Cain dragged a hand through his hair. "Fantastic. I break the universe and kidnap a stranger."
"You didn’t break anything," she said. "You were pulled. You resisted. And now I exist where I shouldn’t."
That line hit harder than it should’ve. "Are you... alive?"
She tilted her head, considering the question like no one had ever asked her anything before. "I think so. I’m standing here. I hear you. That matches the definition."
"Do you have a na?"
"I had one in the gate," she murmured. "It doesn’t belong here. You wouldn’t be able to say it."
Cain gestured around. "Then pick one you can say."
She looked down at her bare feet, the scorched dirt around them, then up at the dim streak of sky overhead. "Call Sirin."
Cain stared at her longer than necessary. "Sirin. Fine."
He turned away, scanning the environnt. They were in the sa rusted industrial district—collapsed towers, blistered asphalt, the sll of ozone—but sothing about it felt shifted. Like the place had aged a decade in five minutes.
Sirin walked beside him without being asked, steps silent, presence sharp but not hostile. Her energy buzzed like a quiet pressure behind his ears.
"You shouldn’t be near ," Cain said, voice flat. "Everything that cos near gets dragged into sothing worse."
"You dragged out anyway," she said. "The connection is made. Avoidance won’t break it."
He stopped. "Explain that."
She raised her hand, palm outward. A faint glow shimred across her skin—pale, fracturing light, like the residue of the tear.
"The gate marked you. That mark’s woven through you now, deeper than anything you’ve carried before. It pulled because I was entangled with your fall. The thread won’t cut itself."
Cain didn’t like the sound of that. "So you’re stuck with ."
"Yes."
"Great."
A faint hum trembled through the ground. Cain stiffened imdiately. Sirin didn’t react—she watched him instead, waiting for his recognition.
He crouched, pressing his fingers to the dirt. It was vibrating. Not randomly. Rhythmically.
Bootsteps.
A lot of them.
Sirin pointed to the south. "They’re coming for you."
Cain straightened. "Who?"
"Those who follow the Watchers," she said. "Those who want what they think you touched."
Cain felt his jaw clench. The Watchers. Fallen angels dressed up as gods. Always watching for soone they could twist or claim.
"I didn’t touch anything," he muttered.
"You survived sothing ant to kill you," Sirin replied. "That’s enough."
Figures erged from between the broken structures—six at first, then a dozen. Hooded. Masked. Carrying relic-blades and sigil-burned batons that glowed faintly with angelic residue.
Cain recognized the symbol stitched into their sleeves: the wing severed at the joint. The Mark of Ghariel.
Trouble.
Cain turned to Sirin. "You fight?"
She blinked once. "Do you want them dead?"
"Prefer them gone," he said. "Alive or not is a bonus."
"I can do that."
He didn’t doubt it. He just doubted everything else.
The group stopped twenty ters away. Their leader—tall, shoulders wrapped in tarnished prayer-cloth—pulled off his mask. His eyes were glassy, fever-bright.
"Cain," he called, spreading his arms like a prophet welcoming a convert. "The angels have whispered. You survived the rift. You carry its residue. You belong to Ghariel now."
Cain snorted. "Return to sender. I’m not property."
The man smiled too widely. "It’s not ownership. It’s purpose. You’ve been chosen to—"
Cain stepped forward. "I don’t do chosen."
The man’s smile faltered.
Sirin raised her hand.
A ripple rolled through the air—silent, invisible, but dense. The nearest three cultists dropped their weapons, stumbling backward as their masks cracked without being touched. The leader’s jaw twitched.
"What is that girl?" he demanded.
Sirin didn’t answer. She looked at Cain.
"Give the word."
Cain glanced at the approaching enemies, then at her steady, unnatural gaze. He weighed the risk—and the reality that these cultists would track him no matter where he went.
"Fine," he said. "Keep them breathing. That’s all."
Sirin moved.
Not fast—just decisively. The air bent around her, pressure collapsing inward. The cultists froze mid-step, their limbs seizing as if the gravity around them had doubled. A second pulse followed, and they dropped to their knees, gasping and choking.
Cain walked forward through the field she created. It didn’t touch him. He felt the hum around his ribs—the sa hum that ca from her hands.
She was tied to him. Literally or not, the connection was real.
The leader tried to speak but couldn’t get enough air. Cain crouched in front of him.
"You track again and I’ll let her do whatever she’s actually capable of," he said. "Trust —you got the gentle version."
The man coughed, eyes bulging with a mix of panic and devotion. "Ghariel... will reclaim you..."
"Tell him to try," Cain said, standing.
Sirin released the field. The cultists collapsed, wheezing but alive.
Cain turned away. "We’re leaving."
Sirin followed without hesitation. "Where?"
"Sowhere quiet. Sowhere I can think. Because apparently I just picked up a dinsional stray and a hit squad in the sa hour."
"You picked up earlier," she corrected. "You just didn’t see it happen."
Cain shot her a look. "Helpful as always."
"I try."
He exhaled through his nose. "Let’s move."
They slipped between the ruined structures, the world dim and shifting around them. Cain’s mind spun with questions, none of which had answers yet.
But he knew one thing clearly:
Whatever the tear had done to him, whatever Sirin was, whatever the Watchers wanted—
this wasn’t the beginning of sothing.
It already started, and he’d been dropped in the middle.
And he wasn’t running from it anymore.
Cain kept moving until the skyline thinned into the skeletal outskirts of the industrial district. The deeper they went, the more the buildings sagged into half-fallen fras, like rusted ribs jutting out of the earth. Sirin stayed behind him, silent but aware of every shifting shadow. She didn’t walk so much as exist in the space between steps.
He didn’t bother asking if she was tired. She wasn’t.
User Comments
0 comments from readers