THE AETHERBORN

Thorne crouched in the rafters of an old, half-collapsed building just beyond the ruined edge of the city.

From above, he could see everything.

The place looked abandoned, rotting wood, broken windows, dust thick enough to swallow footprints. But beneath the surface, it was too clean. Too organized. Lanterns burned low in deliberate positions, casting controlled shadows. Stacks of crates lined the walls in neat rows. A heavy table dominated the center, marked with runes to suppress sound.

This wasn't just a hideout.

It was a base.

Two scouts perched outside had been watching the tower from the shadows of a nearby rooftop. They were competent, alert, well-positioned, careful not to silhouette themselves against the moonlight.

But avoiding them had been child's play for Thorne.

Veil of Light and Shadow had carried him across the rooftop beams unseen. His Veil Sense flared gently, letting him slip through the narrow blind spots in their attention. Neither scout ever noticed him passing.

And now here he was.

Above Brennak.

The dwarf sat at the heavy table, pipe clenched between his teeth, smoke curling lazily from his beard. Ten others filled the room around him, some leaning against the walls, some sitting in silence.

A mixed group.

Two dwarves in light leather armor. Three humans, one scarred and twitchy, his hand never leaving the haft of a hooked blade. Four elves, quiet and watchful, wands or daggers within arm's reach. And one beastkin, a panther morph with sleek, black fur and cold yellow eyes who lounged in the corner like a predator in waiting.

Every single one of them was armed.

Every single one of them was ready.

Thorne's Veil Sense whispered their weight to him.

Most of them were in their fifties. Competent. Dangerous to normal people. But not dangerous to him.

He could take them all.

If he dropped down right now and used his aetheric powers, it would be over before any of them raised a hand. Even the panther beastkin wouldn't have time to react. Wands, staves, blades, all useless if he struck first and struck hard.

It would be clean. Simple. Final.

He imagined it, one heartbeat of silence, then the wet sound of his daggers cutting through flesh. Brennak's pipe falling from his mouth in shock before he had time to even beg.

It would be easy.

Too easy.

But there was another option.

He could reveal himself. Let Brennak know he was onto him. Make the dwarf sweat. Watch him stammer excuses and backpedal. Maybe even wring some information out of him before deciding whether he deserved to die.

A small, neat solution.

Or…

He could do nothing.

Act clueless. Pretend he didn't know Brennak had just tried to have him killed. Walk in with the pyramid, hand it over like a good little pawn. Let Brennak think his plan had worked perfectly, that Thorne had no idea.

And then…

Then he could bleed him slow.

Thorne stayed crouched in the shadows, the hum of the building's faint wards brushing against his skin. His glowing eyes glinted faintly in the darkness as he weighed the outcomes.

Kill them now and it's over.

Spare them and it's messy.

But… spare them and it's fun.

A slow, bloodthirsty smile curled across his face.

Not the quick, satisfied grin of victory.

But the kind of smile that promised someone would regret breathing.

A plan was already forming. One that would make Brennak wish the tower had killed him instead.

The decision was made.

Thorne let himself drop from the rafters.

Wind rushed past his ears, but his Windborn Agility skill softened the fall, bending gravity around him like a breeze. He landed without a sound, boots hitting the cracked floorboards as lightly as if he'd stepped off a curb.

Every head in the room snapped up.

Hands went for weapons. The panther beastkin straightened from his lounging posture, his yellow eyes flashing with a predator's reflexive tension.

And Brennak...

Brennak's pipe almost fell from his mouth. His face twisted from calm expectation to pure, unguarded shock.

"…You?"

The dwarf blinked twice, as if expecting Thorne to fade like a mirage.

Thorne stood there, calm. His cloak fell silent around him, and his eyes glowed faintly in the dim lamplight.

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Then the beastkin took a single step forward, lips curling to bare sharp teeth.

Thorne tilted his head slightly.

His Veil Sense flared just enough to make his presence heavy, and his glowing eyes brightened, sharp, icy, dangerous.

The beastkin froze mid-step. A low rumble of instinctive warning vibrated in his throat before he eased back into place.

The message was clear.

Try it. I dare you.

"Brennak," Thorne said lightly, his voice cutting through the tension like a knife wrapped in silk. "Interesting company you're keeping these days."

His gaze drifted lazily over the room, lingering just long enough on each person to remind them he'd already counted, sized, and dismissed them.

Brennak recovered quickly, quicker than most. His shock faded into a sharp grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Well, well," the dwarf said slowly, leaning back in his chair. "I didn't expect to see you so soon."

"Really?" Thorne raised an eyebrow, feigning mild curiosity. "Funny, I didn't expect to see you here at all. I would've thought you'd be at your little underground market. Watching over your stall. Counting coins. That sort of thing."

The deflection landed like a well-placed dart.

One of the humans, the scarred one, frowned and cut in before Brennak could respond. "Wait. You mean you made it out? You actually got through the tower?"

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Thorne didn't even look at him. "The view from the roof was better than I thought," he said smoothly. "You should try it sometime. Though I doubt you'd make it up there without breaking a sweat."

The scarred man blinked, confused, his mind latching onto the irrelevant reply instead of his own question. "The roof? Why the hell would I go to the roof?"

"Why indeed," Thorne murmured, already shifting his gaze back to Brennak.

Skill Level up! Tactful Deflection: 13 → 14

The dwarf's eyes narrowed. "How?"

Thorne tilted his head, expression neutral. "How what?"

Brennak's tone sharpened. "Don't play coy. How are you here? Alive?"

"Oh, you know," Thorne said, shrugging with deliberate vagueness. "Walked in. Walked out. Same way as always."

Brennak leaned forward slightly, pipe clamped between his teeth. "You're telling me you just… strolled past all of that? The wards? The guardians? The mages?"

"You know," he said softly instead of answering, "I'm a little surprised to find you here."

Brennak blinked, caught off guard. "…What do you mean?"

Thorne tilted his head slightly, his glowing eyes narrowing just a fraction. "Well, if I remember correctly, you were supposed to be back at your shop. That was the plan, wasn't it? I go in, fetch your little trinket, then meet you at the market. And yet…" He gestured faintly around the room with the hand holding the artifact. "Here you are. Watching the tower. With a dozen people."

For the briefest moment, Brennak hesitated. Then the familiar grin slid back into place, forced and a little too sharp.

"Ah, well… you know how it is," the dwarf said with an easy shrug. "Couldn't just sit on my hands in that dusty old shop. Figured I'd keep an eye on things. Make sure the city watch didn't get curious. Didn't want anything… unexpected."

Thorne smiled faintly, like he accepted the answer. But his gaze didn't soften.

"Mm. Unexpected," he echoed.

Brennak leaned forward slightly, pipe shifting between his teeth. "So… what was inside? What did you see? Any trouble?"

Thorne tilted his head the other way, deliberately vague. "A bit of walking. A bit of climbing. The usual."

Brennak's brow furrowed. "The wards? The guardians? Anyone spot you?"

"Dusty," Thorne interrupted smoothly, his tone lazy. "Someone should really clean in there. You wouldn't believe the state of it."

The scarred human blinked in confusion, already latching onto the irrelevant comment. "Dusty? In an Archmage's tower?"

That earned him a few puzzled looks from the others, and Brennak's mouth snapped shut, not with satisfaction, but because he couldn't find a way back to his original line of questioning.

Pathetic, Thorne thought, a quiet chuckle blooming in the back of his mind.

After growing up with Uncle, where every word was a blade wrapped in silk and every smile hid three layers of betrayal, Brennak's attempt at subtlety was laughable.

Before the dwarf could regroup, Thorne reached into his satchel.

The motion drew every eye in the room. Hands twitched toward wands and blades.

Then Thorne drew it out.

The pyramid.

The dull, alien metal shifted faintly in the dim light, spinning lazily in his palm.

Silence dropped over the room like a hammer.

Brennak's grin froze. His pipe slipped half an inch from his teeth as his eyes widened in undisguised wonder and something else. Greed.

"You…" he started, then stopped, staring at the artifact as if he'd forgotten every word he'd planned to say.

Thorne smiled faintly and tossed the pyramid lightly in his hand before catching it again. "You wanted this, right?"

And just like that, Brennak shut his mouth.

The dwarf's calculating expression flickered into something raw and unguarded. Awe. Hunger.

Thorne could almost hear the thoughts grinding behind his eyes.

Brennak didn't even realize he was muttering to himself. Words slipped out, half-formed thoughts about riches, power, and promises.

Thorne turned away.

He took a slow, measured step toward the door. Another. His cloak brushed silently against the floorboards.

And then he stopped.

Without looking back, his voice cut through the room, calm, but edged with steel.

"I want a gift." He began. "By morning," he conntinued softly, "I expect a chest. Full of coins."

Brennak froze mid-breath.

Thorne tilted his head slightly, just enough for the glow of his eyes to catch the dim light. "And by morning…" His tone sharpened, a faint chill creeping into the room. "…I'll have a gift for you as well."

Before the dwarf, or anyone else, could respond, Thorne stepped through the doorway.

The shadows swallowed him whole.

***

Morning crept over Evermist, pale light filtering weakly through the distant cracks of the city above. But down here, in the underground market, time moved differently.

Thorne had been here for hours.

He wove silently through the sprawling maze of stalls and alcoves, hood pulled low, blending into the ebb and flow of merchants and shadowed shoppers. His Veil of Light and Shadow cloaked him, making him little more than a ghost in the dim glow of magelights.

In each hand, he held a dagger.

Not for cutting flesh.

For cutting sigils.

The massive columns that held up the cavernous ceiling were laced with intricate wards; supportive and protective sigils etched deep into stone. Old magic, dwarven craft, designed to stabilize the weight of the city above and suppress the occasional tremor of the market's shady dealings.

Thorne moved from column to column like a surgeon.

One dagger to slice through the main lattice lines. The other to sever the hidden anchors buried deeper, undoing the protective layers no one ever thought could be breached.

Each cut was precise, deliberate.

Each snap of a ward thread was a quiet little death.

It took hours.

The columns dimmed one by one in his Aether Vision, the faint runic glow along their bases flickering out. By the time he was done, half the market's structure was bare, no wards, no protection, just dead stone holding up the cavern on memory alone.

A few people noticed him moving through the crowd, but none paid him real attention. Down here, in this nest of smugglers and black-market dealers, there were always figures like him, hooded, silent, dangerous. Just another predator among many.

Skill Level Up! Veil of Light and Shadow: 14 → 16

No one realized he was undoing the bones of the market itself.

Now, as the faint sounds of the waking city reached even this deep, the crowd began to thin.

Shoppers dispersed with their illicit goods.

Merchants packed their wares into shadowy crates, carts creaking along narrow tunnels.

The echo of voices softened into scattered murmurs. The magelights dimmed to conserve their glow.

Soon, the underground market would be quiet.

Perfect.

Thorne crouched in the shadow of a shuttered stall, watching the last stragglers leave.

It was time.

He flexed his fingers around the hilts of his daggers, feeling the faint hum of his Veil Sense brushing against the now-weakened structure. Every inch of this place felt brittle now, waiting for the slightest push to collapse.

Brennak would come.

Brennak would see.

And then Brennak would understand what it meant to try and use him.

The market was almost empty now.

Only a few stragglers lingered, merchants counting the last of their coins, a couple of shoppers haggling over scraps before leaving. Their voices echoed faintly in the wide cavern, thin and hollow against the oppressive stillness of the space.

Thorne stood in the shadows of a half-dead column.

It was time.

He knelt and placed a hand lightly against the cold stone.

Raw aether.

It was everywhere, saturating the ancient wards, the runes etched deep into the foundations. All it needed was a push. A suggestion.

Thorne exhaled slowly and whispered into the flow.

The aether at the base of the column stirred, vibrating in low, unstable frequencies. He coaxed it together, compressing it until it formed an invisible, pulsing sphere of tension. Then he locked it in place, solidifying the unstable mass for just a moment.

And then...

He ripped it apart.

The energy detonated silently at first, a dull thrum that vibrated through the floor before snapping into a violent, contained explosion. The base of the column cracked like glass under a hammer. Deep fissures spread upward, glowing faintly for a second before the runes died completely.

The column collapsed.

Screams erupted.

The ground trembled as centuries of reinforced stone suddenly lost its strength. A nearby stall toppled sideways. The few merchants left dropped their wares and ran.

Thorne didn't stop.

He moved to the next column, his movements fluid and calm even as chaos began to build around him. Again, he coaxed the aether into a tight, unstable sphere. Again, he ripped it apart.

Another boom.

Another column shattered, chunks of stone raining down in a thunderous cascade.

Dust filled the air. The cavern ceiling above creaked ominously.

And then the inevitable began, the chain reaction.

The loss of two columns unbalanced the others. Cracks spiderwebbed through the ceiling. Half the market shifted with a groan like a dying beast.

Chaos erupted in full.

The few stragglers still inside screamed, scrambling to escape. Stalls crashed over, crates splintered, magelights shattered in bursts of sparks. The ground trembled violently, throwing people off their feet as rocks began to fall.

The cacophony of collapsing stone and frantic shouting turned the market into a storm of dust and terror.

Perfect cover.

Thorne activated Veil of Light and Shadow, slipping into the chaos like a ghost.

He moved quickly but deliberately, weaving through the panicked crowd as they bolted toward any possible exit. The narrow staircase leading upward toward Brennak's shop was one of the few ways out.

A handful of people had the same idea, rushing ahead of him, coughing through the dust.

Thorne followed silently.

Step by step, he ascended through the narrow passage, the thunder of destruction fading behind him.

At the top of the staircase, the dim light of the shop came into view.

And there, standing just beyond the doorway, was the elf.

Brennak's sharp-tongued employee froze, his eyes widening as the first of the escaping merchants stumbled past him, coughing and shouting.

Then Thorne stepped out of the shadows right beside him.

The elf flinched violently, nearly jumping out of his skin.

Thorne let the veil drop, his glowing eyes faintly illuminated by the shop's lantern light. A slow, wolfish smile curved his lips.

"Tell Brennak," he said quietly, "that I delivered his gift… just as promised."

He winked.

Then turned and walked out of the shop without another word, leaving the elf staring after him in stunned silence.