Chapter 2: Ash and Blood

By midmorning, Black Hollow’s streets had returned to their usual state of slow rot.

Merchants barked half-heartedly about spoiled goods.

Pickpockets weaved through the crowds, hands faster than the eye.

The smell of smoke and sewage clung to everything.

Kaelen moved through it like a ghost.

The torn cloak hung loosely from his shoulders, hiding the brand still throbbing against his skin.

The strange power that had exploded from him the night before now sat dormant, a heavy presence at the edge of his mind.

He needed to get out of the city.

Fast.

The hunter’s retreat wouldn't go unnoticed for long.

If word spread — if the bounty hunters or worse, the king's enforcers, learned what he could do — Black Hollow would turn into a slaughterhouse.

Not that it wasn’t halfway there already.

Kaelen kept to the narrowest alleys, the ones so tight even rats thought twice.

He moved through the Lower Wards, past crumbling statues of gods no one remembered, past rotted temples and ash-covered plazas.

He had a plan.

Sort of.

There was a smuggler’s gate — hidden beneath the old market square — where the desperate paid blood and coin for passage out of the city.

He had no coin.

But he had blood, and he wasn’t above spilling it.

---

The square was emptier than usual when he arrived.

Most stalls were abandoned, left to rot under the gray sky.

At the center stood the old fountain — dry for decades, the stone wolves chipped and moss-covered.

Kaelen approached cautiously.

A man lounged against the fountain's base — tall, lean, wrapped in a red-dusted cloak.

An eye-patch covered his left eye, and his grin was all sharp teeth.

Kaelen recognized him instantly: Ravik, the "Keeper of the Gate."

Rumors said Ravik had once been a knight.

Others said he had butchered his own lord and drunk his blood.

Either way, he controlled who slipped in and out of Black Hollow unseen.

And he didn’t work for free.

Ravik's single eye gleamed as Kaelen approached.

"Well, well," he drawled. "What’s this? A little mouse out in the open? How brave."

Kaelen stayed silent.

He pulled back his hood just enough for Ravik to see the faint outline of the brand on his collarbone.

The smile vanished from the man's face.

"You’re god-marked," Ravik muttered, voice tight with unease.

Kaelen nodded.

No point lying.

"I need passage," he said. "Tonight."

Ravik stared at him a long moment.

Then he laughed — a harsh, barking sound.

"You’ve got no coin. No friends. No leverage."

Kaelen said nothing.

The air between them grew heavy.

Ravik shifted, his hand moving toward the dagger at his belt.

"You’re worth more dead than alive, boy. Lot of people would pay good silver for a pretty little corpse like you."

Kaelen’s fingers twitched at his side.

The power stirred inside him again — a slow-burning coal.

"You can try," Kaelen said softly.

"But you won’t live long enough to spend it."

For a heartbeat, Ravik hesitated.

Then he smiled again — not mocking this time, but something sharper. Respect.

"Feisty. I like it."

He spat to the side and jerked his head toward a cracked doorway behind the fountain.

"Go through there. Follow the stairs down. Tell Grent I sent you."

Kaelen nodded once.

"But," Ravik added, voice like steel, "if you bring heat down on us — if hunters follow your trail — we’ll gut you and leave your bones for the crows."

Fair enough, Kaelen thought grimly.

He slipped through the doorway without another word.

---

The stairs spiraled deep underground, lit only by sputtering torches jammed into crumbling walls.

At the bottom waited a heavy iron gate and a man as broad as a horse — Grent, no doubt.

He eyed Kaelen suspiciously but said nothing as he opened the gate.

Beyond lay an ancient tunnel, half-collapsed, filled with the stink of mold and something worse.

Kaelen hurried through.

The tunnel twisted and writhed like a dying snake, leading away from the city’s heart toward the outer districts — the Graveyard Rows.

Black Hollow didn’t bury its dead.

It threw them outside the walls, where the soil was too cursed for anything to grow.

Kaelen emerged into gray light and immediately gagged.

The air was thick with rot and buzzing flies.

Mounds of old bones and broken bodies stretched for miles.

Welcome to freedom.

---

He didn't make it twenty steps before they found him.

Figures rose from behind a heap of corpses — cloaked and masked.

Five of them.

Their blades gleamed dully in the gloom.

Kaelen cursed under his breath.

Hunters.

Ravik must have sold him out — or someone had followed him despite everything.

The leader stepped forward, voice muffled by a steel mask.

"By decree of His Majesty, bearer of the god-mark — surrender."

Kaelen straightened slowly.

He could feel the ember inside him, crackling like lightning in his veins.

Not yet.

Not until he had no choice.

"I have nothing you want," Kaelen said.

"Walk away."

The hunters laughed — cold, humorless.

One of them lunged.

Kaelen moved.

The ember surged through him, warping the world into sharp clarity.

He ducked the sword swing, seized the man's wrist, and burned.

The hunter screamed as white fire raced along his arm, searing flesh and melting steel.

Kaelen threw him aside like a rag doll.

The others hesitated — but only for a moment.

They attacked as one.

Kaelen fought like a cornered animal, every movement instinct and desperation.

The world narrowed to flashes of steel and bursts of light.

A dagger grazed his side — pain blossomed, sharp and hot.

Another sword tore across his cloak — the fabric blackened and peeled away.

Kaelen snarled, shoving his bleeding hand into the ground.

The earth answered.

A ring of fire erupted around him, forcing the hunters back.

For a heartbeat, they hesitated — fear creeping in.

Then the leader barked a command, and they charged again.

Kaelen was ready.

He drew on the ember fully this time — no restraint, no fear.

A shockwave of burning silver light exploded outward.

The nearest hunter caught the brunt of it and disintegrated — flesh and bone reduced to ash.

The others stumbled, shielding their faces.

Kaelen pressed the advantage.

He moved like a storm — fast, merciless.

When it was over, he stood alone among smoldering corpses.

His chest heaved.

His wounds burned.

The Graveyard Rows were silent again, except for the buzzing of flies.

---

Kaelen dropped to one knee, gasping for breath.

The power had saved him — but it was wild, uncontrollable.

If he didn’t learn to master it...

It would kill him just as surely as any blade.

He rose slowly.

The road ahead stretched empty and gray, leading into the desolate hills beyond Black Hollow.

Somewhere out there, he would find answers.

He had to.

Because the king wouldn't stop.

The hunters wouldn't stop.

The world itself seemed set against him.

But Kaelen was done running.

From now on, the world would run from him.

He pulled the remnants of his cloak tighter around his shoulders and walked into the ash-blown wind, eyes set on the horizon.

---

(End of Chapter 2)