Chapter Two: Smoke and Soil
She left through the back garden gate, where the stone path turned to broken iron and the air grew thick with the scent of rust and wet soot.
No carriage.
No guards.
No mask.
Just her.
Lysara pulled her hood low, letting the shadows of her cloak fall over her face. Even without the porcelain veil, most wouldn’t recognize her. In the noble courts, she was a ghost of diplomacy. Down here, she was just another woman in a dark coat walking too quietly for comfort.
The entrance to the Underground City was exactly where it had always been—disguised as a collapsed sewer tunnel, half-hidden beneath a forgotten rail line east of the industrial quarter.
She moved past sleeping beggars, rusted drones abandoned in alley corners, and a young boy huddled beneath a broken pipe with a cracked radio clutched to his chest, listening to static like it was a lullaby.
The moment she crossed beneath the tunnel’s arch, the light changed.
Gone was the clean blue glow of the surface.
Down here, everything was cast in a flickering orange haze from hanging fire barrels and humming neon signs barely clinging to life. The walls sweated. The air buzzed with whispered threats and old music.
And the people…
Scarred, thin, desperate, clever.
Some looked at her with suspicion. Others didn’t bother. Everyone knew the rule:
Don’t ask.
Don’t follow.
Don’t die.
Still, some eyes lingered. Not out of recognition—out of instinct. She didn’t walk like someone who could be pushed.
She passed beneath a rusted archway where graffiti bloomed like weeds:
“THE SURFACE IS A LIE.”
“BLESS THE SMOKE, NOT THE SKY.”
“FEY DUST HEALS – FIRST HIT FREE.”
It had been thirteen years since she walked these paths without a mask.
And yet, somehow, it felt like yesterday.
She turned down a side corridor—one that led to an old shop with a cracked red door and no sign. A faint flickering lantern hung above it, shaped like a crow’s skull.
She knocked once.
Then twice.
Then paused.
Then knocked three times.
The door creaked open.
A rasping voice, dry and amused, greeted her from the shadows.
“Well. If it isn’t the girl who ran toward fire instead of away from it.”
A single lantern illuminated the room beyond the red door—just enough to see the layers of clutter, bottles, old tomes, scattered vials, and the smell of dried herbs fighting a losing battle against the mold.
Thorne Marrek stood just inside, wrapped in a patched coat with an oil-stained apron draped over it. His limp was more pronounced now, his frame lean and wiry like a man whose bones remembered famine.
His face lit up in that worn, tired way only old friends could manage.
“I was wondering when the wind would drag you back down here,” he said, stepping aside.
Lysara slipped inside without a word.
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The door closed behind her with a thunk that felt like a tomb sealing.
A sound she oddly missed.
He shuffled past hanging bundles of dried root and glowing fungi, gesturing toward a rickety stool near the corner table.
“I don’t have wine. But I’ve got something close to it that won’t kill you.”
She pulled down her hood and sat, her cloak damp and heavy on her shoulders. Her face, scarred and tired, caught the warm light of the lantern. No porcelain. No brass. Just her.
“I’m not here for comfort,” she said softly.
Thorne handed her the drink anyway.
“You never are.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound being the soft hum of a power node failing in the wall.
Then he spoke again.
“You shouldn’t be down here without the mask.”
“I needed to remember what it feels like.”
“And what does it feel like?”
Lysara looked around the room—the same dusty shelves, the old medkit he used to patch up broken kids, the clock that never told the right time.
“Like I’m still part of something real. Even if it’s broken.”
“Well. You’re lucky, then,” he muttered. “The broken things down here tend to survive longer than the polished ones up top.”
He paused.
“There’s talk, Lys. Movement. Nobles sending people where they don’t belong. Eyes watching places they used to ignore. You feel it too?”
“I don’t feel it,” she said. “I hear it screaming.”
Thorne studied her, then poured himself a glass.
“So… what do you need?”
Thorne’s hand never reached his glass.
The ceiling above them groaned—metal strained under weight.
Then came the sound: a boot scuff, light but deliberate, followed by the faint click of a weapon being readied.
Lysara’s eyes shifted up. Her body didn’t move.
Thorne, slower to catch it, frowned.
“You hear—?”
The ceiling exploded inward.
Three figures dropped through the panel, landing hard on the floorboards.
Faces covered in ragged masks.
Armor cobbled together from gang scrap and corporate surplus.
Not nobles. Not mercs. These were underground enforcers—Blister Rats, by the look of their tattoos. One of the worst gangs in the lower sectors.
They were looking for Thorne.
“Old man Marrek,” the lead one said, leveling a shockblade at him. “You got a lot of bad friends. One of ‘em wants your tongue.”
Thorne took a single step back, bumping into a crate of dried mushrooms.
“I don’t even talk that much.”
The leader grinned.
“Exactly.”
He lunged.
So did Lysara.
She moved like a whisper caught in a blade of wind—between them in less than a breath. Her cloak flared, and without ceremony, she slammed her elbow into the attacker’s throat, knocking him sideways into the corner table. Bottles shattered.
The second man raised a short-barreled shotgun.
She dropped flat to the floor and swept his legs from under him in one clean motion, rolled with the momentum, and used the impact to kick the weapon from his grip before he hit the ground.
The third went for Thorne—bad move.
Lysara reached behind her back and drew a slender, rune-etched dagger, then flung it across the room without hesitation.
It sank into the man’s forearm, just above the wrist, pinning it to a wooden beam with a crack.
He screamed.
The others scrambled.
But Lysara was already on them again, moving through their panic like a shadow on fire—controlled, precise, and without mercy.
By the end of it, two were unconscious.
One was moaning as he bled against the wall.
Thorne stared at her.
“That was… dramatic.”
She flicked her dagger clean and slid it back into the hidden sheath inside her sleeve.
“You’re welcome.”
“You didn’t even put your drink down.”
She looked at the untouched glass on the table, still perfectly still, not a drop spilled.
“Didn’t need to.”
The last of the gang enforcers hit the floor with a heavy thud, groaning and trying to crawl away with one arm.
Lysara stepped over him, calm as breath.
She didn’t even look winded.
Thorne stood with a cracked bottle in one hand and a confused expression in the other.
“You… weren’t even supposed to be here tonight.”
Lysara picked up the stool she’d knocked over and sat down again like nothing had happened.
“You almost got stabbed before your drink even landed. You’re losing your touch.”
“I had it under control.”
“You were cornered with a wine cork and a sarcastic prayer.”
He opened his mouth to argue…
Then shrugged.
“Fair.”
“Why were they after you?”
Thorne waved vaguely toward the ceiling.
“Ah… little misunderstanding with the Blister Rats. I borrowed a few credits. For supplies. You know. Medicine. Food. An upgraded tea kettle.”
“How much?”
He muttered something.
“What was that?”
“Six thousand marks.”
She blinked.
“For a kettle?”
“It sings when it’s done boiling.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
“You’re hopeless.”
Then she sighed, reached into the hidden pouch beneath her belt, and slid a slim black chip onto the table.
“Full amount. With interest. Go give it to their collector. And ask for a receipt this time.”
He squinted at her.
“You’re not going to threaten to hunt them down or make them disappear into alley smoke?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She smiled faintly.
“Because I’ve already done that once this month. Besides, you’re not my problem.”
Thorne chuckled and took the chip.
“You spoil me, girl.”
“And you still owe me a real drink.”
“I’ll make it boil in the singing kettle.”
