---
Four Years Ago – Part V:
The wind died east of the Sinks.
Hatim knew he'd crossed into Valerian land when the cobbles began fighting back—not with guards or walls, but with silence. The Akar veins beneath the stones, usually warm as living flesh, had gone dormant here. Not dead. Drugged. The Domain's hand was subtle: rusted refinery gates stood open like jaws, chimneys exhaled ghost-smoke, and the few souls still clinging to this borderland had the glassy stare of men halfway to corpses already.
A firepot's glow led him to the first living thing he'd seen in hours—a potbellied man turning a spit of blackened meat. The man's pupils were blown wide from Akar-dust, his fingers twitching as if plucking invisible strings.
"Hunter's Guild," Hatim croaked.
The man didn't look up. "East 'til your shadow forgets you." A gnarled finger pointed. "Smell the forge. Count the bones. Turn back at the teeth."
Hatim's hand drifted to the cleaver strapped across his back—Maldri's cleaver, its volcanic metal still humming against his spine. The glyphs along its edge pulsed faintly, reacting to something unseen.
The dust-eyed man noticed. His spit stopped turning.
"Shrine-steel." A wet chuckle. "They'll flay you for that."
---
The Ashward Fold
It wasn't a fortress. It was a gutpile of ambition.
Jawbones of creatures Hatim couldn't name hung from the archway, their hollow sockets watching. Chains swayed in no wind, some ending in hooks still crusted with old sacrifices. The gates stood open—not in welcome, but in challenge.
Two hunters materialized from the gloom. Their leathers were stitched with scars, not thread. The taller one carried a glaive etched with kill-marks; the other sucked marrow from a serpent's spine, his teeth filed to points.
The glaive's tip tapped Hatim's collarbone. "Lost, little rat?"
"I'm here to join."
The marrow-sucker laughed. "With that on your back?" He nodded to the cleaver. "Wardens leave their marks on stolen steel."
Hatim's fingers flexed. The glyphs under his skin itched.
The glaive pressed deeper. "Pit or pavement. Choose."
Hatim headbutted him.
---
The Beating
They didn't just throw him in.
The glaive came first—a brutal swipe across his ribs, splitting cloth and skin. Hatim twisted, but the marrow-sucker was faster, driving a knee into his gut. Air fled his lungs in a wet gasp.
"Shrine-rats don't join," the glaive-wielder snarled, slamming the pommel into Hatim's temple.
Light exploded behind his eyes. He tasted iron, felt his knees hit stone, but his fingers found the marrow-sucker's ankle—yanked. The hunter cursed as he fell, and Hatim drove an elbow into his throat.
A boot cracked against his spine.
Then they really got to work.
Fists. Boots. The glaive's haft across his kidneys. Pain became a second skeleton, wrapping his bones in fire. He bit through a hunter's finger when they tried to pry Maldri's cleaver from his back. The scream was satisfying.
The marrow-sucker spat on him. "Should've picked pavement."
Hatim grinned through split lips. "Fuck your pavement."
---
The Pit
They dragged him by his ankles, his blood streaking the stones. The sinkhole behind the Fold yawned open, its walls slick with algae and older stains. Shackles hung from rusted chains, their cuffs lined with teeth.
Hatim's arms screamed as the hunters wrenched them behind his back. The cleaver clattered to the stones just beyond reach, its glyphs flaring once before dimming.
"Last shrine-thief," the marrow-sucker whispered, "lasted three days before he begged us to burn him."
Then they left him.
---
The Wait
Time dissolved.
Thirst sanded his throat raw. His ribs grated with every breath. The cleaver's glow faded with each hour, like a guttering lamp.
Maldri's face flashed behind his eyelids—her hands steady as she stitched his wounds, her voice sharp: "Stubborn boy. You'll get yourself killed."
Teeth ground. Fingers clawed at the shackles.
Not yet.
---
The Smoke
On the third night (or was it the fourth?), the smoke came first.
A figure crouched at the Pit's edge, pipe ember casting his face in hellish relief—a man built from scar tissue and bad decisions. His left eye was gone, replaced by an Akar-crystal that pulsed in time with Hatim's struggling breath.
The scent hit him first: bitterroot and iron. Maldri's poultices.
The man exhaled, smoke curling between teeth filed flat for biting through rope. "A Warden's blade," he mused, nudging the cleaver with his boot. "Either you killed one... or you're stupider than you look."
Hatim spat blood. "Who's asking?"
"Gorran." The crystal eye flared. "And you're leaving."
The Trade
Gorran didn't offer a hand. He dropped a rope.
Hatim forced his broken fingers to close around it. Every muscle screamed as he hauled himself up, collapsing at Gorran's feet. The cleaver lay between them, its glyphs flickering.
Gorran crouched, pipe smoke wreathing his face. "Maldri's stray. I remember." He tapped the crystal in his socket. "She dug the old one out with a spoon. Charged me three vials of Blackmarsh venom for the privilege."
Hatim's breath hitched. Three vials. The exact price she'd named for the Rotting Pox cure.
Gorran's calloused fingers closed around the cleaver's hilt. The glyphs flared, then stilled.
Hatim's throat worked. "I need that."
"Need's got nothing to do with it." Gorran stood, tucking the blade into his belt. "You want out? You pay. Same as she taught us."
The words hung in the air, heavier than the shackles.
Hatim's fists clenched. Then, slowly, he nodded.
Gorran's grin was a knife-slash in the dark. "Good. Now keep up—and try not to bleed on my boots."