The Shard-Bearer

Chapter 3 - Blood in the Gutters

Morning in Drakemire never came clean.

The bells rang dull and uneven, their iron throats cracked from years of rust. The sky sagged low, yellowed with smoke, as if the sun couldn’t be bothered to pierce the ash. And the streets… they stank of piss, rotting fish guts, and something sour that had been left to fester too long in the gutters.

I crawled out from the loft I’d slept in, bones aching from the damp boards. My shirt stuck to me with sweat, though the air was cold. The whisper lingered at the edge of memory, half-faded, but sharp enough to leave my skin prickling.

The shard. The vault. Power waits.

I shook it off, tried to breathe like a man who hadn’t woken to voices that weren’t his own. The stink of the street helped.

Below, a cart rolled by, iron wheels cutting ruts in the mud. Two men in red cloaks trudged after it, their boots were heavy and their eyes scanning the alleys. Guild men. Their faces were hard, harder than usual. Word had spread already and someone had carved them up in the tannery.

I pulled my hood lower.

Corin should’ve been here. We always met back by morning, no matter how bad the night had gone. That was our rule. But the corner where he usually waited was empty, just a beggar slumped against the wall with one leg rotting off.

I crossed the street, careful not to step in the brown slick running down the gutter. The beggar raised his head as I passed, his lips cracked and eyes filmed over. “Blood for blood,” he croaked.

I froze. “What did you say?”

He coughed, spat dark liquid and slumped back down. No answer.

My stomach twisted. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe I was just hearing what I already feared.

I pushed deeper into the market district, my ears straining at every shout, every cough, every bark of a vendor. The city sounded wrong, louder and angrier. And under it, a pulse, like the whole place was waiting for something ugly.

“Corin,” I muttered under my breath, though I knew he wasn’t close enough to hear.

If he’d bailed… if he’d really meant what he said about leaving me to die…

I shoved the thought down. I couldn’t afford it. Not now.

I found him where I least expected, leaning against a broken fountain in the market square, arms crossed, his hood shadowing his face like he belonged there.

For a heartbeat, relief loosened something tight in my chest. Then he looked up, and the cold in his eyes froze it solid again.

“You came back,” I said.

Corin didn’t move. “Where else would I go?”

I wanted to laugh, but the sound stuck in my throat. “You had me thinking you’d left.”

His jaw tightened. “Maybe I should’ve.”

The words cut clean, no hesitation. The crowd pressed around us with hawkers yelling prices, children darting between carts, and the clatter of hooves on cobbles but all I heard was that.

I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “We don’t have time for this. The Guild’s already sniffing.”

As if summoned, a shout cracked across the square.

“There!”

My stomach dropped.

Two red cloaks were pushing through the crowd, shoving people aside, eyes locked on us. And behind them came another broader and heavier, his cloak trimmed in black. An enforcer. The kind of Guild man who didn’t drag you off for punishment but made the punishment in the street.

Corin’s hand went to his knife. “Too late.”

The enforcer drew a short sword, the steel flashing in the weak light. The crowd split, spilling away like rats from a dropped boot.

I hissed, “Blend or fight?”

Corin’s answer was the scrape of his blade leaving its sheath.

The enforcer swung first, wide and brutal, meant to scare more than strike. I ducked low, slamming my shoulder into his gut. The breath went out of him in a grunt, but he didn’t go down. His fist came up, cracked across my jaw, and stars burst behind my eyes.

Corin was already on one of the red cloaks, blades flashing, sharp and efficient. A scream tore through the market as blood sprayed across the stones.

The enforcer grabbed a fistful of my hood, yanking my head back. His teeth were bared, spit flying. “Rat.”

My hand found the knife in my belt. I jammed it upward, blind and desperate.

The steel slid into something soft. His grip loosened. His eyes went wide.

I pulled the blade free, and he staggered back, clutching at his gut, blood pouring through his fingers. It ran down his cloak, hit the cobbles, and spread bright red against black muck, seeping into the gutter.

The marketplace had gone silent. Every face staring at us.

We’d just painted a target so big the whole city could see it.

The silence broke in a roar.

Vendors screamed. Stalls toppled. The square exploded into panic as the blood spread wider, washing into the gutter like a warning flare.

“Move!” Corin barked, already dragging me by the sleeve.

I stumbled after him, still tasting iron at the back of my throat, still seeing the enforcer’s wide eyes as the knife slid in. My boots splashed through the crimson water, and then we were swallowed by the crush of bodies fleeing the market.

Behind us came the Guild’s horn, a deep, ugly note that made the stones hum.

We shoved through the crowd, down an alley slick with fish guts, past a shuttered apothecary, past doors slamming shut as people realized the trouble bleeding its way down their street.

The horn sounded again but closer. Boots pounded stone.

Corin ducked left, into a narrow cut between two leaning tenements. My shoulder scraped brick, the wound on my cheek screaming and my breath tearing hot and ragged.

“Faster,” Corin snapped.

“I’m bleeding,” I spat.

“You’ll bleed more if they catch us.”

The alley spat us out onto a sloping street that reeked of sewage. The cobbles here ended in a drop, where the runoff from half the district poured into the canals. The water below was black, sluggish, with clumps of refuse bobbing like drowned rats.

And waiting at the lip of the street, blades drawn, were three more red cloaks.

Corin swore under his breath.

The boots behind us grew louder. We were being squeezed in, pressed tight, the jaws of the Guild snapping shut.

One of the cloaks sneered. “Nowhere left, rats.”

Corin glanced at me with his knife in hand, his eyes searching mine for an answer. Fight or fall.

I looked at the filthy reeking water… Choked with things I didn’t want names for.

And I nodded.

“Down,” I said.

Corin didn’t argue.

We went over the edge together, plunging into the black.

The water hit like a fist, it was cold, foul and thick with rot. My mouth filled with it before I could shut my lips, the taste was so bitter I gagged as I kicked my way to the surface.

Corin surfaced beside me, slick hair plastered to his face, knife still clutched in his hand. He spat hard, eyes blazing. “Left bank!”

We swam through the sludge, hauling ourselves up onto a narrow stone walk that ran alongside the canal. My lungs burned, every breath dragging stench down my throat.

Boots hit the stones behind us, the red cloaks had followed.

I turned, dripping, knife ready. Three of them. One already bleeding from a cut Corin had opened back in the market. The others looked fresh, hungry and eager to make us pay.

The first rushed me. Blade high, sloppy with rage. I ducked, the edge singing past my ear, and drove my knife into his ribs. Felt the steel slide in, felt the air leave his chest in a wet grunt.

But I didn’t stop there.

Something surged in me. It was hot and electric. I yanked the blade free and slammed it into him again. And again. His blood sprayed warm across my hands, my face, mixing with the canal water until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

By the time he dropped, I was panting like I’d sprinted the length of the city. My hand shook, not from fear but from hunger, from wanting more.

Corin stared at me. Just for a second, but I saw it: fear. Not of them. Of me.

Another cloak lunged for him, dragging the moment away. Corin moved like smoke, knife flashing, carving across the man’s throat in one clean arc. The body hit the water with a hollow splash.

The last one, wounded, stumbled back, blood foaming at his mouth, and fled down the canal path, boots splashing in panic.

I stood there, chest heaving, knife dripping red onto stone already slick with it.

Corin’s eyes met mine. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. The look was enough.

Something in me had changed, and he could see it as clear as the blood in the gutters.

We didn’t stop running until the canal bent into a culvert, swallowing us whole.

The stone mouth yawned wide, dripping with slime. We staggered inside, boots splashing in ankle-deep water, the world above fading into muffled echoes. The stink doubled here, a choking stew of rot, piss, and smoke that clung to the back of the throat.

Corin dropped against the wall, chest heaving. His knife was still in his hand, though his grip had gone slack. His face was pale, his eyes hollow in the flickering torchlight that seeped from a grate above.

I leaned against the opposite wall, my head pounding, blood drying sticky on my face and arms. My hand still gripped the knife, though I couldn’t remember sheathing it, couldn’t remember choosing to keep it. It felt welded there.

For a long while, neither of us spoke. The only sound was water dripping from the ceiling and the far-off squeak of rats.

Finally, Corin’s voice broke the silence. It was low and flat. “You didn’t stop.”

I looked at him, throat raw. “He would’ve killed me.”

“One stab would’ve dropped him. You gave him six.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came. Because he was right.

I didn’t want to stop.

Corin’s eyes were hard, unreadable. “That wasn’t you back there.”

I turned away, staring into the dark throat of the sewer. The shadows seemed deeper here, thicker, as if something lived just beyond the edge of sight.

And then I heard it again.

Malrik.

Clearer this time. Not dream, not fever. A whisper curling through the stone, threading into my bones.

The vault. The shard. Take it.

I clenched my jaw, knuckles white around the knife. My heart hammered, not from fear but from recognition. The voice was waiting. For me.

Corin shifted, unease flickering in his eyes as he watched me. He didn’t hear it, I knew he couldn’t.

But he saw the change in me.

And I saw the dread bloom in him.