The Rune of Eldrath.

CHAPTER 3: STORMBLADE

Garrick Stormblade had spent six months running down a rumor.

He had started in the outer provinces, tracking merchant stories about a god-mark appearing in the capital bloodlines.

He had bribed two temple archivists, beaten the location out of a Void cultist in a river town, and spent the last three weeks living in the alleys behind the Archive district waiting for the right night. He had expected something dramatic. A battle, maybe. A chase through the palace.

He had not expected to find the vessel standing alone in King's Road staring at the sky with a glowing hand.

Garrick had the young man by the arm and was already pulling him into the alley between the tanner's shop and the grain store before Kael could process what was happening.

He pressed them both flat against the wall as a group of palace soldiers ran past at full speed.

"Let go of me," Kael said. He tried to pull his arm back. He was not strong enough.

"Stop moving," Garrick said.

"I do not know you. Get your hand off me."

"Your name is Kael Voss." Garrick kept his eyes on the street. "You are twenty-six years old. You work as a senior copyist in the Royal Archives and you have lived inside that building since you were nine. You were in Vault Seven tonight." He looked at Kael directly. "Something happened to you down there."

Kael stopped pulling. "Who are you."

"Garrick Stormblade."

A pause. "You were exiled."

"I was." He watched Kael process that and watched him land in the right place, which was not comfort. "Show me your right hand."

"There is nothing wrong with my hand."

"Then it costs you nothing to show it to me." Garrick met his eyes and held them. "I am not here to hurt you. If I wanted to do that I would have left you in the street."

Kael held his gaze for a long moment. Then he slowly brought his right hand up between them and uncurled his fingers.

The rune lit the alley wall gold. Garrick had read descriptions of the vessel's mark in six different manuscripts over the past year.

He had seen two different drawings of it in temple ruins, both rough and both secondhand. He had not been sure the descriptions were accurate. They were. The light was steadier than the texts suggested and the pulse was clear, matching Kael's breathing exactly, but everything else was right.

"Alright," Garrick said.

Kael closed his hand. "Alright? That is what you say?"

"It confirms what I came here for." Garrick looked back at the road. Two more soldiers ran past. "We need to move. Malachar's guards are not just responding to the Void Rift. They have a specific order out for you."

"How do you know that."

"I took it off one of his messengers four days ago, outside the east gate." Garrick looked at him. "The exact wording was: capture the vessel alive and deliver to the palace under no circumstances harmed. Your name was on it. Malachar knows what you are carrying and he has known for at least a week."

"What does that mean?" Kael said. "What does he want with me specifically?"

"He made a blood pact with the Void five years ago to take the throne. He has been feeding it ever since to keep his rule stable. What he wants is the god's full power pulled out of you and given to him directly." Garrick paused. "It would kill you. Slowly."

Kael stared at him. "You are telling me a usurper king wants to murder me for a dead god's power."

"The god is not dead. It is inside you." Garrick stepped to the alley entrance and checked both directions. Clear for the moment. "And yes. That is exactly what I am telling you."

"Why are you telling me this. What do you get from warning me."

Garrick stepped back. That was the right question and he gave it the answer it deserved. "Five years ago I was captain of the king's elite guard. The first Void breach happened on my watch. I could not stop it and Malachar used that to have me framed and exiled. I have spent five years finding out what actually happened that night and tracking down how to stop the Void before it finishes what it started." He held Kael's eyes. "You are the only way that happens."

A wall collapsed somewhere up the road. Dust rolled through the alley entrance and soldiers poured out of the gap behind it, running hard in their direction.

Garrick grabbed Kael's arm and moved deeper into the alley.

"I am not the vessel," Kael said as they went, keeping his voice low. "I am a scribe. I have never held a sword, i have never left the city. I copy documents for a living."

"You have a god's mark burning in your palm and the largest Void Rift in recorded history just opened above your city." Garrick kept moving. "Find a different argument."

"This is insane," Kael said.

"Yes," Garrick agreed.

They came out the back of the alley into a stable yard. Three horses were tied to the post, all three pulling hard at their ropes from the noise and the smell of smoke drifting over from the palace district. Garrick checked the nearest saddle, checked the horse's legs, and decided it would do.

"Can you ride?" he said.

"No," Kael said.

Garrick looked at him.

"I have genuinely never been on a horse," Kael said. "I have worked underground for most of my adult life."

Soldiers appeared at the far end of the yard. One pointed. "There. The one without armor."

Garrick drew his sword and stepped between Kael and the soldiers. "Get on the horse," he said without looking back. "Grab the saddle horn and pull yourself up."

"You just heard me say I do not know how."

"You will learn in the next ten seconds." Garrick moved forward and the first soldier swung wide and Garrick stepped inside the arc and drove his elbow into the man's jaw and dropped him before the second could adjust. He put the second one down with the flat of his sword across the temple. The third looked at his two colleagues on the ground and then at Garrick and stepped back and turned and ran.

Garrick walked back to the horses. Kael was in the saddle, gripping the horn with both hands and looking as if he had been placed there against his will, which he had.

From the north gate district, chains moved through iron rings. Heavy, grinding, one-directional.

The gates were closing.

"We go now," Garrick said and swung up onto the second horse.

"How do I make it move?" Kael said.

Garrick reached over and slapped Kael's horse on the flank. The horse lurched forward and Kael grabbed the horn harder and they were moving. Behind them the chains pulled and the great north gates began to swing shut.