The brass bells of the Citadel did not merely ring; they screamed.
Down in the narrow, mud-slick alleys of the Weaver’s Slums, the sound vibrated through the teeth of every citizen.
Then came the fire.
“They’re burning the western sectors!” John hissed, peering through a crack in the shanty’s wooden door.
Outside, the thick, unnatural fog was turning a sickly orange.
Crimson streaks of fire magic arched over the rooftops, launched by the vanguard of the House of Embers.
The High Houses weren’t looking for a criminal; they were clearing grid squares, destroying anything and everything to flush out the anomaly.
The screams of terrified neighbors echoed through the night air, cut short by the brutal, metallic clash of enforcer blades.
“John, we have to go,” Martha whispered, her voice cracking with exhaustion.
She was pale, clutching newborn Thomas tightly against her chest.
The infant remained terrifyingly silent, his liquid silver eyes staring up into the dark.
“The main gates are sealed, and the river docks will be crawling with Tide mages,” John said, his mind racing as he threw a coarse wool cloak over his wife and child.
“We only have one way out.
The subterranean drainage canals under the dye-works.” “The sludge?” the old midwife gasped, her face twisted in horror.
“John, that water is toxic with alchemical runoff.
A newborn child won’t survive the fumes!” “He won’t survive the fire either!” John snapped, his voice tight.
He turned to the midwife, pressing a small pouch of silver coins into her wrinkled hand.
“Flee to the eastern gates.
Tell them you saw nothing.
Go!” The midwife didn’t hesitate.
She slipped into the fog, disappearing into the chaos.
Seconds later, the roof of the neighboring shanty erupted into a roaring inferno.
The heat was instantaneous, blistering the paint on John’s door.
Through the window, the terrifying silhouette of a House enforcer materialized in the smoke.
The soldier wore heavy, dark iron armor etched with glowing flame runes.
In his hand, a broadsword dripped with liquid, magical fire that hissed as it fell into the mud.
“Out the back window!
Now!” John ordered.
He shattered the rear wooden slats with his heavy weaving stool, helping Martha clamber out into a narrow, filthy drainage ditch just as the front door of their home was blown inward by a concussive blast of heat.
They ran.
John led the way, his broad shoulders cutting through the dense, smoky fog.
He knew every alley, every shortcut, and every blind spot in the lower tier.
Above them, the sky was a chaotic tapestry of emerald wind-blades and crimson fireballs, but down in the trenches of the slums, the dark worked in their favor.
They reached the rear walls of the Great Dye-Works—a massive, fortress-like factory where the fabrics of the low-born were processed.
At the base of the stone foundation was an iron grate, vomiting thick, indigo-stained water into the city’s lower channels.
The air here was sharp with sulfur and ammonia.
John gripped the rusted iron bars of the grate.
Veins bulged on his forearms as he pulled with everything he had.
The ancient iron groaned, the rivets popping one by one until the grate swung open just wide enough.
“In!
Quickly!” Martha slid into the freezing, waist-deep sludge, holding Thomas high above the toxic water.
John scrambled in behind them, pulling the broken iron grate shut just as a squad of three House enforcers rounded the corner of the alley.
Through the gaps in the iron bars, John held his breath, his heart hammering against his ribs.
An enforcer stopped directly outside the grate.
The heat radiating from his armor was so intense it caused the toxic dye-water to hiss and steam.
The soldier looked down at the churning water, his runic visor glowing a cold, menacing red.
“Nothing here but chemical waste,” a muffled voice echoed from inside the helmet.
“The mana signature we tracked dissipated near the main plaza.
Move out.” The heavy, armored boots splashed away into the mud.
Inside the pitch-black tunnel, John let out a breath he felt he’d been holding for a century.
He looked down at the bundle in Martha’s arms.
In the absolute darkness of the sewer, Thomas’s eyes were two faint, glowing rings of pure silver, casting a soft, ethereal light against the stone walls.
They had escaped the purge, but they were now outlaws in their own world.