Atum

  From the roofline, the Arclight river district looked almost gentle—lamps tracing the water like a line of gold coins, students laughing as they crossed the promenade, the faint hiss of mana lines under the street. Too clean. Too bright.

  I crouched beside a vent chimney and peered through the shifting heat, watching for my quarry. There were five of them: the boy and the girl everyone in the undercity had been whispering about, flanked by three tag-along friends. The siblings walked close, the boy relaxed but not careless, his hand always hovering near the girl’s shoulder.

  “That’s him,” one of the Fangs whispered behind me.

  I didn’t answer. The air around the transfer rippled in the mana spectrum, faint but steady—like the hum of a tuned string. That wasn’t just Arcanum; spellcraft alone doesn’t make that kind of pressure. This was the natural kind, the resonance that comes only from Aura. So the nobles hadn’t exaggerated—he had presence. But that was it. He was an amateur. I could tell.

  Sarien climbed up beside me, her cloak brushing my knee, the orange tip of her cigarette painting her face in half-light. “You see him?” she asked quietly.

  “At this distance, I could cut his throat before he blinks.”

  Her mouth twitched around the smoke. “You could try.”

  I turned the lenses on my gauntlet, narrowing the rune aperture until the heat signatures sharpened. The boy’s energy field was compact, layered, steady as a forge flame. The girl’s aura flickered beside him—fainter, untrained. The other three were background noise.

  “One boy. One girl. Three friends,” I said. “Hardly a challenge.”

  Sarien exhaled a thin stream of smoke. “We’re here for him, not them. Stay sharp. And don’t touch the girl.”

  I smirked. “You always say that.”

  “And you always forget why.”

  I didn’t reply. I knew the story—how her sister had been sold off during the collapse of House Draeven, how the prince’s greed had burned their name from the registries. How she had fallen, sworn to make a come back only to end up on the street. That was all dandy. I respected her strength, but her rules kept the Fangs small, respectable in all the wrong ways. No innocents. No girls. No pointless kills. The kind of code that makes you die clean instead of live dirty.

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  I gestured for the six men below to fan out. They moved with practiced ease, cloaks blending into the glow of the Technica lamps, rune-blades strapped along their belts. Enchanted chains, shock-gauntlets—good gear, good killers.

  Across the promenade, the students stopped at a food stall. The boy—Cale Arcanus—bought something for his sister. Ordinary. He handed her the pastry, said something that made her laugh. The sound carried even up here, clear and soft.

  I rolled my shoulders, drawing mana into my fingertips. Symbols flared across my gloves: crimson sigils forming the framework of a mirror array. The Arcanum gathered, hungry to shape itself. One clean strike from here and the job was done.

  Sarien caught my wrist.

  “Not yet,” she said.

  I glared down at her hand. “He’s right there.”

  “And he’s walking with innocents.”

  “Collateral,” I said flatly.

  Her grip tightened. “No. Innocents are not collateral.”

  For a heartbeat, our gazes locked. Fire rippled across the tattoos on her neck, answering her anger, and for the first time I saw her not as a mentor but as a wall between me and greatness.

  I pulled free. “You keep talking like that, and the Fangs will die of good manners.”

  “Better manners than stupidity,” she said, flicking ash into the wind. “We wait until he’s alone.”

  I looked back down at the laughing group, their faces lit by lamplight. Something in my chest twisted—not guilt, never that—but irritation. The boy didn’t look like a noble brat. He looked calm. Simple. And that made me want to see what color his blood really was.

  I settled back on my haunches, fingers flexing over the sigils, feeling the weight of my power hum just beneath my skin.

  Soon.

  Sarien turned away, cloak sweeping over the roof tiles. The firelight of her tattoos dimmed again. “Keep eyes on them,” she said. “We strike when the street’s empty.”

  I nodded, though my mind was already racing ahead, thinking of how to make my move first.

  Below, the boy paused mid-step, head tilting slightly, eyes flicking toward the rooftops. The mana around him shivered, a pressure wave rolling outward just strong enough to make my skin prickle.

  He knows.

  I froze, breath caught between nerves and excitement. The boy didn’t look up again, but the laughter of his group faltered for a moment before picking back up.

  Sarien didn’t notice. She was already moving to the next roofline, silent as smoke.

  My pulse raced. “One boy,” I murmured, the words tasting like a promise. “Let’s see how you burn.”

  I crouched in the dark, watching as they turned down a narrow lane toward the river, the reflections of the lamps trailing after them like molten gold.

  The hunt had begun.