged. The corruption began.
And the bond was made.